When practicing in Wordpress, how to undo all things, revert back and start again from scratch?

Question

In my godaddy.com deluxe hosting, I just "uninstall wordpress" attached to a domain, then all things were all "undone", meaning, I can start from scratch again. Is this a good process, or I might mess things up on my hosting account in the future if I continue to do this process?

Also: How about when practicing with wordpress which is running localy, inside my local pc (WAMP Server { c:/wamp/www/wordpress }), how can I revert back from scratch if i want to start over again? What do I need to delete? What folder or how to go about this?

Note: Please don't just say "delete the database" or something else, because I really don't know where the database is stored. Im just a newbie and I have no idea how the whole process is running.

Thanks, Lenn .

Answer 1

If you are just mucking about:

1. You could delete all of the files in the WordPress folder and re-install WordPress, this will give you a clean slate.

2. After you have a clean slate. Back it up or clone it. I use WordPress Duplicator, but BackWPup is also a good choice. You can also create a child theme. A useful plug-in for creating child themes is "One Click Child Theme". It's really more than one click but pretty simple all the same.

3. When you are done mucking about. Restore WordPress using the "clean slate" back up/clone or delete the child theme folder and start again with another child theme. Of course you'll still have whatever content you've created with the child theme method. So if you want to erase all content as well as style changes you've made then restoring from a clean back up or clone is the way to go.

4. You'll want to read up on WordPress Duplicator and/or Child Themes. There are a bunch of word press back up plug-ins and cloners. Check them out, play with them, experiment. You'll be glad you did. A good back up tool will be your best friend.

Good Day!

Answer 2

Create a child theme.

1. Make a new folder in your themes folder with the same name as your current theme + "-child".
   • So for example: Super Theme becomes Super Theme-child
2. Inside of that create a new styles.css file
3. In original theme's styles.css file copy the commented out section on top and place it into your blank styles.css file.
4. Add a line in that commented out section that says: Template: [Name of Original Theme]
5. Create a file called index.php
6. Inside of it write
   • <?php

That should be it. If you run into trouble just google "child theme"

When you get things screwy just delete the child theme and make new.

Just so you know and recommended.

• In the Godaddy panel on the hosting tab if you go to databases you can backup your database from there.
• If you have a linux hosting account with Godaddy in the file manager of their panel you can enable a history view that allows you to roll back individual files or restore deleted files etc.
  • If you have windows host and would like a linux host Godaddy support will likely switch you over if you ask.