The transition from ProPhoto 6 to ProPhoto 7 is a relatively smooth one. The P6 design is imported in “ProPhoto > Manage Designs.” The installation guide covers this process. The design will look very, very close to how it looked in ProPhoto 6, and most of the settings import. However, there are a few settings that do not automatically import and that may require some manual adjustment. This guide serves an active list and will be adjusted to stay current.
Hiding content or title
In ProPhoto 6 each post or page had an option to hide the title or all the content. If those boxes were checked, just the title or everything from WordPress would be hidden when viewing that url. Instead, all you would see would be from the P6 layout. In ProPhoto 7, hiding is slightly different. The WordPress content module has an option for hiding the title and the date. And if you don’t want any of that content you simply remove the block with that module from the layout.
Practically speaking this means that you will see some content areas you don’t want to see as the P6 templates are converted to layouts. Simply view each layout in the Visual Builder and remove the block that contains the WordPress content module.
Shared content
Blocks
In P7 blocks can be shared across layouts. When your P6 design imports it’s likely that you’ll get some blocks imported as unique that you thought were inheriting all their settings from the base template. This is common in the case of the header and footer type blocks, as well as the block showing your WordPress content. If you want to make sure that the same block is being used for those areas across different templates then you can delete a block that you don’t want and drag in the block that you want to use. Check in your block library to see how many instances of a similarly named block you have and in how many layout it’s used. Doubleclick a block name in the library to rename it.
Layouts
Layouts are the other way to share content on multiple pages. Your template assignment structure should import just like you had it. So if you had a template in used for all single post pages, now there should be a layout doing the same thing. What was the base template will now be the default layout – the layout that is used when no other more specific assignment is made.
Design related considerations
P6 text widgets become Text modules in ProPhoto 7. The modules are more simple then the widgets in P6, which may make them easier to use, but can require some maintenance after import.
1. There is no title field
P6 Text widgets have a title field that would automatically be an H3 tag. The importer pulls out the title as a separate module set to be an H3. In fact, any widget title in P6 becomes a H3 text module in P7.
2. There is not an HTML view in a text module
P6 Text widgets can receive embed code, say from a form, a video or google maps. It is pasted in “Tools > source code”. P7 text modules are not made to receive HTML. The importer tries to convert these into standard WordPress custom HTML widgets, but it might not be successful if the embed code was combined with other content. In ProPhoto 7 embed code should be incorporated in a layout using a widget module after pasting the code in a custom HTML widget in “Appearance > Widgets”. If you had any custom embed code in a text widget in ProPhoto 6, this is something you’ll want to have a look at before going live.
3. Text justification
The P7 text module does not have justifyas an alignment option. This is an issue that that may receive development in the future. If you were heavily using justify then you’ll need to consider how to move forward. Try adding this custom CSS to a block or row that has text that you want to justify.
& .pp-module--text p {
text-align: justify;
}
You could also consider moving away from justified text in general. It is generally frowned upon for small devices and responsive sites because it can produce unexpected and hard to read results. This is why WordPress removed the option from their page editor some time ago.
SEO considerations
1. Gallery permalink base slug
Individual gallery pages have a base slug that can be customized. The default value is pp_gallery. If this was customized in P6, make sure that the the same slug is present in P7 in Settings > Site Settings > Misc..
2. P6 design images
Images uploaded to design elements (e.g. backgrounds, graphics widgets) in ProPhoto 6 were not uploaded via the traditional WordPress process. In p7, all uploads to the design go through the WordPress Media Library. So during the import process these P6 design images are imported into the WordPress Media Library. The filename will remain the same; in P6 an image ID was prepended to the uploaded file name (e.g. 1515856475-161220-individual photos-006.jpg). All of these imported images will have a title of “Imported P6 design file: [filename].” Search “Imported P6” in “Media > Library” to locate these images and to adjust the title or other meta information as you see fit.
3. Analytics and custom code
It should import but check in Settings > Site Settings > Analytics to make sure your analytics code is still there (if that is where you added it). Likewise, if you had custom code in Settings > Advanced > Custom Code make sure that is still there.
Favicon
P6 had a special area in which to upload a favicon. P7 jettisons this option in favor of the built in WordPress option. See the Favicon guide to learn how to add it.
Social media connections
A few social media related settings do not import. Set up these options in Settings > Site Settings > Social Media.
- Facebook preview settings
- Facebook personal numeric ID
- Option to disable Facebook meta information (OpenGraph)
- Instagram authorization
- Twitter API credentials
Some social media integrations are not present in P7 that were in P6.
- Facebook comment are not an option with P7. To continue using that comment functionality will require the use of a plugin.
- The call to action area is not an option in P7. So if you were relying on that in P6 you’ll need to leverage a different method in P7. If you were using it to simply link directly to urls then a series of graphic modules will easily replace it. But if you were using the social media count options then a plugin will be in order.
Other settings that don’t import and should be set up
Settings > Site Settings > Misc.
- Auto update disabling – turn off updating if you had it off before
- Image downsizing settings
- Image lazy loading
Settings > Site Settings > Forms
Make sure that your form related settings are what they need to be, including the troubleshooting settings.
Settings > Copyright Area > Copyright
A bug in the import process might show your prior footer link removal code is entered with a green checkmark, but the code might not be removing your footer links. Simply copy the ID number from the box, clear the box, and save. Then, paste the ID in and save again. This should cause the link removal code to work properly.
