Documentation: Sub-theme upgrade 1.x -> 2.x

Here's how I upgraded to Zen 6.x-2.0:

1. Put site into maintenance mode
2. Follow directions in README files in each folder
3. Download new Zen
4. Back up old MYTHEME (into a folder called MYTHEME_deprecated)
5. Replace all instances of STARTERKIT in STARTERKIT.info.txt with MYTHEME (this is in the documentation). Follow all further documented steps (Rename STARTERKIT folder to MYTHEME; Rename STARTERKIT.info.txt as MYTHEME.info; Copy new MYTHEME folder to your themes directory; etc)
6. Copy styles from MYTHEME.css (deprecated -- this is the default stylesheet from your old subtheme) into their dedicated style {} in the new STARTERKIT folders (css/blocks.css, css/pages.css, css/layout-liquid.css, etc).
7. Copy reset styles from old file html-elements.css to new file css/html-reset.css
8. Zen 6.x-2.0 is very well organized and easy to customize, but some divs and regions are named differently now. Copy and paste the following old styles from MYTHEME.css(deprecated) (or wherever you had them declared in your 6.x-1.x subtheme) under their new style names in css/pages.css and css/regions.css.
   • (Old) sidebar-left = (New) sidebar-first;
   • sidebar-right = sidebar-second
   • .inner = .section .
9. Navigation: Put old navbar { styles into new Navigation { styles. Do the same for #skip-to-nav styles (this becomes #skip-link)
10. Move your old images/ folder into the css/ folder (creating the folder css/images/) OR change all your image paths in all stylesheets to match the change in CSS folder hierarchy. Otherwise, your image links from the old theme will be broken.
11. Delete layout-fixed.css and layout-fixed-RTL.css as specified in documentation (I'm using a liquid layout. Delete the -liquid files if you're using a fixed layout). I'm repeating the documentation here, because I tried to leave in the unused layout files and might have had some problems from the redundancy.
12. Override in MYTHEME.info: defaults.css and system-menus.css (Optional. Refer to documentation in MYTHEME.info file if you want to do this).
13. Copy template files from Zen/templates to MYTHEME/templates (also possibly optional)
14. Enable the new sub-theme in MYSITE.com/admin/build/themes
15. Re-enable blocks in the new regions at MYSITE.com/admin/build/block. The sidebar blocks were reset when sidebar-left and sidebar-right became sidebar-first and sidebar-second.
16. Flush cache; run database update (is DB update necessary?); rebuild theme registry.

This is just a start. My upgrade worked, but it took a while to track down the image folder problem, and I had some problems uploading and moving files around.

Does anyone have notes to add to this, or can you point out omissions in the upgrade process?

Thanks for a great theme!

Amy

Sub.

Thanx a lot!
Sub.

Is it possible to install both Zen 1.x and Zen 2.x simultaneously and switch between them?

JimNastic, check out a solution: http://drupal.org/node/835554#comment-3233632

Thanks akalata!
I will try it

Very good post, remedios. I was trying to update Zen while using my old sub-theme and my test site fell apart. My process took a bit longer because I was using complicated CCK templates, but your instructions really guided the way and shone light on some pitfalls I didn't see.

Thanks,
-Marcus

Is there any reason why I should upgrade from Zen 1.1 to Zen 2.0?

It seems like a lot of work to upgrade 4 or 5 sites and the result is nothing more than I'm running a newer version of Zen Base Theme.

Will Zen 1.1 be discontinued at some point?

I've never upgraded Zen base theme on any of my sites and they are all working just fine.

Not in particular... someday it will be unsupported. But I'm running 2-3 sites on 1.x, 3-4 on 2.x, and it's really not worth the hassle, unless you want to use a couple of the new features... and even then, you can grab snippets from 2.x for your use on a 1.x theme.

I found that rebuilding my themes using some of the old CSS wasn't such a big hassle after all. sure, it IS a drag... but it also led me to replace some custom code I had inserted into template.php with modules: http://drupal.org/project/custom_search to theme the search box and http://drupal.org/project/submitted_by for fancy dates.

I revised my layouts, too, and gave up on some elements that simply didn't belong ;)

so in a nutshell it worked for me. my rationale is that D7 is still a bit too far and I can keep my D6 sites updated for the time being. some of my sites come from partnerships so for my clients it's added value (but then again I'm running less than 10 different ones, and most of them were fairly straightforward). AND new websites on my portfolio will be up to date \o/

so anyway I suggest one could round up all the websites produced and think about this approach. it's got its pros and cons.

Subscribing

subscribing

remedios++ You rock, Amy!

I've added this to the online docs at http://drupal.org/node/1070182

I added a section about if/why you would want to upgrade. Please add more reasons if you think of them.

Also, I've added Amy's docs verbatim. They need to be flushed out slightly reformatted, but they are a great starting point. Anyone is more than welcome to help out.

I have added the process I used and documented the upgrade - http://www.coolestguyplanettech.com/downtown/upgrading-zen-theme-and-sub...

The "needs review" status was from summer '11 so changing that, as the docs copy has the same note, but keeping active for discoverability.

The online docs are pretty discoverable. :-)