I have a wordpress site and I want to make edits to my theme and addons but I need the current theme active. I do not want to change the one now at all. I just want to release the upgrade. How would i go about doing this? Thanks!
Have you installed a local server on your computer? With a local server you can edit theme and test plugins locally before you upload it to the live Wordpess. Or if you want to do it online, maybe you can install something like Worpress maintenance plugin or simply using .htaccess redirection, So the visitors won't see the mess if something goes wrong with the upgrade.
why dont you want to do it live? if its a brand new site, there wont be any users on it anyway. But if there are, then an htaccess redirection can help, or you can install it in another domain and try it out there.
Never heard about such option. Better take a database backup, export it to a new backup database. Upgrade your live site. If anything goes wrong, change wp-cofig file with backup database details.
Create a dev subdomain where you can install a clone of your site. You can even copy all files and duplicate the database if you want to have everything as on original site. You can then test any changes there. You will also have a backup in case something goes wrong with your main site.