Thank you for your reply and suggestions.
I'll try to update directly to V1.551 this time after V1.4x to V1.5x.
I asked this question because I found the template is only for the 'face' look of a website.This question still makes absolutely no sense to me. I think you may be misusing the word "layout" as it exists in opencart. If you mean "theme" then you will need to get a new theme after upgrading to 1.5.x as older 1.4.x themes will not work on 1.5.x
The core parts decide what are displayed is my called 'layout' - which must be stored somewhere in the database.
For example, I want to choose the position of module displays (left, right column or center), the display of
categories in the top menu, the links of slide pictures and their sizes to display and so on.
During each update of 'V1.4x to V1.5x' process I have to adjust or find back the 'layout'. It's a really annoying thing.
Is there a way to backup the related tables in the database so I can easily to restore the 'layout' back if I find its missing?
I can easily apply such the mature 'layout' to other websites.
That's the way I'll try later. Do you think it's feasible to update the whole local database (the database got after allWell yes file copying can take a while.. A better method is to take the download... extract it to a folder on your desktop. Then make a new zip file from the root location of the store (inside the upload folder). Then upload that to your site. That should only take like 60 secs since it is zipped. Use Cpanel's built in File manager to extract it on your webserver. It will automatically overwrite everything and only takes 10 secs. From there the files are done and you only have to run the upgrade steps to bring the database up to date.
successful updates in local server) directly to the V1.551's database newly installed in the server? Do a little adjustments
accordingly afterwards of course. In this way all the errors or mistakes during the updates will be avoided in the
web server.
Many thanks again,
Daniel