js Conflict in admin panel – I guess it’s from the core WP installation

A client’s site: causing serious js conflict or js loading disabilities, is under custody. Activating DEBUG, Deactivating all Plugins, and Activating Default theme “T13” found that, still the problem resides. The DEBUG is totally fine – no disabilities or mis-functionalities. It was in an Old WP version, I updated everything – so now it’s all UPDATED. (WP version 3.6.1 as on today)

Symptoms

• Can’t add/edit any post/page content — isn’t loading the default editor, can’t even switch to the HTML mode, because tab’s not working
• The sub menus are not opening on hover, suppose I want to go to the Widgets page, then I need to click on the Appearance link then to the Widgets link. Hover is not working there.
• Tabs are not working – tried Skitter slide show in an instant, can’t configure it from back-end because it’s not functioning with its tabs.

The client’s site is an Online Newspaper site and have many news – the database size is huge. If I take the theme and install a new fresh WordPress then:

• What would I do with the old database? How can I import all the posts etc. into the new installation of WordPress so that I get them nicely work with the new WP installation? — is simply a WordPress Import (Tools » Import) can solve the problem or can it cause much greater problems?

Otherwise,

• How can I resolve the js conflict or js loading disabilities in wp-admin?

Script debugging in WP

The constant SCRIPT_DEBUG is used to switch between minified and not minified versions of JavaScript files. But there’s more.

$file.js

Check if you’re using CONCATENATE_SCRIPTS and COMPRESS_SCRIPTS as well. Both are only used by core admin per default, but I use it in my themes as well to check which bag of scripts I’m loading. So watch out for it, set it and see the following example.

$extensionJS = (
    ( defined( 'COMPRESS_SCRIPTS' ) AND COMPRESS_SCRIPTS )
    AND ( defined( 'CONCATENATE_SCRIPTS' ) AND CONCATENATE_SCRIPTS )
    AND ! ( defined( 'SCRIPT_DEBUG' ) AND SCRIPT_DEBUG )
)
    ? '.min' : '';

$file.css

For completeness here’s the CSS example

$extensionCSS = ( defined( 'COMPRESS_CSS' ) AND COMPRESS_CSS ) ? '.min' : '';

You don’t need it…

Anyway, since we got Google Chrome Dev Tools, it’s pretty pointless to switch between compressed and uncompressed versions – as long as you didn’t use some minification process like “uglify” that’s renaming your variables to shorten them – as GC got “Pretty Print”. See the following example from the “Sources” tab (hit script link in “Elements” tab to open your file there). Image made with LiceCap.