Since WP can be installed in a subdirectory yet accessed as if installed in root, I figured on installing in the subdirectory, setting everything up and then 'moving' the site. I am replacing a live site running with a different CMS and thought this would minimize downtime. It seems like "all I have to do" is go to the settings area and edit the WordPress Address and Blog Address URLs. Only problem is that when I go to that page, those two fields are grayed out and uneditable. Any ideas why those fields can't be edited? Is there a setting someplace that is incorrect or something?
Every place that references an absolute URL will need to be "fixed"... so you'll need to find those absolute paths... like in config.php. There are not too many places to fix. You would be well served to do a little online research. And usually the image files break and need to be fixed as well. So it's not too hard, but there is more to it than just typing in a new URL on the admin end.
I realize the other links are going to break, I've got a list. But it seems like everything depends upon being able to edit those two fields. I would like to leave the actual files in the subdirectory but have the visible URLs be at the root level. No matter how I approach things, it seems like it will only work if I can edit those admin settings. I have been researching this for hours and it seems that tons of folks are simply republishing the codex and offering little other info. I haven't seen anyone mention not being able to edit these fields much less offer a solution.
OK, tried a few things and am a bit further... Now I have mysite.com working correctly but unfortunately mysite.com/wordpress is also still working. At least one of the pending posts has been magically upgraded to live and most importantly I can no longer access the admin area. All attempts to access the admin lead to 404 errors. Figure I'm close to figuring this out but must be missing one last correction somewhere. Anyone have any ideas?
These videos are pretty thorough and should solve any problems: http://educhalk.org/blog/?p=82 - your database is most likely just pointing to the old location still- you can go in there and edit those fields manually if necessary through phpmyadmin
Just a quick follow-up. Tried the video, it was excellent. Never could get the darn thing working right in a subdirectory. Gave in and moved it to root, used the educhalk video and got everything working. It was a bit scary, but downloading the database, replacing the URLs with find/replace, deleting the online database and recreating it worked like a charm. The only hand edits that I had to make were to a few custom category templates.