How to update Template step by step without loosing changes

Hello,
I use the memovie template Version 1.30. Now I think I should update it, but I don´t want to overwrite my own changes. So I wanted to make every single update manually, by comparing each changes and save my own ones.
But the problem is: Older updates are not available on the updates mainpage.
I wanted to start with the update to V2.0.0
But there is no file to download...
When I copy the latest version over my old one my handmade changes are gone - and I´m sure, I´ll never got them back!

Do you have an archive, where all updates are stored or what can I do?

Hi

Every changes on updates of templates are specified in the respective announcement page.
Depending of your level of customization, normally you just need to replace files.
In our latest projects, we included an override.css file that like the name specifies, it will overrule the classes added on the original css files. This is very important for those who make changes on template style, because it will make the process of updating much more easier and organized.

In your case, the changes are on complete different level, because the framework is not the same.
So in this cases, i recommend the use of some program that can compare files.
WinMerge program is one of the cases.
You can check more informations on this page of our Magazine.

Hope this could be helpful

Cheers

Why don't you just backup your site and install it locally. Copy your copy of the template directory to an alternative location or just rename it.

Now install the latest version of the template available from the downloads area.

If you don't have a compare tool you can use this free utility Winmerge if you're using Linux, you probably already have a decent compare tool.

Before you make any changes make a security backup of your original live template (just in case you make a mistake).

Run the compare tool against the two directories or file by file and transfer the changes over.

If you haven't already been using the override.css now would be a good opportunity to build an overrides.css. When you hit a change in the files, copy your change into the override.css file rather than
the core files. This will make life much easier in future when you come to upgrade.

You don't need to copy whole css code blocks only the part that is different.

#something {
padding: 0 10px;
color: #000;
}

If only the color has changed you only need to add this to the override.css.

#something {
color: #000;
}

When you have made the changes locally you can simply upload the edited files to your live server, without the risk of any loss or time frame pressure.

This may not be very helpful if you want to do incremental updates. If you aim to update to the latest version, you're just going to add to your workload using an incremental process. You will also increase the odds of creating an error in my experience.

Good luck with your update.

Edit: I took too long typing my reply.

Note: If your template doesn't have an override.css file as part of the default template, you can simply add your own. Create a file called override.css in your templates css directory. Then you need to include a link to the override file in the doc header. I'm not familiar with your templates structure but there will be either an index.php, head.php or some other .php file which controls the header includes. Find that file and add something like this towards the end of the css style includes (it needs to be the last css file in the load order).

Code: Select all

<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php echo $this->baseurl ?>/templates/<?php echo $this->template?>/css/override.css" type="text/css" />

Once you have added the line refresh the browser and inspect the page source. If you have entered the line correctly, you should see the override.css style sheet included in the header of the document. You could add a simple css code test to your override.css file, to see if your override file is being called correctly.

Okay, after a long day I think I´ve copied all my changes from my main site to my mirrored site. What a crappy work, I used to compress my css-files on my old template version...
But now they are quite similar, but there are some problems:

First, my main site, perfectly changed, but with the very old template: My original site
Now, my copy to work with on an other server: site to be changed

As you can see, on my old page I´ve managed to have three nice banners under the slideshow. Now, with the new framework I absolutely can´t transfer this small code changes. I would lie if I say that I was able to do this by myself with the "old" template (my old help-thread). But now? No Idea how to transfer this...

Next problem:
Since the update I got an error message in IE8

Meldung: 'null' ist Null oder kein Objekt
Zeile: 244
Zeichen: 3
Code: 0
URI: http://testserver.grizzlyworld.de/templ ... .script.js

And again, no idea what to do. And I still have to update the template modules and components, I´m afraid there will be many more problems...

If you need to have an admin account, I´ll send you this per PM.

Thanks if anyone could solve my problems

Greets,
Stephanie

Hi

Why don't you try publishing this 3 banners on "top" module position instead of "banner3# position?

About the problem with ie8 error, are you sure that all 3th extensions do have mootools 1.2 support?

Cheers

When I publish them on top, they are not perfectly centered like I wanted to have them. I´ve made a screenshot of it. Same problem was in the old template, so I got the tipp to change the position of the top module. But where was this change? I can´t remember...I´m an old woman

And mootools 1.2? I haven´t updated all GK modules so far, I wanted to start with the hardest one, the template. Maybe I have to update them now, I hope the error will be gone then. I´ll see...

Send me admin access to have a quick look.

paulo[at]gavick[dot]com

Make reference of this topic on your email.

Hi again

The problem with the 3 banners is solved, by placing this module on "top" position and adding "[space]nopadding" module suffix.

About the error on IE8, this comes from the tools script (increasing/decreasing font feature) and some possible conflict with other (don't know were). For now i disable it, but i will see if this comes from us. If so, i will get back to you again.

Cheers

Thank you so much!
Now I have two identical websites and I can update my main website without any problem.