Projects A custom store nobody could safely update, rebuilt so it could be
A custom store nobody could safely update, rebuilt so it could be
Years of hardcoded custom JavaScript meant the store couldn’t be updated at all. I rebuilt it on standard WooCommerce underneath.
- How long
- 2016
- My role
- DevelopmentSupport
- Kind of project
- RescueMedium project
What the business needed.
Mr Porky’s WooCommerce store had been built entirely from custom JavaScript by previous developers, with every page rendered client-side and no standard WooCommerce templates in use at all. That meant the store couldn’t be safely updated: any WordPress, WooCommerce or plugin update risked breaking it. They needed all of that functionality preserved, but running on a setup that could actually be kept up to date.
What I did.
I rebuilt the store on a new, update-safe WooCommerce platform and migrated all of the existing JavaScript functionality, roughly 15,000 to 20,000 lines of it, into proper WooCommerce templates, so the same features ran through WooCommerce itself instead of around it. All product and variation IDs had been hardcoded directly into the HTML rather than pulled from the database, so every one of them needed to be rewired to load dynamically. I built the new theme from scratch on the Genesis framework, and manually exported and re-imported every product from an old WordPress 2.x installation, which had no compatible export tools left for a modern WordPress version. The rebuild took about three months.
What they got.
The same store, the same functionality, but now running on a platform WordPress, WooCommerce and its plugins could all be safely updated on, plus new custom order email templates and some additional features and products added along the way.
For your technical person
Stack: WordPress, PHP, MySQL, Genesis theme framework (custom child theme built from scratch). Migrated the store off a WordPress ~2.0 installation with no compatible export path to modern WordPress, requiring a manual product-by-product data migration. Ported roughly 15,000 to 20,000 lines of hardcoded, client-side JavaScript functionality into standard WooCommerce templates. Rewired all product and variation IDs from hardcoded HTML values to dynamic database lookups. New custom WooCommerce transactional email templates (new order, order complete, etc.). Timeline: approximately 3 months. Project size: medium. Delivered 2016.
Related work.
The service behind this project
WordPress and WooCommerce serviceRescue a failed or stalled projectAll projectsRunning into the same problem? Tell me about yours.
+27 87 150 9305Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 20:00 SAST. Or email info@antondevilliers.com.