Updating Client Sites to WordPress 3.6

I am a freelance website designer/developer, and a WordPress developer and end user. While I have not written any plugins or designed any themes from the ground up, I have modified and tweaked some to my liking. I feel fairly comfortable and confident editing the code in the WordPress functions.php, template files, and plugin files to make them behave the way I’d like.

Most of the sites I work on are for small businesses and local organizations. Not only do I create the initial design and build the website, I also do the routine maintenance and updating. The websites are typically built with child themes based on the WP 2010 or 2012 themes, and I am eager to explore 2013. (I totally missed 2011 — by the time I got a good handle on child themes using 2010, 2012 was out!) My clients mostly want to “set it and forget it,” so when a major update to WordPress is rolled out, my goal is as little downtime and as smooth (transparent) a transition as possible.

I’m happy to report that it went so smoothly, most clients probably had no idea there was any change, except for the note I sent to each telling them I had made the updates and asking them to inform me if they noticed any glitches, hiccups or wonks that I may have missed in my testing. So far, there have been no reports of anything broken or not working.

My process for implementing the update is pretty standard:

1. BACK UP! I use iThemes BackUpBuddy for regular backups of the database and full site (on most sites).  I will use Backup to DropBox or BackWPUp on occasion. I check the status, and if there is not a current full site backup (within the week), I run a manual backup.
2. Update all plugins (except for NextGEN 2.0, but that’s another post), then deactivate all plugins.
3. Run the update to 3.6.
4. Reactivate plugins and test to see that each is functioning properly and as expected.

With my own site, I reactivated plugins one at a time. Since I use a similar set of plugins on most sites, once I was confident the “core set” worked without problems, I could reactivate several at once on client sites and just go more slowly with the plugins unique to each.

I updated several sites on August 2 and have had zero issues reported to date, either from my end or from the client end. Plugins used on the updated sites include:

• Akismet
• All in One SEO
• Backup Buddy *
• Bad Behavior
• Carousel *
• Limit Login Attempts
• NextGEN
• Shareaholic
• Simple Google Analytics
• Tailored Login *
• WordPress Backup to Dropbox
• Wp-jquery-lightbox

* iThemes Developer Bundle plugin

My testbed site is a Multisite install, and that upgrade to 3.6 went smoothly as well. I have not yet taken the plunge to upgrade the client site(s) I have on a Multisite, though it’s likely I will be doing that soon if I hear nothing from my own clients or from others about issues. Then again, that might be one site I put off upgrading until 3.6.1 is out.

Overall, the transition to 3.6 was as simple as any other update. The changes will benefit me, primarily, as I work in the admin area and with the new 2013 theme. The two new features I see myself using the most are the improved version control and media embedding.

The version control interface is pretty slick, easy to use and understand. I can see this quickly becoming indispensable! Media embedding promises to make adding video and audio enhancements as easy as writing a post and adding a URL—no plugins needed! It’s incredibly simple and effective.

I look forward to building my first child theme using 2013, and working with 3.6 in depth in the days and weeks ahead.