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Manual

Import and export

Grids, skins, navigation skins, custom fields and global CSS to a file and back: for a backup, or to move grids to another site.

· Settings and tools

Import/Export in Essential Grid’s top bar saves grids and what they use to a file, and brings such a file into a site. Use it for a backup, or to move grids from a staging site to the live site. It has three tabs: Import, Export and Demo data.

Export

The Export tab in Export All Items mode with five grids and all skins selected.
  1. Open Export and choose the Mode: Export Single Grid for one grid, or Export All Items to choose from everything.
  2. Tick what goes into the file: Grids, Skins, Elements, Navigation Skins, Custom Metas and, under Others, Global Styles. All ticks a whole list.
  3. Click Export Selected. Your browser saves the file.

Take the skins a grid uses along with it, so it looks the same on the other site.

Import

The Import tab after reading an export file: its grids, skins, navigation skin and global CSS, each with Append as New or Overwrite Existing.
  1. Open Import and pick an export file (.json) under Select File.
  2. Click Read Selected File. The tab lists what the file holds: grids, skins, elements, navigation skins, custom fields and global CSS.
  3. For each part, keep it ticked or untick it (Unselect unticks a whole list), and choose Append as New or Overwrite Existing. The import compares by handle (for a grid, its shortcode name): Overwrite Existing replaces the site’s item with the same handle; Append as New adds the imported one beside it, with a handle of its own.
  4. Under Additional, Create Missing Taxonomies creates the categories and tags a posts grid uses that the site does not have yet. They have no posts until you assign them.
  5. Click Import Selected Data.

If the file holds an add-on’s data, the import asks for that add-on: install and activate it first, then import.

Demo data

The third tab, Demo data, holds Download Fresh Skins, which opens the Skins view to restore the built-in skins, and, while the example post type is on (Global Settings › Content), Import Full Demo Data, which imports its demo posts.

Good to know

  • The file holds settings: grids, skins and styles. Your posts and the images of your media library stay on their site; a posts grid shows the posts of the site you import it into.
  • A single grid can also be exported from the menu of its card on the grids overview, and imported with Import in the overview’s head (Essential Grid at a glance).
  • Custom fields are defined in Global Settings › Custom fields; import the file’s custom fields along with grids and skins that use them.

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