How do you update and maintain your Umbraco theme and templates over time?

Umbraco is a popular and flexible CMS that lets you create and manage websites with ease. However, like any other software, it needs regular updates and maintenance to keep it running smoothly and securely. In this article, you will learn how to update and maintain your Umbraco theme and templates over time, and avoid common pitfalls and errors.

1 Why update your Umbraco theme and templates?

Updating your Umbraco theme and templates is not only important for improving the look and feel of your website, but also for ensuring its functionality and performance. By updating your theme and templates, you can benefit from the latest features, bug fixes, security patches, and compatibility improvements that Umbraco and its community offer. Updating your theme and templates can also help you optimize your website for SEO, accessibility, and user experience.

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Alice Reynolds

Technical Leader | Solution Architect | Mentor | Azure | Cloud Native | DevOps | Technology Advocate | Ex-Microsoft
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"Regularly updating your Umbraco theme and templates is essential for maintaining optimal functionality and performance. As Mark Thompson, a web development expert, puts it, 'Keeping your website updated with the latest features and security patches ensures a better user experience and improved site performance.'"

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Adam Shallcross

Building high-intent lead-generating websites for B2B Marketing Leaders | Founder of Cogworks | CMS & Tech Specialist | Umbraco Community Advocate | Agency Leadership Veteran
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Keeping your Umbraco templates up-to-date ensures that your site performs well for your users. Using Lighthouse reports will help you with this. Refreshing your templates every now and then can keep your site fresh and interesting for your users. Additionally, accessibility issues, layout bugs, poorly performing code, and other issues can be regularly addressed and fixed.

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Jai Prakash

Certified AEM Technical Analyst, AEM Product Owner, Digital Web Production, Adobe Experience Manager, Content Management System (CMS), Headless, MACH, DXP, Contentful, Digital Marketing, Technical Project Delivery, Agile
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Updating and maintaining an Umbraco theme involves several key practices. Firstly, regularly update Umbraco and its packages to benefit from bug fixes, security patches, and new features. Secondly, use a version control system like Git to track changes, collaborate with others, and revert to previous versions if needed. When making changes to templates, follow best practices like modular design, using partial views for reusable components, and commenting your code for clarity. If you're using a third-party theme, check for updates from the developer and carefully review the changelog before applying them. Consider creating a child theme to customize the original theme without modifying its core files, making future updates smoother.

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2 How to update your Umbraco theme and templates?

Updating your Umbraco theme and templates is not a straightforward process, as it depends on several factors, such as the version of Umbraco, the source of your theme and templates, customizations you have made, and the changes you want to apply. Before making any changes, it is important to backup your website and database to be able to restore it if something goes wrong or you are not satisfied with the results. It is also recommended to check the release notes and documentation of Umbraco and your theme and templates provider to see what has changed and what needs to be done for an update. The latest version of your theme and templates should be downloaded from their official source or installed via a package manager like NuGet or Umbraco Package Manager. A tool like WinMerge or DiffChecker can be used to compare the new files with your existing files in order to identify the differences and merge them carefully. After updating your theme and templates, they should be tested for errors, broken links, layout issues, or functionality problems. If any issues are found, they should be fixed by reviewing your code, settings, or dependencies. If they cannot be fixed, reverting to your backup or contacting your theme and templates provider for support may be necessary.

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Adam Shallcross

Building high-intent lead-generating websites for B2B Marketing Leaders | Founder of Cogworks | CMS & Tech Specialist | Umbraco Community Advocate | Agency Leadership Veteran
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Umbraco themes would have been created by your developers. It doesn't come out-of-the-box with Umbraco like, say, Squarespace. So, if you need to update any designs or templates, you'd first need access to the code, which should be in Git or a similar source control repository. Then, you'd either need to be skilled in Umbraco development or have an agency or developer who can do it for you. Whilst it's not a difficult process, a fundamental understanding of development is required. You need to be aware of more factors, like performance and accessibility, to ensure your site remains in tip-top condition!

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3 How to maintain your Umbraco theme and templates?

Maintaining your Umbraco theme and templates is essential for keeping them clean, organized, and optimized. It is recommended to review your theme and templates regularly and remove any unused files, code, or assets to reduce clutter, improve performance, and avoid conflicts or errors. Utilizing a version control system like Git or SVN can help you track and manage changes, while a code editor like Visual Studio Code or Sublime Text can assist in writing, formatting, debugging, and refactoring code more efficiently. Additionally, you can use a minifier like WebMarkupMin or YUI Compressor to compress HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files for faster loading times. Lastly, running a validator like W3C Validator or HTML Tidy can help you check HTML code for errors, warnings, or compliance issues. By taking these steps to update and maintain your Umbraco theme and templates over time, you can enhance your website's appearance, performance, and security.

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Adam Shallcross

Building high-intent lead-generating websites for B2B Marketing Leaders | Founder of Cogworks | CMS & Tech Specialist | Umbraco Community Advocate | Agency Leadership Veteran
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You need to be careful that you aren't just creating more and more templates for the sake of it. In older versions of Umbraco, before grid-based editing was developed and the backoffice was entirely form-based, this was more difficult. Now, with the Umbraco Block List and the Block Grid, you can significantly reduce the number of templates needed and allow more flexibility in the backoffice for the editor. Keeping templates streamlined ensures a clean codebase and backoffice. However, you will need to be a developer to keep on top of this!

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4 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

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Jai Prakash

Certified AEM Technical Analyst, AEM Product Owner, Digital Web Production, Adobe Experience Manager, Content Management System (CMS), Headless, MACH, DXP, Contentful, Digital Marketing, Technical Project Delivery, Agile
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Updating and maintaining Umbraco themes and templates involves several key steps: Regular Backups: Before any changes, create backups of your theme files and database to ensure you can revert if needed. Stay Updated: Keep Umbraco CMS and any packages/plugins up-to-date. This ensures compatibility and security. Version Control: Use a version control system like Git to track changes, collaborate with others, and easily roll back if issues arise. Follow Best Practices: Adhere to Umbraco's coding standards and documentation for clean, maintainable code. Utilize Partial Views for reusable components to avoid repetition and simplify updates. Use a CSS preprocessor like Sass or Less for organized stylesheets. Testing: Thoroughly test all.

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How do you update and maintain your Umbraco theme and templates over time?

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1 Why update your Umbraco theme and templates?

2 How to update your Umbraco theme and templates?

3 How to maintain your Umbraco theme and templates?

4 Here’s what else to consider

Content Management Systems (CMS)

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