Please Review My Directory Change Plan

I would like to move my v1.5.1 Zen Cart installation from …/public_html/catalog to …/public_html. In reading the applicable forums and the thread, https://www-zen-cart.com/content.php?160, it appears that my course of action is to make the following changes, step-by-step::

1. Backup my entire …/public_html/catalog folder
2. I have already determined the new destination folder – it is …/public_html.
3. In Admin > Configuration > Sessions change “Session Directory” from /home/my account/public_html/catalog/cache to /home/my account/public_html/cache
4. Move/Rename the folder. Does this mean I move all the contents of …/public_html/catalog up to …/public_html, not including “catalog” itself? I know I can do this in FTP, but I just wanted to make sure, as there are 13 files and 15 directories, and my total size is around 1.0gb.
5. After changing to “writable”, change …/includes/configure.php as follows:
a. define('DIR_WS_CATALOG', '/catalog/'); to define('DIR_WS_CATALOG', '/public_html/’);
b. define('DIR_WS_HTTPS_CATALOG', '/catalog/'); to define('DIR_WS_HTTPS_CATALOG', '/public_html/');
c. define('DIR_FS_CATALOG', '/home/myaccount/public_html/catalog/'); to define('DIR_FS_CATALOG', '/home/myaccount/public_html/');
d. define('DIR_FS_LOGS', '/home/myaccount/public_html/catalog/logs'); to define('DIR_FS_LOGS', '/home/myaccount/public_html/logs');
e. define('DIR_FS_SQL_CACHE', '/home/myaccount/public_html/catalog/cache'); to define('DIR_FS_SQL_CACHE', '/home/myaccount/public_html/cache');
f. Upload the changes via FTP, then change back to read-only.
6. After changing to “writable”, change …/admin/includes/configure.php as follows:
a. define('DIR_WS_CATALOG', '/catalog/'); to define('DIR_WS_CATALOG', '/public_html/');
b. define('DIR_WS_HTTPS_CATALOG', '/catalog/'); to define('DIR_WS_HTTPS_CATALOG', '/public_html/');
c. define('DIR_FS_CATALOG', '/home/myaccount/public_html/catalog/'); to define('DIR_FS_CATALOG', '/home/myaccount/public_html/');
d. define('DIR_FS_LOGS', '/home/myaccount/public_html/catalog/logs'); to define('DIR_FS_LOGS', '/home/myaccount/public_html/logs');
e. define('DIR_FS_SQL_CACHE', '/home/myaccount/public_html/catalog/cache'); to define('DIR_FS_SQL_CACHE', '/home/myaccount/public_html/cache');
f. Upload the changes via FTP, then change back to read-only.

Please review my plan and let me know if it is viable. I am particularly concerned about step #4, as I do not see anywhere in the forums that this step is defined.

And if I mess up somewhere along the line, is my recovery plan to simply reload my backed-up /catalog/ directory to public_html, and backout any changes I may have made to "Sessions" and/or the config.php files?

I appreciate your indulgence and look forward to your response.

Thank You,
Phil

An alternate suggestion and comments on your changes. First, what is your business reason for moving the installation from a directory to the root? FWIW, I find that upgrades are much easier for in-directory installations. Secondly, note that if your products have any ranking with the search engines that making this move will most likely negatively impact those rankings (since the products' base URL will change from yoursite.com/catalog/index.php to yoursite.com/index.php).

That said, there are a couple of changes necessary to your described plan:
4. Move/Rename the folder. Does this mean I move all the contents of …/public_html/catalog up to …/public_html, not including “catalog” itself? I know I can do this in FTP, but I just wanted to make sure, as there are 13 files and 15 directories, and my total size is around 1.0gb.
Yes, you'll select all the files and directories in /catalog and copy them to /public_html.
5. After changing to “writable”, change …/includes/configure.php as follows:
a. define('DIR_WS_CATALOG', '/catalog/'); to define('DIR_WS_CATALOG', '/’);
b. define('DIR_WS_HTTPS_CATALOG', '/catalog/'); to define('DIR_WS_HTTPS_CATALOG', '/');

6. After changing to “writable”, change …/admin/includes/configure.php as follows:
a. define('DIR_WS_CATALOG', '/catalog/'); to define('DIR_WS_CATALOG', '/');
b. define('DIR_WS_HTTPS_CATALOG', '/catalog/'); to define('DIR_WS_HTTPS_CATALOG', '/');

In addition, if you're using any form of PayPal as a payment method make sure to change the URL to which your IPNs are destined from yoursite.com/catalog/ipn_main_handler.php to yoursite.com/ipn_main_handler.php.

Hey, lat9!

Thanks for the quick response and excellent observations! The reason to change is that my original website, www.heirloomstocherish.com, was Front Page-based and worked reasonably well for over 10 years, but boy was there a lot of work involved and we didn't even have a shopping cart! While we installed and refined Zen Cart, we kept the FP site going to sustain the business, so FP had the root and ZC had /catalog/. Now that we have converted the entire business to ZC, we have discontinued FP. For the past 12 years, our customers have been accustomed to typing in www.heirloomstocherish.com to get to our business, so I craeted a 301 redirect from there to www.heirloomstocherish.com/catalog. It works fine and the redirect is transparent. However, our business has tailed off in the past couple of years and we attribute it in part to a lack of good SEO - that was another driving factor for getting away from FP. Now that we are trying to optimize as much as practical for SEO, we feel the 301 Redirect is an unnecessary complication, and want to simplify getting to our site. Thus, I don't expect we will lose much in the way of rankings, which are probably in the toilet anyway.

I appreciate your noted corrections and additions. I apologize for not including my website address on the first email, but now that I have, maybe you can see if there's anything else I need to take into account when I switch.

You mentioned upgrading. I am on v1.5.1, and I noticed there is a .2 and .3 out there. Would it be best to upgrade before switching? Is now the right time to upgrade, or should I wait until .3 has had more time to stabilize before upgrading?

As always, any advice/suggestions you can give me are profoundly appreciated.

Thanks,
Phil