The need to migrate from Magento 1 to Magento 2 is often more urgent now than ever before. On June 30th, 2021, Adobe finally ended support for the Magento 1 platform for both Magento Enterprise (Ecommerce) and Magento Community (stories). Upcoming major updates to both platforms will result in a thorough overhaul of the
product’s themes, layouts and features. If you are already an active user of Magento 1, the transition might be smooth. However, if you are still using an older version, you will have to spend some time migrating to the new platform.
Users of Magento 1 can take advantage of the built-in user experience improvements in the latest release of the Magento 2 and look forward to some of the most significant enhancements. The layout engine, for example, is improved with easier customization. Furthermore, the full scoping of the theme system, including attributes, functions, colors and paths, has been extended. The scope of integration for external, third party applications has also been significantly widened, so there won’t be any more excuses for your clients to refuse to work with you because the products available in your store don’t have the latest features provided by the outside applications.
The major components of a Magento 2 migration include upgrading the core platform to v1.x, configuring all the extensions, themes and plugins and then creating the new user database structure. Since many of these processes overlap, it is important that users create and follow migration instructions that are based on their current platform. For those who are not comfortable with these tasks, there are services providers who offer professional guidance through Magento 2 migration services.
One of the biggest challenges during the course of a magento 2 migration is to create and migrate different themes. These must meet the necessary requirements of the end customers and should be developed in such a way that there will be minimum inconvenience to the existing customer base. This is where the involvement of experts becomes vital. Professional teams that specialize in developing Magento themes are able to provide customers with themes that perfectly fit into the new structure, as well as help in migrating data from one extension to another.
When starting out a Magento 2 migration project, it is advisable to seek assistance from professional teams that are familiar with the various stages of the development process. It is essential that the necessary documentation and custom codes for each extension and theme are reviewed and accounted for before commencing the work. It is also crucial that the compatibility of extensions and themes to be checked before finalizing the Magento 2 migration.
Most developers prefer to begin with the customization of the default themes followed by the migration of the business or store extension. However, there are those who consider adding customizations themes during the development process. This is considered a wise practice as developers can tailor the application and its components to meet the specific needs of each stage of the process. With the use of Magento theme engine it is possible to create new themes, as well as modify existing ones. Once these customizations have been completed, the developers can move on to the Magento 2 migration of store settings and functionalities.
The Magento extensions can be customized using themes, as well as plugins, which are supported by the Magento organization. The process of customization begins with customizations of the header and footer areas. These make use of graphics and default layouts which are specified in the original source code. The process of converting these source codes to a format compatible with Magento 2 continues till the time when all the necessary information is successfully encoded into the final format. The source codes are then passed on to Magento templates to create the final layout.
While the above processes may be lengthy and complex in nature, they are very useful for any experienced developer. Migrations allow developers to quickly scale up or down the functionality of a given module. They help ensure that each customer experiences a delightful shopping experience irrespective of their geographical
location, preferences in products and services, and browsing habits. Magento 2 migration can also be done manually but this requires an expert knowledge on the inner workings of Magento as well as the Magento plug-ins. For this reason, it makes sense to use Magento migration, which is a simplified version of the entire process.