Migrating from Levels to Colossus?

[koala]

We're debating migrating our store from Levels to Colossus. We switched to Levels from our old 5.5 store way back in 2016, and with Levels being quite a bit older, especially our implementation of it, I'm feeling it might be best to just have a fresh start.

If we're to make this switch, what might be the best plan of attack? I'm thinking of asking Miva to make a copy of our live site on a development subdomain, install the new theme, and then see what works once the new theme is made active, and see what is broken.

Our store isn't terribly custom - we replaced the built-in image machine with "The Gallery" from Scot's Scripts as the built-in image function of Levels was always lacking for us. This might be the only module we have that could complicate things.

I probably should also retire the old Toolkit and it's "render" function, lol.

[Matt Zimmermann]

Hi Dylan,

Starting in a development environment would be the best solution. If you have upgraded to Miva 10, you could create a development branch and install Colossus there to do all your testing.

[koala]

Hi Matt,

We did move to Miva 10. I now see the development branch option in there. That is intriguing! Does this potentially remove the need for a development copy?

[Matt Zimmermann]

Hi Dylan,

Yes, it's kind of like having your own development server built in.

[lesliekirk]

We did move to Miva 10. I now see the development branch option in there. That is intriguing! Does this potentially remove the need for a development copy?

Oh yes! And it is oh so cool!!!

[koala]

So is there a write-up or tutorial on using this awesome new feature? It would be amazing to essentially run two different themes on the same live store, and then not have the complications of trying to synchronize orders/customer info once ready to flip the switch.

I may be totally ignorant of how I envision this process, but I'm assuming going from one ReadyTheme to another shouldn't really pose any big risks if the elements are interchangeable?

[Matt Zimmermann]

https://docs.miva.com/template-branc...nches-overview

[Nick]

So is there a write-up or tutorial on using this awesome new feature? It would be amazing to essentially run two different themes on the same live store, and then not have the complications of trying to synchronize orders/customer info once ready to flip the switch.

I may be totally ignorant of how I envision this process, but I'm assuming going from one ReadyTheme to another shouldn't really pose any big risks if the elements are interchangeable?

Aside from docs.miva.com we will also be releasing a new MivaLearn Learning Path explaining all the new Template Branch and Command Line Interface tools included in Miva 10. If you have not signed up for MivaLearn already you can do that here: https://miva.com/mivalearn . Once signed up you will receive an email when the Learning Path is available.

[koala]

Thanks Matt and Nick! Look forward to learning more about this feature.