How would I copy my store?

[tony manero]

Right now I've got a store set up for my distributors, and I'm now looking to open up a smaller one for the public. I'd like both stores to be identical though, and since I've made a ton of changes to my distributor site, I'd like to copy most files from there.

What files would I need to avoid copying to the new site? Since I've made changes to everything including language files, images, php, etc., I'd like to copy pretty much the whole store over. The problem is if one of the files has the hardcoded distributor database name in, I could be overwriting stuff. My main concern would be the files in both the languages and templates folders. Thanks a lot!

[afo]

I would do a clean install of Zen Cart for the new store. This means creating a new database and installing Zen Cart.

If you've done all the security patches on the existing store, you can copy over those files to the new store.

If you've followed the override system correctly, you can then copy over your template folders and files.

If you need the existing store's database, use phpMyAdmin from your webmaster panel (note: this is outside Zen Cart) to export the existing database and import it to the new database.

You may have to tweak some stuff after that, but you'll see when you get there.

[tony manero]

I did a clean install of Zen Cart and I'm at the point where I'm just getting ready to copy files over. I applied all the security patches to the distributor site, so if those carry over that would be great as well.

What file holds the actual database name and information? I'm thinking I should just reapply the basic security patches(renaming admin folder, etc.) and then copy over as few files as possible.

There shouldn't be any harm overwriting pretty much everything in the includes folder, should there? I'm a little scared of overwriting anything admin related, but I doubt the includes tree would have any hardcoded paths or database information.

I'm also not too sure what you mean by override system. I'm hoping I didn't do anything to upset it, but I don't know what would cause issues with it. Thanks!

[afo]

DO NOT copy admin/includes/configure.php or includes/configure.php. Other than that, you should be ok copying from the existing/original site.

The override system refers to the template (look of your site). Modified files should be stored in folders specific to your template.

For example, if you wanted to change the information in includes/languages/english.php, you would save the changed file as includes/languages/YOUR_TEMPLATE/english.php.

[tony manero]

Ah that's perfect. So I can even carry my admin folder over, so long as I retain the changed path and avoid the configures? Thanks so much for the help, afo, this should make my project a lot faster!

[afo]

Yes, it should work because the two configure files contain information related to that particular installation including the path to the database.