Customized Gutenberg theme from staging to live?

  • I tried to google about this, but nothing even on the right topic came up.

    I have a localhost where I have a test copy of my site. I updated everything to wordpress 6.1. On the localhost site I installed a block theme (that supports Gutenberg, similar to the 2023 theme), and I customized it. I added my brand colors, I moved blocks; I set up everything on the localhost.

    My questions is: How do I move/copy all these customizations to the live site?

    That is without taking my live site offline & manually redoing literally everything. The live site is a self-hosted wp.org site; it is currently using an older theme that doesn’t support the gutenberg blocks thing. I have full access to ftp for this wordpress install, and to the phpmyadmin dashboard for it too.

    I can get the theme (the theme’s files) to the live site, but how do I move all the customizations that the theme & 6.1 make possible? I don’t want the theme out of the box, I want it all set up with my colors, my logo, my images, my menus, my content, my navigation bars, all of my blocks. I want to directly deploy the theme all setup as my site (and not the way the theme comes by default).

    The localhost site is a test site, and is not a 1:1 mirror of the live site. So just copying the entire site (the entire database & all files) is not an option.

    I’m not interested in any methods that requires paying for a plugin. I am looking for either something in wordpress’s core, something I can do in phpmyadmin &/or with ftp, or by using free plugins. I’m useless with command line, so anything that requires that won’t help me (I can do basic SQL & php, plus I’m good with html & css).

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

  • Hi @jacquilyndesigns

    There are several ways to move the customizations you’ve made on your localhost site to your live site, depending on what you’ve customized. One option is to use the WordPress export/import feature to transfer your content, including posts, pages, custom post types, widgets, and navigation menus. This can be done through the built-in export/import functionality in the Tools section of the WordPress admin panel. However, this will not transfer over the theme customizations you made.

    Alternatively, you can use a plugin such as Duplicator or All-in-One WP Migration (free ones) to create a package of your localhost site and install it on your live site. This will transfer all the theme customizations and settings you made on the localhost site to the live site and your content, widgets, navigation menus, and theme settings.

    You can also use FTP to transfer your theme’s files to the live site. Then, use the Theme Customization API to export your theme settings. This way, you can import your custom settings to the new theme on the live site.

    If you’re comfortable working with SQL and PHP, you can also update your live site’s database to match your localhost site’s database. You can use phpMyAdmin to export the database of your localhost site, then import it to your live site’s database, replacing all data.

    It’s important to remember that transferring a live site can have risks, so it’s always a good idea to have a backup of your website before making any changes. Additionally, it’s best to test this process in a staging environment before implementing it on the live site.

    If you have any further questions or doubts, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

    @faisalahammad: I know you’re only trying to help. Unfortunately none of the options you’re suggesting addresses @jacquilyndesigns’s specific question.

    Hi @gappiah,
    Don’t you think AIO WP Migration could help her to migrate her site from localhost to the live server? Alternatively, she could manually migrate her website via FTP and import the database from PHPMyAdmin. If neither of these methods works, I’m also interested in learning which will work for her.

    I look forward to hearing back from you. Thank you!

    @faisalahammad: If I understand OP correctly, the content (ie actual posts and what not) on the localhost site is totally different from the content on the live site. And OP wants to keep the content on the live site… and doesn’t want to transfer the content on the localhost at all.

    And if I understand the question correctly, the ONLY thing of interest to be migrated is the customized FSE theme.

    So the traditional WordPress EXPORT/IMPORT under TOOLS will not work here. And migrating the entire database is not an option, so no backup plugin will work here either.

    Luckily, there’s a simple process!

    You can export a zipped archive of the entire customized FSE theme from the Site Editor options panel, and upload it to the live site.

    To do so, go to APPEARANCE => EDITOR (Beta).

    Then click the OPTIONS icon (3 vertical dots at the upper-right corner of the Editor shown below).

    In the options panel that opens, you should see TOOLS and under that EXPORT, with a button (downwards arrow) you can click download a zipped archived of the entire customized theme.

    You can then upload the downloaded theme to any WordPress site the same way you upload any custom theme (APPEARANCE => THEMES => ADD THEME => UPLOAD).

    Thread Starter jacquilyndesigns

    (@jacquilyndesigns)

    @gappiah You are correct, thank you. I’ll give the process you described a test when I’m back on my windows machine (it has my localhost on it).

    @faisalahammad I do appreciate the desire to help, but George is correct. None of those suggestions or plugins will do what I’m trying to do. The methods you are describing are for copying over content (pages, posts, widgets, menus) and I specifically do not want to copy over any content. I do not want the databases to match. I’m also not trying to copy over the block theme in its default “out-of-the-box” state (via copying the files in FTP), I need to copy all the tweaks and changes I made to the block theme using the gutenberg blocks interface. Thank you for trying to help, but I’m going to try George’s suggestion and report back on that when I get the chance.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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