Are there any simple guides to making a site responsive

[peblaco]

It is a good idea to make regular backups and install the new software separately to the existing software. You can let the software auto-upgrade but customised designs often have issues that need correcting. If you have customised layouts, lists, CSS, scripts or plugins etc, the upgrade will replace old layouts and customisations need to be added again. Or you can do a clean install and import site content separately, such as using a hierarchical import, copying image folders, re-applying settings. Test mode can be used to publish a site without affecting the live website.

[newshopbloke]

Thanks Louise, that's very informative, as always.

Im ready for the challenge of making my existing site responsive, I think I know most of the elements I will need to change, fixed widths, images, dodgy right sidebar etc, but I want to achieve this in the 27 days I have left on my demo of 14.

Just need to get my hosting company in the states to understand why the path to perl is getting rejected, then I can test everything.

[newshopbloke]

Hi all,

Its a shame we get this with the demo:

Warnings
Snapshots created by unlicensed copies of the software are only importable into licensed sites.

Means I cannot switch back and forth between my site and default smart template to learn and correct as I go. And I wont be able to keep exporting my site during the build so that I can always go back a step when I mess things up.

I have just tested my site and it will need to be completely re-designed for tablet and mobile.

Can we have 2 separate sites, 1 on 13 designed for computer screens and 1 on 14 designed for tablet and mobile ? Would that still work with googles new responsive site ranking system ?

Can we have some sort of link system on homepage that google understands as "go here for big screen, go here for tablet and mobile" ?

[peblaco]

It's not recommended to split one website across two domains, you would have duplicate content that you want to avoid, you have two manage two sites, orders would not consolidated in one place, each content change on one site would have to be duplicated on the other, SEO and ranking is spread between different URLs rather than focussed on one, it would cause unnecessary work and issues. Google recommends one site with a responsive layout.

[newshopbloke]

Thanks Louise

When I test a new design or a new version of SD I want to upload and test across 4 or 5 browsers, everything I have ever done with actinic or sd needs tweaking for cross browser compatibility, theres always dodgy code somewhere lurking about.

With sd 13 some of my preview pages look a mess with things in the wrong place, but they upload fine.

Ok, your right, 1 website for all and everything.

Im happy today because I have both versions running on separate servers and now I can start to experiment with the Smart theme, which is great the way it resizes, very clever !

Im sure I can redesign but it will take me quite some time. I will likely upgrade to 14 business plus as I may need to build 3 or 4 other sites, plus multi user networking will be very handy for us here.