X-Cart forums

[muppie]

Hello,

I've just gone through the pain of upgrading xcart and ended up installing from scratch.

I noticed that if I customize the template, the upgrade process will get stuck.

How do you guys handle xcart upgrades with customized templates?

Thanks for the tips.

[adpboss]

By hand. Slowly and surely. Line by line modifying code.

If you are not running a stable version or an early point release then it shouldn't be too much work.

Constantly upgrading while developing or live can be an enormous hassle.

[Caue]

Sorry for "ressurecting" but this topic is quite "date-independent", and also the only subject relative topic I could find.

This is the old "please, look at me and help me out" kind of question, but I believe it could easyly lead into a FAQ on "How to prepare your X-Cart customizing for updates" or maybe "How X-Cart updating system works" would also be enough.


Now, taking a deeper look into my question...

I can see now that the more you customize your X-Cart, the harder updates will be.

But I wonder up to what point.

I mean, what can I customize that will not affect update and security packges? Of course, upgrades will always need a hand on re-configuring stuff because new settings will come, and old settings will be obsolete...

But, as far as I could see in 1 day, if I change only the template and database, I probably will have to do about nothing after some minor update, and specially security patches. Probably just put in there and use it.

What about changing the PHP files? Is there a limit? If I add lines to a file, instead of replacing or removing, will that affect further updates?

In fact, what I wish to know is how the update works. I only noticed it checks if it has permissions on replacing files, and I believe after that it only goes on on copying new files over the current ones. Is that all the update system does?

By the way, I am familiar with scripting and PHP, although I don't know much deeper inside on the new technologies such as Smarty and PHP Accelerator, I have no problems on customizing anything on X-Cart. I just want to know where I'm stepping on before going crazy, if you know what I mean.

[shan]

for the most part upgrade go on most files but it is a case of the more you change the more chance that those files will need updating by hand.

Also think about which version you use.

installing V4.0.13 is not gonna need upgrading too much as most of the problems have been resolved.

[Caue]

Yeah, that's what I were trying to say that I know already.

Also, I'm concerned about future upgrades and mostly updates.

Anyway even talking in my original language with my dad, my brothers or my friend, I'm quite used to people not understanding what I'm trying to say. :P

So, I'll keep trying...

I want technical details. I don't want to know how it's scripted, although if I have to go and look how the scripts work I can do it, and it will take me a lot of time and I'll probably just let it go and forget about concerning with updates.

I want to know how the updating system / module works so I can prevent myself from scripting wrong things that will disturb it while it may be not needed, or it might have a way to do it that will get along with the updating module.

I do already know that by changing whatever I want only on database and template (I mean the content, not the indexes, of course) the update will probably work flawless, unless it's a major upgrade totally unpredicted thing.

This happens because those two things are already set in a way expecting that updates will come. I could also change stuff in the same way if I knew how the update works.

The main reason I'm concerned is purely security. I do not know how secure the cart is right now and I do not know if tomorrow they gona release a security patch that is very complicated to manually apply. But ANY updates and upgrades they release for SURE will fit the untouched version and MOST LIKELY any version that had changes only on database and template.

But, also it's always good to have your website updated with new features as well, and open to easyly set new paid modules what so ever.

Anyway, thanks for your reply, shan. It is much appreciated!