Upgrading iStrip

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Preamble
The purpose of this document is to cover the recommended procedures for upgrading an existing iStrip installation to the current version. If you have not installed iStrip and are installing it from scratch then refer to the installation instructions.

It is vitally important that you read through the upgrade procedure before beginning the upgrade process. As these procedures need to be followed closely, you should read through the upgrade procedure thorougherly and make sure you fully understand what to do before proceeding. Failure to do so may result in a malfunctioning or broken iStrip installation or loss of your strip archive. You have been warned.

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Upgrading from version 1.2.0 - 1.5.0
  1. There have been some changes since iStrip 1.4.0 that will require you to make some minor changes to your template files. Viewpage.php has been depreciated and its functionality has been built into index.php, so you will have to replace all references to viewpage.php with index.php references. This is simple enough, just search and replace your theme template files for 'viewpage.php' and replace all occurences with 'index.php' instead. There have also been some changes related to components so if you have used any component code in your templates then you should update that code with the code in this release.
  2. Before uploading any files you should flush out the template compile directories. Go to the configuration page on your server and perform the flush by enabling the "flush user dir" and "flush admin dir" options
  3. In order to simplify the configuration page, several advanced configuration items have beeen moved from the config file to the istrip_constants.php file. If you have modified any of the following settings then you need to edit the istrip_constants.php file before uploading it:
    • The strip directory path
    • The news directory path
    • The stripindex path/filename
    • The template opening and closing delimiters
    For more information, see the istrip_constants.php file and also the advanced configuration documentation.
  4. It is strongly recommended that you backup your strip index before performing the upgrade. To do this, copy the .stripindex file from your server to a location on your local PC. You can also backup the strips by downloading your content/strips directory and your news items by downloading your content/news directory.
  5. Delete all previous iStip files and directories from your server except:
    • Your strip directory
    • Your news directory
    • Your banner directory (if you're using banners)
    • Your .stripindex file
    • The .htaccess and .htpasswd files protecting your admin directory
    • Any custom theme directories you have installed in the Smarty templates directory
    DO NOT delete the .stripindex file or the strip or news directories. The .stripindex file is the iStrip database and the strips and news directories hold data referenced to by the strip index. Deleting the .stripindex will remove all information iStrip needs to keep track of strips! It is recommended that you back up your .stripindex file, your strip dir and your news dir by downloading a copy of them before deleting any files on the server
  6. Unpack and upload the new iStrip files, except for the files and directories mentioned above (And you definitely should NOT upload the .stripindex file included in the archive. Overwriting this file will destroy the strip database).
  7. Ensure permissions are set properly to allow iStrip to function as intended. See the installation guide for the recommended settings. The recommended settings for Apache 1.3/*ix are located here.
  8. Go to the admin configuration panel and edit your configuration. You may also want to flush the admin compile dir. There is an option for doing so on the admin configuration panel
  9. Save your new configuration, even if no settings have changed. This will ensure your configuration file is up to date.

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Upgrading from version 1.0.0 and earlier
As of version 1.2.0 of iStrip, the original template system has been replaced by Smarty. Smarty is significantly more advanced and uses a different syntax, therefore any existing templates you have made will no longer work. You will need to significantly rework them before you can use them in iStrip 1.2.0. It is recommended that you therefore clear your current templates off the server. See the template building and template variable documentation for details on creating templates. There are templates provided with this distribution and examining them will give you a good idea how to make iStrip templates. The template system is more fully documented on the Smarty home page under the section Smarty for designers. There is also a FAQ available there with some useful additional information.

iStrip 1.2.0 and later use a different config file format than older versions so it is recommended that you replace your istrip_config.php file with the one provided in this distribution and edit the configuration to your liking after upgrading. This version of iStrip will not work with old config files.
  1. Delete all previous iStrip files from your server except:
    • Your strip directory
    • Your news directory
    • Your banner directory (if you're using banners)
    • .stripindex
    • The .htaccess and .htpasswd files protecting the admin directory
    DO NOT delete the .stripindex file or the strip or news directories. The .stripindex file is the iStrip database and the strips and news directories hold data referenced to by the strip index. Deleting the .stripindex will remove all information iStrip needs to keep track of strips! It is recommended that you back up your .stripindex file, your strip dir and your news dir by downloading a copy of them before deleting any files on the server
  2. Unpack and upload the new iStrip files, except for the files and directories mentioned above (And you definitely should NOT upload the .stripindex file. Overwriting this file will destroy the strip database).
  3. 3: Ensure permissions are set properly to allow iStrip to function as intended. See the installation guide for the recommended settings. The recommended settings for Apache 1.3/*ix are located here.
  4. Go to the admin configuration panel.
  5. Make any changes you need for values you've changed from the default configuration.
  6. Save your new configuration.
It may be necessary for you to modify your templates to reflect changes made to the code. Check the change log and the pages on template building and template variables for more information

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Copyright © 2002, 2003 Gordon McVey