-
Posts
-
Hi there,
So we hired a development team to build our website using the Enfold theme on WordPress. The theme version was 2.0 or 2.1 I believe, and the WordPress version at the time was 4.1. During the development phase, we provided the latest theme at the time which was 2.0/2.1. Now, the website is completed, but there are many problems with the backend editing, i.e. no access to visual editor, front end display errors, unable to add new content, SEO/Mailchimp integration etc. They took months to build the website, and during that time Enfold was updated a couple of times.
What we are trying to find out is that whether we are required to provide every update of Enfold to the developers as they were building, or was Enfold made to work with WordPress despite an older version, and even if there was a gap between providing say… Enfold 2.1 and 3.0 there should be no compatibility issues?
I ask this because our developers say that they asked for the latest theme and we did not deliver on time, and so they had to code and develop the website according to the core files of Enfold 2.1 and by the time we gave it to them, the core files have changed, causing so many backend issues. Also if they were to update Enfold to the latest version now it will break many elements of the site.
We are trying to figure out if it was our problem for not delivering every update of Enfold to them, or was it the developer’s problem for not setting up the site correctly as Enfold was made to compatible with WordPress and able to be updated seamlessly despite the older version? I am trying to verify the problem as they are billing us to fix the backend every time there’s a problem! We think they should have set up the site properly and make it clear that it won’t work without the latest versions, but they say that it’s our problem for not delivering the Enfold latest updates on time.
This has cost us plenty of money, time and headaches! Please advise!
Thank you very much,
JayHi JonathanTarpy!
I can’t help you with your developer problem but if your customizing Enfold then the best way would be to use a child theme so your changes do not effect theme updates. We have a child theme available for download here, http://kriesi.at/documentation/enfold/downloads/.
Regards,
ElliottHi Elliott,
Thanks for the response!
Well noted, I need to validate the following:
1. Is it true what the developers said, that if they had built the website based on the core files of an older version of Enfold, an update of Enfold will cause the core files to change and hence causing the crashes/instability?
2. Will providing Enfold 2.1, then straight to 3.1 after cause a stability issue? Was it our responsibility to provide every iteration of the theme to them during development, or if they had set up the site correctly this shouldn’t be happening.
3. You mentioned the child theme, is that something of a standard action when working with a custom theme? Or does it apply only to Enfold?
In essence, I am trying to determine whose responsibility it is for our website’s crashes and how to best move forward with our partnership with the developers. Like I said, they are billing us for many hours that we feel are caused by their own problem of not setting up the site correctly.
Hope that you can assist in the matter!
Many thanks,
JayTo rephrase, if we’re trying to update Enfold version 2.1 to the latest iteration on the latest version of Word Press, will it cause crashes on our backend?
Thanks.
Hey!
1. Well, I have no idea what you all were doing so I cannot judge that. With WordPress though it’s common practice to do customizations in a child theme so they are preserved between theme updates.
2. I don’t know. As always be sure to create a backup before updating WordPress. Depending on how far back you are there may be problems but I doubt there will be any “crashing” involved. If you see problems then just reload the backup.
3. Yes, child themes can be used with any WordPress theme and are recommended when doing customizations.
Cheers!
ElliottHi Elliott,
I understand the child theme is to be used. That’s the first “A” of WordPress alphabet. My website is a special case. I purchased and used your theme and used the site ‘decoraid.com’ as a reference (which uses your theme too I believe) and as you can see there are a lot of customizations needed from our end to achieve the result.
Another thing is, we used the older version of your theme 2.9 on an older version of WP 3.8 when we started development. We have had delays due to various reasons and by the time the site was launched, WP 4.3 was released and Enfold theme 3.3 was released. Now, when we update our site to Enfold 3.4, despite using child theme, it breaks the entire layout because we had used lot of custom CSS. We also found that there were dependency issues that arose due to this.
I have no idea how theme updates rolled out because my developers also works on theme development and they provide support to assist in times of adversity. Looking forward for the same.
Thanks,
JHi!
Alrighty, if you have a question then post a new topic and we’ll be with you shortly. If your doing a lot of advanced customizations though you will want to hire a freelancer to help you out with them as they will be considered custom work.
Cheers!
Elliott
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.