Hi, I’m a complete newb to ClassicPress but been using WordPress for about a decade. Gutenberg has me worried older legacy client sites will break, and now that I’m working a FT job I don’t have time to master Gutenberg and try to trouble-shoot it with all the plugins I’ve used over the years and all the client sites I’ve accumulated and I’m worried about WP discontinuing the Classic Editor at some point or forcing out a 5.0 update.
I’ve never staged demo sites on other servers before and always just installed WP and then got to work creating sites, researching SEO, writing content, doing the design and working with clients.
Is it possible to install ClassicPress on a database as I would WP or a way to do it using FTP so I could test it on a demo site?
Also, if I get a broken client site when Gutenberg comes out is there any way to install ClassicPress into that somehow?
I know these are kind of silly questions and I’m embarrassed to be a newbie here after so much time working with WP and on the client-end of things but I really like the potential alternative and want to learn as much as possible as quickly as possible so I know how to handle issues that are sure to arise.
There are a couple of ways you can install ClassicPress. You can install it using FTP and going through the activate process as you normally would with Wordpress. If you are more comfortable installing WP you can always install the migration plugin and migrate the site to ClassicPress. For other ways to install ClassicPress I recommend checking out our docs site: Installing ClassicPress | ClassicPress Documentation
The migration plugin is your best bet here, although right now we only support 4.9.x for migration.
No need to be embarrassed, we are all here to help and there are no silly questions as others may be wondering the same thing
Please, if it’s okay to ask some follow-up questions on what you touched on:
If I have a current demo site running WP 4.9, I install the migration plugin, I will see instructions once I just install it on what to do next or does it automatically install ClassicPress from there and then I can install WordFence and go to town or is it more deep than that?
Also, has this been tested yet with the Divi theme? I got so used to using WP and Divi to create client sites that I just figured I could be able to do that for at least several years until I could get time to study Drupal so what you guys are doing is fantastic.
Yup, as simple as that Once installed the plugin will confirm that it is able to upgrade to ClassicPress, if it can then there will be a button which automates the whole process. The migration plugin will also update you to the beta.
If it worked with WP 4.9 then it should work with ClassicPress, I can’t say for certain if someone has tested it as we are only tracking what plugins are conflicting with ClassicPress. That being said I do know Elementor works on ClassicPress.
Thank you for the updated comments. I’m going to run some errands and try what you detailed in a little bit and take ClassicPress for a test run on one of my demo sites. Thanks for getting started and having this available for guys like me who love web design and digital marketing but also wear multiple hats and are just trying to pay their bills using WP.
Testing it out on a demo site running Divi and so far it looks fine! Wow! Now I can build sites and not worry about Gutenberg gutting everything. Not sure how the whole WP plugin system will work or not work in the future, but for now it seems to work just great. I’ll report any bugs. I’m going to create a live site for my local meetup group and set it up with WordFence and a few other plugins and let you guys know if I see any bugs. Thanks again.
Thank you so much. It’s Thanksgiving weekend and there’s alot of activity but Gutenberg is coming out soon so I definitely will use ClassicPress on a new site and see how it goes.
Over time I could see plugin developers playing catch up with Gutenberg so many plugins slowly leaving what might work with ClassicPress - so it might be good to have a separate “forked” WP/ClassicPress plugin repository if you haven’t already considered that, having WordPress/ClassicPress meetups and ads on FB groups and so on. My programming is still at the HTML/basic CSS level so the only real way I could contribute would be through use and just offering input.
I do have one final question (for now) if that is okay?
If I have a current live site that is filled with content and lots of images, would installing ClassicPress overwrite that? I know I would be essentially swapping out one CMS for another so not sure what would do to tables and formatting or if it would even be a factor? All my sites are at WP 4.8 or 4.9 and all run Divi and PHP 7. I’d love to be able to take my main business sites and just swap them out for ClassicPress but not sure 100% if that might break anything? They’re all backed up via UpdraftPlus.
ClassicPress does not touch the database where your content resides. The migration to ClassicPress also does not touch any of the themes or plugins that are already installed and last, but certainly not least, it does not touch anything in the uploads folder (where all your images are located) either.
The “only” files that are swapped out during a migration are all files in the root of the install (minus wp-config.php and .htaccess files and anything else that might be there not belonging to a default WP install) and the entire wp-admin and wp-includes folders.
Hope that helps understanding a bit better what the migration to ClassicPress does.
Thanks for your input. I have 2 sites now running ClassicPress with Divi and they seem fine along with the list of plugins they are using. If you’d like me to list them so others can check 'em out, just let me know.
I checked the HTACCESS files for both sites and the changes I originally made to those files so that website visitors cannot access the wp-contents folders is still present - so updating to ClassicPress didn’t change that or over-write it as I’d thought might happen.
