The reason I am putting this here instead of the programming forum is because everyone on staff needs to know what is going on and so understand it and not PANIC :rotflm::rotflm:
The upgrade to VB4 is rather large in scope because jelsoft has changed a lot of the visible paradigm and almost all of the internal paradigm. In response almost every add on that we use or want to use had to be changed by their authors. Also a major part of the way that vBulletin allows us to modify the look and feel of the system is something called templates. They made a minor change to the template system, but it requires that EVERY template in the system be changed. Thus most of our customizations will have to be updated. That's the bad news.
The good news is I have already made a copy of our system and then upgraded it to vb4 and found that that many of our changes will not be required to made immediately, and many will not need to be made at all, becuase the software will already do that for us.
Also, another part of this good news is that we have at least twice before done an upgrade of this magnitude before. And from that I/we have learned a lot about the best way to do an upgrade of this magnitude with this software.
One other piece of bad??? news. There is no direct replacment for our current classifieds system. I have 2 potential replacements, but neither of them is capable of accepting our existing ads.
So here are the basic steps.
Announce to the whole site that there will be an upcoming update and explain the situation with the classifieds and explain that we are going to stop accepting new classifieds, effective immedetely. But the listings will stay up and the ability to use the system to make offers, etc.
At this point we will have all basic functionality running and we will have the main aspects of the new functionality displayed and working.
From this point we will have a list what we still need to customize and modify and/or add and even delete. We'll add them to the "staff to do" and start working them off, but keep the system running.
There is also an enhanced mobile app functionality for iphone, ipad and android devices, but I'm not sure how long that will take becuase I have not yet had a chance to review what we get from vbulletin and I don't have any idea how long the various approvals for IOS and Android apps are. I'll update you all as soon as I have any idea.
The upgrade to VB4 is rather large in scope because jelsoft has changed a lot of the visible paradigm and almost all of the internal paradigm. In response almost every add on that we use or want to use had to be changed by their authors. Also a major part of the way that vBulletin allows us to modify the look and feel of the system is something called templates. They made a minor change to the template system, but it requires that EVERY template in the system be changed. Thus most of our customizations will have to be updated. That's the bad news.
The good news is I have already made a copy of our system and then upgraded it to vb4 and found that that many of our changes will not be required to made immediately, and many will not need to be made at all, becuase the software will already do that for us.
Also, another part of this good news is that we have at least twice before done an upgrade of this magnitude before. And from that I/we have learned a lot about the best way to do an upgrade of this magnitude with this software.
One other piece of bad??? news. There is no direct replacment for our current classifieds system. I have 2 potential replacements, but neither of them is capable of accepting our existing ads.
So here are the basic steps.
Announce to the whole site that there will be an upcoming update and explain the situation with the classifieds and explain that we are going to stop accepting new classifieds, effective immedetely. But the listings will stay up and the ability to use the system to make offers, etc.
- On a predetermined and announced Thursday midnight, take the system down.
- Backup the complete system and store it in several places.
- Do a complete cleanup of all files from our root down. There are almost 7 years of accumulated flotsam and jetsam that re not needed but we are never quite sure if we need then so they stay around. If we delete almost all of them, the process of reinstalling and updating should tell us which ones need to be brought back from the backup.
- A similar process with the DB should also be done, becuase we have both tables and fields in tables that are longer needed or even used.
- Update to vBulletin 4.0 and configure
- Put in place first stab at the new CMS structure and organization
- Update to Photopost 8.0 and configure
- Update or replace Downloads Library
- Update or replace Link Library
- Update vBulletin Search Engine Optimization configure
- Install and configure new classifieds program
- Make our regular ads work within vb4 add system with some minimal use.
- Install Wiki and instructions
- Setup formalized eProject Log system - Think ErnieM's Harpsichord Project except formalized and highly visible. Same with Monty's Bench and any other we can find.:eusa_danc
- Setup Project Article system (can't think of a good example right now.
- Setup or refine helpdesk and bug reporting system
- Reopen website with big flourish:wav: :wav::rotflm::rotflm:
At this point we will have all basic functionality running and we will have the main aspects of the new functionality displayed and working.
From this point we will have a list what we still need to customize and modify and/or add and even delete. We'll add them to the "staff to do" and start working them off, but keep the system running.
There is also an enhanced mobile app functionality for iphone, ipad and android devices, but I'm not sure how long that will take becuase I have not yet had a chance to review what we get from vbulletin and I don't have any idea how long the various approvals for IOS and Android apps are. I'll update you all as soon as I have any idea.
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