How close am I to an upgrade to 7.2? How painful will it be?

Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2004 6:49 pm

I haven't done my main squeeze site update of 6.9 files, except for patches, since October 2003. At that time I updated from 6.0/phpbbport to Raven's 6.9.

Now I want version 7.2 nuke. I really do. I've installed it clean on new portal site and it feels good.

How to get from this: my current nuke Raven's 6.9

101MB On Disk
7,070 files, 373 folders
170 mysql tables
375 users

and fit it into this: phpnuke ver 7.2 distro?

Tools required: phpeditor, compare it, a brilliant plan.

My pesky but totally required author table and file mods:
protector
calendar
nsn groups

Once I install the above three mods, I still need Add/Edit Admin to work. Rolling Eyes

some other addons: (without the following, my nuke won't go live for friends and family)
forums
friendfinder
msanalysis
coppermine
shoutbox 4.5 center up
Site Messenger
nukeBlog - have 1 waiting for 2

want to haves
New php chatroom solution. I'm using sigmachat java applet (not in nuke), which I adore, but it's a tad pricey.
Something ecommerce incase I ever want to sell something.

And a hundred other scripts and bits. I know some might work and some might not. That's why I need a plan.

So ... what's the plan to get my 6.9 upgraded to 7.2 and keep all the users happy?

I need 7.2 with the more integrated nuke-phpbb user account. I don't like my broken avatar fix on 6.9. In spare time, I dream of a perfect Your Account Module.

There are other issues that I hope to clear up with 7.2 ... like why won't my event calendar comments post? Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. How stupid is that? Shoutblock gradually broke the same way (while I was on a train in Texas of all things) and the only cure was to remove my textarea hack, I had the same problem with a new install of Shoutbox. It worked just fine for a year before that, then stopped working, no errors, just gradually wouldn't post the data. Question

Like the calendar comments now.

I need a better solution for my few mac users too .. theme issues and headers being sent twice stuff. What's up with that? Question

I need to think about how to implement a premium membership. As this local community is going to grow, someone has to pay the increasing server fees. I'm a disabled grandmother on a pension who nukes for hobby. I loathe to take donations because... , just because. I will be to looking at local sponsorship too (banners, yikes! Shocked

) ... there are couple of irons in the fire fundraising wise. So I need to consider that overhead and programming before the next upgrade.

And how can I make it all work faster?

off topic...
My WEAV portal SIG... Twice a month I get to show everyone else how Nuke gets installed and tweeked in a real live situation. I'm still determining how much energy is in that group, chances are 50/50 that some one is awake. I teach them my nuke/bbs skills, they teach me their php programming skills, we all come up with good ideas, everyone is happy. Smile

At least that's the way it is suppose to work. Wink

Site Admin/Owner Joined: Aug 27, 2002 Posts: 17088

CodyG wrote:

So ... what's the plan to get my 6.9 upgraded to 7.2 and keep all the users happy?

Prayer and a blood sacrifice, dancing naked under a full moon while howling. Definitely pre-requisites Laughing

You can do much because I know you a bit by now. Drop me a line with your space and bandwidth requirements and what you're paying now. Maybe I can help you there Smile

Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2004 9:26 pm

So many of the "really good solutions" out there like Typo3 (not that there are so many really good ones) is that they are young and haven't nearly the number of modules/plugins ect... like you say your users and family demand.

I went over to postnuke a while back but there still are no where near the number of hacks and full fledged modules out for it. Huge amounts of the ones that are started never get out the door. If they do they aren't kept up to date. Its a mess too.

Now they put Xanthia out and will soon put it into action in the distro. Its great but its going to force the small modules out and only the really well versed developers are going to continue on. Why because its so freakin complex. They gave it a bunch of fancy names that really dont' give the user a freakin clue WTF it is. (An advanced theme editor for smarty templates with pnRender for advanced caching ability) how hard is that to say three times? It is awesome but until everything else catches up and some plug ins get written to utilize its potential users are gonna be over whelmed and under moduled so to speak.

I installed pnCommerce and I tell ya its funny its up to date enough to use pnRender (Yeah Like I really wanna cache those pages). But there is no way to shut off features like the VAT. To do that you have edit templates uhg! I Shoulda stuck with osCommerce lol. But I can't imagine porting that into PostNuke right now. I'm like Grrr!

Uhg I feel for ya might as well backup and go for the 7.2 you can always upgrade to PostNuke when they work all the bugs out lol. After all its still Beta ya know!

Yes sir I'm votin for the Blood sacrifice and dancin in the moonlight cause it don't get much better then that!

Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2004 8:11 am

For all of the above reasons, I want to stay with Nuke. I want Nuke to evolve, I want Nuke OP. That is the solution, imho.

But until then ... I still need to take care of upgrades.

After dancing under the moon, the sacrifices, and the prayers .. how does this sound for a plan?

Backup everything.
Fresh install of 7.2 on a spare domain
Install the newest versions of all the modules I need.
Get everything working on the spare domain with the custom files and a dummy database.
Do a db backup of the old site and the new site.
Compare the differences in the sql and make the changes required for those author mods and anything else, creating a custom update.php file.
backup everything again.
Transfer the new files to the site needing upgrading.
Run the tweeked update sql.

It sounds simple enough, eh? This was the method I used for the last update, but I had some issues in regards to themes, and auto increments, and some other issues I didn't see coming. But I fixed them eventually. Yet I think there is an easier way... I just can't get my head all the way around it ... something like compare the old files with the new files, make changes, after backup, install new files ... but I still have run a custom db update.php. right?

I know it's not impossible.

Years ago my computer club asked me to work on the switch from their well loved PCBoard to Wildcat Winserver. If PCBoard was Y2K compatible, the mail doors were not. Anyways, there were a few thousand paid up members in the database and I had to keep the two programs insync for months. The old board was running as it always did, the Wildcat was exactly the same, except for the new stuff, all the while teaching the users about Wildcat Winserver and also bringing on that new fangled internet stuff.

I have a way with difficult things when the other side of that fire is what I really want.

Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2004 8:16 am

CodyG,

Basically the same approach I take. Depending on your 'gut' feel for the sql, there are some great utilities at hotscripts.com for comparing databases and even producing the sql for the updates! I'm at work right now but I have used them at home from time to time.

Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2004 8:38 am

I feel very comfortable in phpmyadmin. I've read the sql manual too. I have a good picture in my head of every field in those 170 tables. I "finessed" all kinds of inserts line by line for the last upgrade. (My workaround for a missing cool utility.)

So back to the plan ... fresh install, including fresh three pesky modules, getting all the $sels right. Edit Admin will work.

A big empty, but new, 7.2 with the features of my 6.9 ... and newer versions of those features, if available. (upgrades are all good)

Editing the files: compare it: for root /admin /custom mods /custom mods in mods
What about images? what about themes? add to the live site when? timing?

create custom update.php file

I feel very comfortable in phpmyadmin. I've read the sql manual too. I have a good picture in my head of every field in those 170 tables. I "finessed" all kinds of inserts line by line for the last upgrade. (My workaround for a missing cool utility.)