Using WP Stagecoach to develop a new theme
The website for my theme development business has gotten pretty stale, so I decided it was time to give it a facelift. I asked a graphic designer, Seth Vincent, to come up with a new design for me. Once I had the design files, I was ready to develop a new theme.
If I hadn’t had WP Stagecoach, there are a few ways I could have done this. The new design was pretty simple, so it only took a few days to create the new theme. The site doesn’t get much traffic, so I could have just put it in maintenance mode for a few days. Or I could have used a plugin that lets the logged-in administrator see a different theme than non-logged in users, but the problem with that is that I needed to make a bunch of changes to content and menus for the new theme, so the site still would have been a bit awkward. Or I could have created a copy of the site, but even using tools like Backup Buddy, that would take a while to set up, and then copying the changes back would be time-consuming too.
Luckily, I was able to use WP Stagecoach. I created a staging copy of the site with just one click. Then I developed the new theme on the staging site. I installed some plugins, deleted some others, created some pages, changed navigation menus, changed the content on several pages, and, of course, developed a new theme.
When I was done with all of that work, I went back to my live site and imported all of the changes from the staging site. All of those changes – plugins, pages, navigation menus, theme files – were merged onto my live site, and now my site has a refreshing new look. I didn’t have to compromise the live site while I was developing, and I could take my time developing on the staging site to make sure I got everything just right.
