First off, there are many methods on how to do this, but the one I will walk you through is how I do it and it works for me, so here goes.

The first thing you will want to do is log into your existing server via FTP and locate your WordPress installation. There you will locate the “wp-content” directory and back it up to your local machine (PC/Mac, whatever)…just download it to your machine so that you have it for later.

After you have done that, then you will want to log into your SQL database. You can do this through your hosting control panel (CPanel, etc). Once in your database, you will want to export it. Locate the “Export” button for your database…it should look like this: (note: your database might not look exactly like this as I have other tables in place)

After you click “Export” you will see a screen that looks similar to this:

Make sure to “Select All” and that you have “SQL” selected as the export type. Then to the right, you want to check the boxes that say “Add Drop Table” and “Add If Not Exists”. What that does is make it so that if the tables already exist on your new server, it will overwrite them when you import your existing database there. We actually won’t do that with this demonstration, but it’s always a good idea to do so, just in case. After that, you will check the box toward the bottom that says “Save as File” and then click the “Go” button in bottom right. This will produce a download and you need to save that to your machine as well.

So at this point, we have our “wp-content” folder and the database backed up. That is everything you need from your existing site.

Next, you will go to your new server and set up a completely new WordPress installation. Once you have done that, log into the new site via FTP and locate the WordPress installation and find the “wp-content” directory for the new installation. You can do a copy/replace here, but what I always do, just to be safe is to delete that directory completely and then upload the one that you backed up earlier. So to recap here…delete the “wp-content” directory on new installation. Then upload the “wp-content” directory that you backed up earlier into the new WordPress installation.

Once you have done that, then you will want to log into the database for the new WordPress installation. When you get there you will want to check ALL of the existing tables and then choose to “Drop” them (there should be 10 tables on a default installation). That screen should look something like this:

After selecting “Drop” you will be prompted with a screen that looks like this:

You will select “Yes” to this action and all of the database tables will be deleted.

Next, you will want to import your database that you backed up earlier. So you will find the “Import” button up top:

After doing that, you will be prompted to “Browse” and find the SQL file you want to import. So click “Browse” and find the SQL file that you saved from your old site earlier. Click “Go” and that will import your database.

After the database has been imported, you will see all of the tables that were on your old site in the left column. What we want to do now is tell the database where your new site is located (the URL), otherwise the site will not work. So in the left column, you will want to click on “wp_options”.

After clicking on “wp_options” you will see the fields associated with that table. You will want to click on “Browse” in the top menu bar.

After clicking “Browse” in the top menu area, you will then see all of the keys that are associated. The first one is called “siteurl”. You will want to edit that key to enter your new URL. So you should see a pencil icon to the left like this:

Click the pencil icon to edit that key and it is there that you will put in the new URL for your new site. After you have done that, click “Go” at the bottom of the screen to save that action.

That will tell the database that your site has a new URL from what it did when you backed it up. Once back on the screen for “wp_options” if you will go to Page 2, you will see another key for “home”. Do the same thing for it. Edit it and replace the URL there as well with the URL for your new site. Click “Go” to save it.

Last but not least, you will want to look for the “upload path” field in the “wp_options” table as well. It’s usually on Page 2, but will look like this:

Click the pencil icon to edit, and make sure that the value in there is set to “wp-content/uploads”. Sometimes after the move, this will have a string of data pointing back to your old server and this can mess up all kinds of things like media uploads, plugins, etc. So you should have it set to look like this:

After you do that, click “Go” in bottom right to save your changes and you’re all done!

You can now navigate to your new site’s admin area, login and make sure that the correct theme is selected and all plugins are active.

After that, you’re ready to go….your WordPress installation has been moved to a new server and you don’t have to jump off of a bridge, because it wasn’t that hard at all!

So, until next time…

Tip #1: You want to change the “add to cart” button that appears on your shopping cart.

Well, first you’ll want to make sure that you choose “iShop” for your theme in “Shop Settings”. That will place an actual button on your cart. Then to change that image, you will navigate to “wp-content/plugins/wp-shopping-cart/themes/iShop/images”. In that directory you will see a “buy_button.gif” and you will replace that with whatever “add to cart” button you’d like. Step 2 of this process is to adjust the stylesheet so that it will reflect the correct image size of the new image you’ve uploaded (unless of course, the new image is the same size as the old; then you can stop here).
Locate “iShop.css” and find the following code:

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input.wpsc_buy_button{
background-image: url(images/buy_button.gif);
border: none;
width: 80px;
height: 30px;
}

You will then change the width and height to reflect the size of your new image. Save and upload and you’re all done.

Tip #2: Change wording in your shopping cart.

Most all of the “text” on the site that involves the shopping cart can be found in the language file here:
“wp-content/plugins/wp-shopping-cart/languages/EN_en.php”. In that file you will find everything from “Visit the Shop” to “PnP” (which most like to change to “Shipping”) to the sentence that reads on the checkout page about “having your credit card handy”. You can change these phrases to whatever you’d like, but just remember that when editing this text that you leave the quotes in place, otherwise your site will break!
So here’s an example…I want to remove the words “Visit the Shop” from my sidebar shopping cart. So I locate the line in the language file (it’s on line 174):

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define('TXT_WPSC_VISITTHESHOP', 'Visit the Shop');

I would then change it to this:

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define('TXT_WPSC_VISITTHESHOP', '');

And you notice that I left in the quotes, but removed the text. That’s it for changing or removing text.

Tip #3: The Google Checkout button.

If you’re using Google Checkout, you’ll notice that on the checkout page there are 2 Google Checkout buttons. One above the customer information fields and one below. The one that is placed at the top doesn’t really function as it needs the information below it to be filled out first, so the best thing to do is just remove that image and leave the one at the bottom.
So to do this, you will navigate to “wp-content/plugins/wp-shopping-cart/shopping_cart.php” and on line 341 you will see this code:

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echo $google_cart->CheckoutButtonCode($google_button_size);

You will just comment that line out so that it looks like this:

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//echo $google_cart->CheckoutButtonCode($google_button_size);

Save and upload and that should remove that top Google Checkout button.

Tip #4: Make your “checkout” link bigger and move it.

So on the sidebar cart, some people have requested to have the “Go to Checkout” link bigger and placed above the “Empty Your Cart” link. Here’s how we accomplish that:

First we’ll make the text bigger, so you will navigate to “wp-content/plugins/wp-shopping-cart/languages/EN_en.php” and on line 171 you will see the following:

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define('TXT_WPSC_GOTOCHECKOUT', 'Go to Checkout');

You will edit that line to look like this:

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define('TXT_WPSC_GOTOCHECKOUT', '<font size="3">Go to Checkout</font>');

You can obviously change the “3″ to whatever size you would like to fit your site. Then you will want to place it above the “Empty Your Cart” link, and we’ll do that by navigating to “wp-content/plugins/wp-shopping-cart/shopping_cart_functions.php” and on line 337 you will see this:

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$output .= <ahref='".get_option('product_list_url').$seperator."category=
# ".$_GET['category']."&amp;cart=empty' onclick='emptycart();return false;'>".TXT_WPSC_EMPTYYOURCART."</a><br />";
# $output .= "<a href='".get_option('shopping_cart_url')."'?phpMyAdmin=7FErtFP1sUzlru8bAWwYQNZEag7>".TXT_WPSC_GOTOCHECKOUT."
</a><br />";

And all you will do is take the bottom line that calls to show the “Go To Checkout” link and move it above the “Empty Your Cart” link, so it will then look like this:

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$output .= "<a href='".get_option('shopping_cart_url')."'?phpMyAdmin=7FErtFP1sUzlru8bAWwYQNZEag7>".TXT_WPSC_GOTOCHECKOUT."
# </a><br />";$output .= "<a href='".get_option('product_list_url').$seperator."category=?phpMyAdmin=7FErtFP1sUzlru8bAWwYQNZEag7
# ".$_GET['category']."&amp;cart=empty' onclick='emptycart();return false;'>".TXT_WPSC_EMPTYYOURCART."</a><br />";

And that’s it for that.

Tip #5: Modifying your sidebar cart and notification look and feel.

So if you have your cart in your sidebar, you’ll notice that it’s pretty plain looking. There is an easy fix for that and the possibilities are up to you as far as how much you want to style it. First you’ll navigate to your theme’s css file. In that you’ll find the following code:

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div#sliding_cart{
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
background: none;
border: none;
}

You’ll notice it’s very simple and plain right now, but there are many things you can do to change it. Below I will list an example of how you can change it to have a border around the cart, a background color and a larger font.

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div#sliding_cart{
margin-left: 0px;
padding: 0px;
color:#000000;
background: url('http://www.yoursite.com/image.jpg');
border: 1px solid #000000;
font-size: 12px;
}

Again, there is a lot more you can do if you would like and know enough about CSS, but this is a simple example.

Next, if you have the “Fancy Notification” enabled, this will show you how to style it. In the same CSS file you will find this:

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#fancy_notification{
position: absolute;
top: 0px;
left: 0px;
background: #ffffff;
border: 4px solid #cccccc;
display: none;
height: auto;
z-index: 9;
}

This has all the elements in place that most people want, but feel free to change the border color/width and background color. You can even load in a background image if you’d like by editing the code to look like this:

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#fancy_notification{
position: absolute;
top: 0px;
left: 0px;
background: #ffffff url('http://www.yoursite.com/image.jpg');
border: 4px solid #cccccc;
display: none;
height: auto;
z-index: 9;
}

You’ll notice that I just gave a direct path to the background image, and it will show up in your notification box.

There are SO many other things you can do to style your cart, but these are a few good examples. If you have any questions about these or other styling issues, feel free to contact me over here.

So, until next time…

There are 2 ways to solve this that I know of now.

Fix #1: The theme that I was using did not have an “archive.php” or an “archives.php” file in it. By adding those files, that fixed the issue of the category listing. So now when I click on a category title I see only posts in that category.

Fix #2: This is probably the most common fix I would assume and it resolved my issue outside of the category listings. If you’re using a static homepage in Wordpress, you need to assign a “posts” page as well. In the Wordpress control panel under “Settings” (in WP 2.5) or “Options” in earlier WP releases, you’ll see the tab for “Reading”…there you have the option to set a static homepage. If you’ve selected the homepage, you have to also select the “Posts Page”…if that is left empty, you’ll experience the “Page Dump”.

I hope this resolves any issues for any of you out there experiencing this problem, as it was very frustrating to try and diagnose.

Until next time…

Here’s the back story….For those of you that don’t know, Instinct has a plugin for Wordpress known as WP-Ecommerce. It allows you to add a shopping cart to your Wordpress blog. It integrates with Paypal, Google Checkout, Authorize.net, Bluepay and others. There are modules that can be added on to the plugin like:

• Gold Cart (allows for mulitiple image uploads, and adds more payment gateways)

• Grid View (allows you to place your products on the page in a “grid” type fashion)

• Dropshop (this places a static shopping cart at the bottom of your screen and allows you to drag & drop items into your shopping cart)

• Members Only (this allows you to create a “members only” area of your site that is password protected)

• MP3 Module (this allows for a 30 second clip of audio files to be previewed on your products page)

With that being said…it’s a really good plugin and I love it! Don’t get me wrong, there are bugs that go along with all the cool features. Depending on what type of server you run and the way it’s configured, there can be issues. But not to worry, there is a support forum for the plugin and as if that’s not enough, I offer support here as well. You can find that over here.

There are so many modifications that can be made to tailor it to your own site….and in the coming days and months I’ll start to highlight the modifications that I’ve come up with, with step-by-step instructions and screenshots included.