starsdance wrote: ↑Fri Aug 10, 2018 3:57 pm
We ... have tried over the years to update [our website] and have all sorts of problems. The version we are running is 1.5.20.
Not surprised, really, that you've had "all sorts" of problems—even if it might take a few years to describe them—considering J! 1.5.20 was released over eight years ago (18 July 2010), J! 1.5 was brought to end-of-life with the release of J! 1.5.26 and support for this series ended in December 2012.
In that time, a large number of J! 1.5 websites have been successfully attacked—brought to their knees—leaving site owners feeling helpless. Also, in that time, two major series of Joomla have been created—known as J! 2.5 and J! 3.x—and J! 4 is currently under development with an expected stable release in the first half of 2019. All told, there have been around one hundred releases of Joomla from the time of J! 1.5.20 to J! 3.8.11.
starsdance wrote: ↑Fri Aug 10, 2018 3:57 pm
I really would like to get it updated and looking better ...
It's not a question of undertaking a cosmetic make-over for sites built with J! 1.5. Because of the inherent risks associated with attempting to maintain them, we strongly recommend carrying out [what is termed as]
a migration from J! 1.5 to J! 3.
x.
In the hands of an experienced professional, migrating from J! 1.5 to J! 3.
x is a task that can take between a day to a week. The actual process itself takes about one hour to convert the basic J! 1.5 structures to J! 3.
x. The total time, however, includes negotiating with the client, making the necessary contractual arrangements (and paying a deposit for the work to begin) and then there's the "cosmetics": tidying things up afterwards.
So, there's the general background to give you the overall scope.
While there are many resources that will assist "the complete novice" to carry out the tasks themselves, if you have no real idea of the overall effort involved then I would say you're probably in for a lengthy involvement of your time devoted to doing this yourself. As I wrote earlier, in the hands of a professional, the taks is [relatively] painless (apart from having to pay a few hundred dollars for the effort) and short-lived. To give you a rough estimate, (as I wrote earlier) from my experience it usually takes between a day to a week depending on the complexity of the original website.
starsdance wrote: ↑Fri Aug 10, 2018 3:57 pm
If I do start again I presume I can use my existing www. address. If so, how do I go about deleting the old one?
This won't be an issue. If you decide to migrate your existing J! 1.5 website to J! 3.x or start again, you will be able to retain your existing "www." address [URL]. In effect, we're talking about replacing one website (the files and database tables) with another. The URL is simply a "pointer" to where the files reside on the server.
Regardless of whether you convert your existing website (using the migration strategy) or start again, the amount of your time and cost is about the same. If you discuss the situation, one-on-one, with an experienced professional, you may get a clearer idea with path you should use. This forum may help in some cases but a dicussion forum cannot equip you with
all the resources to carry out a "three-mouse-clicks-and-hey-presto-instantly-solved" satisfactory solution for your business needs.
Hopefully this advice, in general terms at least, should address the strategic questions you've asked so that you can consider your overall strategy.
