bcworkz

When you use the customizer, the adjacent page preview shows the correct header menu? But on the actual front end the wrong menu appears in the header? You’re likely seeing cached content. Try clearing any caches involved, both server and client (browser) side.

How did a footer menu end up in the header? There’s a fallback mechanism that could use another known menu when the specified menu cannot be found. When you deleted the original header menu, the fallback mechanism came into play, then that scheme got cached, making it unusually “sticky”.

The answers largely depend upon what migration tool you plan to use. I recommend asking in the chosen tool’s dedicated support channel.

In choosing a migration tool, look for one that specifically supports merging two sites. As you know, ensuring there are no overwrites is an issue unique to merging sites that is irrelevant when simply migrating a single site. Not only must overwrites be avoided, but the various ID changes need to be coordinated to maintain the record relationships between tables.

Ideally, post type switcher would not require any technical skill, it just works. However, I’ve never used it so I cannot accurately comment on required skill level. I believe there are also plugins that allow you to assign taxonomies to pages. More broadly speaking, there are many plugins that do specialized things that require no technical skill. There are others that are more like tools for experienced users. One must know how to wield the tool to be successful. IMO the main advantage of a .org installation is that it’s endlessly customizable. But some customization does require technical skill. Other customization requires very little skill.

Additionally, one can accomplish a lot of unique customization with minimal coding skill when no suitable plugin could be found. Minimal coding skill can be learned as you go if you’re so inclined. Utilizing newer AI tools lowers the bar for the amount of skill needed, but if you don’t have at least the basic skills, verifying AI code output would be difficult.

OTOH, .com based sites are more like a walled garden. There are limits to the customization you can accomplish, but there’s very little that can go wrong. It’s a safer alternative for those disinterested in acquiring some technical skills.

Both platforms are reasonably secure out of the box. There are security plugins available for those that desire even stronger security. How much added security a host for a .org installation provides varies by hosting plan. There are also third party services available like CloudFlare that add a very robust security layer.

Since you apparently lack tech skills, I’d say .com would be the safer alternative. But if you’re at all willing to learn some new skills, a .org installation gives you much more latitude in what can be accomplished. A basic .org installation is reasonably safe. There’s no need to suddenly become tech savvy. You can pick up skills here and there as your site develops. As long as good backups are maintained, there’s little you can do that’s damaging that cannot be recovered from backup. And there are plugins that will automatically make periodic backups for you.

you really have to unmark “anyone can register” first in the General Settings?

Correct. For most users, that’s really all that’s necessary. IIRC, this option being unchecked is the default state upon initial installation?

Deactivating custom code is way above my limited technical skills.

I understand your meaning, but FYI; the custom code would be in the form of a plugin, so deactivating would be a matter of deactivating the plugin. I think you can manage that 🙂 But of course developing the custom plugin code is understandably above your skill level. If you wanted to hire a coder, it shouldn’t take them much time to come up with something. But honestly I think doing so would be unnecessary.

Category specific appearance can be managed with CSS and element class attributes. On an archive listing such as the front page, each post appears as an LI element whose classes include category information. You just need some CSS rules whose selectors target these classes.

On single post pages, it’s less straight forward. There are no category specific element classes by default. However you can add additional classes via the “body_class” filter. Then have your CSS target these added category classes similar to what’s done on the front page.

Further measures like writing custom code to make it virtually impossible to add users, even for admins. To add a user in this scenario, you’d need to deactivate the custom code first.

I don’t have specific wp.com experience, but I believe it’s the same process. You’d need to click the add user link, enter a specific user name and email at the very least, then click the add user button way down at the bottom of the screen. I cannot imagine anyone doing this by accident.

It looks like the initial 4 boxed links appear as they do due to a unique feature of your theme. I recommend contacting your theme’s dedicated support channel for advice on using the theme.

As a wild guess while not being familiar with your theme, you could probably select one of the existing boxed links, then copy/paste it into the page. Then edit the copy’s attributes to link to the 5th page.

There’s no support within WP for changing pages to posts, but it’s possible to do so by manipulating the DB via phpMyAdmin or custom mySQL queries. In essence, simply change the page’s post_type field value from “page” to “post”. There are some possible caveats though. Any page specific attributes might not be allowable to be applied to posts. Such as hierarchical pages, dedicated theme templates, or custom taxonomy terms. If your pages have none of these, then changing them to posts should be feasible.

I cannot speak to compatibility with Elementor. I don’t think it’d matter to Elementor, but you should either do some preliminary testing and/or ask the Elementor devs for advice.

Posts converted from pages will have no category assigned, which shouldn’t normally be possible. There doesn’t seem to be any ill effect in my limited testing, but to be legit, you should assign at least one category to any converted posts. It’s possible there are other complications I’m not thinking of. Do your own preliminary testing to be sure the conversion has no ill effects.

Make a full DB backup before you start manipulating it. You may need to revert to it if some unforeseen tragic flaw should reveal itself.