new wordpress design over an existing complicated one?????

Question

Hey folks, I got a project from a firm program out a Wordpress design. 80% into it I learn that the client already have an existing one, a robust one, with subsrciptions, blogs, forums, newsletter mailers and so on. Turns out there is a discrepancy bettweent design and old wp structure which I will work on resolving.

I have been developing in on my own server for the time being.

At this point I am not clear on what the strategy should be.

1.) Export out the current wp site out to a different server, duplicate it and then reskin/rework the frame work.

2.) The firms hope was that I would be able to go in and add a new theme, but am not convinced that doing this live will be a good idea since I am using a different theme so all the hooks will be different then the current one.

3.) There is already a large amount of users etc that have signed up to the existing newletter, forum etc. Not sure how to carry this forward?

Any insights are greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Definitely make a copy of the existing environment. Check it into a version control system (if it's not already the case) and work on that.

Try to put all your work into a new theme: That will make installing the changes on the production server super-easy.

Be careful about any notifications and pings that your development copy may send to the outside world. Be especially careful about the newsletter.