MMUI to CSSUI - what travels and what does not?

[VisHorizons]

I'm trying to anticipate trouble while taking my newly customized ReadyTheme and applying it to my live site. There are so many factors and I know I'm going to miss something.

During the switch, the following will all remain intact on my live site, yes? Products, categories (and product/category relationships, and category/subcategory relationships), orders,and customers.

Page templates will continue to exist, but will be overwritten. Does this include custom Page Templates that I created?

Will category headers/footers transfer? I have a huge amount of custom-coded category headers. These headers are filled with large amounts of html. I'm very concerned with properly moving my updated CSS-friendly headers to my live site.

What about Category Tree Image? If I update this filepath on my dev site, with this info be transferred to my live site?

Any other items I should be aware of?

Thanks so much for any help.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

You'll need to first convert your MMUI to CSSUI before adding the new framework

Category/Product Content: yes*
* if you have cat header/footer data and you are running mmui, you may run into some issues. I'd reimport header/footer data AFTER the conversion.

Any custom page templates will remain but will not be responsive.

The Category reimport should include your cat tree image references.

I'd create a Test.domain.com that is a copy of your existing site, and do some test runs.

Bottom line (for others). Converting from MMUI to responsive can be a nightmare. We generally try to avoid it. That being said, porting over live data from the old site to the new site isn't a picnic either.

[VisHorizons]

Thanks for your response.

You'll need to first convert your MMUI to CSSUI before adding the new framework
Category/Product Content: yes*
* if you have cat header/footer data and you are running mmui, you may run into some issues. I'd reimport header/footer data AFTER the conversion.

I've got a lot of html in my headers. Is this going to work with the csv export/import? I'm paranoid about this step and I don't know a lot about csv file types. Comma separated... does that mean if there's commas within my headers, the data is going to get mess up?

My method, prior to learning about the category header export/import last week, was to copy all my new CSSUI headers over to my live site one by one prior to the big move. Since my live site uses "long links" and the new dev site uses SEO short links, this would be a bit tricky, time-consuming process.

Any custom page templates will remain but will not be responsive.

If I have edited the custom Page Templates on my dev site, that will carry over, correct?

The Category reimport should include your cat tree image references.

Great!

I'd create a Test.domain.com that is a copy of your existing site, and do some test runs.

I'm currently working on my dev site. Are you suggesting making a third version of my site just to test the transition? (Because I've considered that...)

[lesliekirk]

I'm currently working on my dev site. Are you suggesting making a third version of my site just to test the transition? (Because I've considered that...)

I have used 3 sites when doing an MMUI to CSSUI conversion - dev, staging and live. I use the staging to test how the framework will behave and have it set up just before I'm ready to try and go live.

Anything you create in the dev framework will "package" up. But I have discovered that some CSS or javascript files that I create sometimes don't carry over.

Also, before applying the framework you create (and after you have run the MMUI to CSSUI conversion), apply the default framework. Then apply the framework you have created.

[Rick Wilson]

FWIW in V10 we're going to a Dev -> Staging -> Live conceptual structure (without having to have separate sites).

[lesliekirk]

FWIW in V10 we're going to a Dev -> Staging -> Live conceptual structure (without having to have separate sites).

That will be so wonderful

[AHerb]

VisHorizons, contact Miva support and ask for a cloned version of your production site.
Now we're working with a clone: Apply MMUI -> CSSUI first and see what fails. Write down all you've done to fix this.
After that try to apply your new theme, fix all custom HTML (remember, you're still having a live site to get the data from).
When you're done create a package and ask for ANOTHER clone of the real store (staging). Try to apply quickly your MMUI->CSSUI with fixes and prepared package on top of it. When you're happy, do the same on production.

My last conversion went well but was not smooth. Even though I was modifying a clone of the production, it did not want to accept a package due to some modules conflict.

As a conclusion, it's not a hard task in general, but when you know what you're doing. A lot of things may go wrong and sometimes it's better to hire someone for such a global change.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Also, practice, practice, practice. On a particular complicated site (which was MMUI originally, actually 4.0 OUI originally) I believe we did 5 practice runs and still had a few issues on the final. :)

[VisHorizons]

Thanks for everyone's suggestions. It's all been very helpful. I ran my first test this week and a problem emerged. I'm wondering is anyone would be willing to offer their thoughts.

On my staging site, when I go to User Interface> Frameworks> and try to apply my framework, I got this error:

Failed to apply framework: Failed to copy /%STORE_BASEHREF%/graphics/categoryimages/Filing/presentation_folders/LX_school_stock_spanish-175px.gif to /mm5/graphics/categoryimages/Filing/presentation_folders/LX_school_stock_spanish-175px.gif

Miva support says the file path is too long. (The limit it 51 characters, maybe?)

On that "Apply Framework" screen, there is a list of 1,700 "other resources." I put this list in Excel and discovered that about 1,600 are over the character limit. From what I can see, most of these "other resources" are culled from within my custom HTML category headers/footers. Some very few of these resources are from Pages, some are from Category Tree Image fields.

The brute option:

1. Save the framework from my dev site and download it.
2. Upload it to my staging site and apply it.
3. It returns an error for one file path.
4. Find the file on my dev site and move it/rename it so the path is shorter
5. Find where that file is referenced in the dev admin and change the path there.
6. Re-save the framework, download, upload to staging site, apply, and get the next error message, repeat over and over, 1,600 times.

OR! It occurred to me this morning:

1. From my dev site, do a CSV export of the categories, including category header/footer and category tree image.
2. Run through my dev site and delete all content inside my category headers/footers and category tree image fields.
3. Run the framework transfer. Since the troublesome fields are empty, most of the "other resources" should be eliminated. (All of these images and such are already on my live site using the same file path as the dev site.)
4. Correct any lingering file path errors and finish off the framework transfer
5. Import the CSV to my staging site.

Would that work?

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

We just pay miva do to this :)