Design & Develop New Theme while site is live

[Noracuts]

I have a website that currently gets 1000+ hits everyday.

It is currently running Prestashop 1.5.1 and has a custom theme.

 

I now have to upgrade to 1.5.4 and develop a new theme but i cannot put my site in maintenance mode.

Is there a way for me to design the theme, including new modules, without my customers seeing it?

 

Basically, can i have access to the new theme and set it up while, my customers see the current (old) theme.

 

I cannot start with a new database because i need my customers to be able to see their old orders and use their old login information.

 

please help me.

 

thanks

[Dh42]

It is a bit of a complicated process, but it is done all of the time. Basically you would make a clone of your site and work off of that version. Then when you get everything right you would copy the theme files over and copy the affect database tables over to the live site.

[Noracuts]

It is a bit of a complicated process, but it is done all of the time. Basically you would make a clone of your site and work off of that version. Then when you get everything right you would copy the theme files over and copy the affect database tables over to the live site.

 

Thank you for your quick response.

 

I figured it was something like that but when i copy the new db to the old db, won't i lose all of my customer's information and orders that were placed while i was developing the theme?

 

is there a link or thread that can explain the process in detail?

[Dh42]

See what you do is copy only the changed database tables, you don't copy the ones that contain the order information or customer info. I have done it several times, but I don't know of any guide online on how to do it, maybe someone else does.

[Noracuts]

See what you do is copy only the changed database tables, you don't copy the ones that contain the order information or customer info. I have done it several times, but I don't know of any guide online on how to do it, maybe someone else does.

 

Thanks again.

 

How will i know which tables i've made changes to?

Can you list the tables which hold the information for themes and modules in particular?

 

not sure what else would be changed.

 

but i'm definitely going to need to know more about what happens to the db when i make changes in prestashop

[Dh42]

Off of the top of my head I can't. More than likely it will be easier to copy them all except for the ps_customers ones ps_orders ps_addresses and things like that. Do s trial run first.