Upgrading Customised Boards - List of Template Edits?

[Matt_270581]

I have a highly customised board. I would like to do the Vbulletin Edits instead of reinstalling all my hacks etc when upgrading from 3.67 to 3.68. Where do I get a list of all the exact changes for doing this so I can find and replace/edit all templates?

[Steve Machol]

Upgrading will not overwrite your custom templates. After you upgrade there will be a link to all the templates that are new and that you have customized. You can click on the link and use the 'View History' option which will bring up a side-by-side comparison of your custom template and the new default one, with all differences highlighted.

[DiSpy]

My problem is that the upgrade process overwrites the "default" templates with the new ones, and there is now no record of the last versions' default one to see what has changed. If it would save the last default template in the history BEFORE overwriting with the new versions default template, then we could easily see what you have changed since the last version, and incorporate the changes into our highly customized templates.

My customized template is just sooo different than the default one that it is almost impossible to do a side-by-side comparison of the two.

[Steve Machol]

My problem is that the upgrade process overwrites the "default" templates with the new ones, and there is now no record of the last versions' default one to see what has changed.

Honestly that is not possible with the default vB (assuming you have not installed a modification to break this.)

If you have uploaded the files correctly then the upgrade process would only change the 'master' template set and those templates do not overwrite any template that has been cusomized. Only templates that had not been modified would be updated.

[DiSpy]

Hmm... sorry, you don't get what i'm saying...

The upgrade process overwrites the "master" set (as you call it), but doesn't save the old "master" set from the last version in the history (changelog) when it overwrites it.

Therefore, you go into the default "master" set and all you see is the new upgraded set, and there's no way to see what was changed from the old set to the new set.

I wasn't saying that it overwrote my custom styles or anything like that. The child and sister sets that I create and/or modify from the origional are fine, but I keep the original "master" set, and it gets overwritten each and every upgrade, without keeping track of the changes.

I'm sorry that I can't explain better what i'm talking about... I hope you are following what i'm trying to say this time.

[Steve Machol]

That's correct, but those are not custom templates which was the original point I though you were making.

There is no function to keep copies of all the old master templates or to track the changes. They are overwritten every time you upgrade.

[raiderlax]

Just make backups of the modifcation template edits and than you have to re do the edits in the new vb templates.

[DiSpy]

There is no function to keep copies of all the old master templates or to track the changes. They are overwritten every time you upgrade.

...and that's my point exactly. It should track the changes with the built-in vB "history". That feature was one of the reasons (granted one of many) that I switched to vB.

[feldon23]

I also had a need to compare the ORIGINAL 3.6.7 templates to the ORIGINAL 3.6.8 templates. Being able to compare the two would make it possible to get the vector (changes) between the two and then apply those same changes to my customized templates. Very often it is a minor change that Jelsoft has made from one version to another.

Although it does not provide syntax highlighting (it won't highlight the changes), I have written a PHP script that will show you side-by-side the same template from two different versions of vBulletin. You need to upload the XML file for each version of vBulletin you want to be able to analyse.

http://www.feldoncentral.com/forumpics/vb3templatebrowser/

Hopefully I don't get banned for posting this info.

[framer]

Maybe someone can clear this up for me. The upgrade that I see uses my custom code and creates a new template.

If it works fine then I need to do nothing?

framer

[aranthorn]

If the customizations use the templatre hook system, you have no worries at all.

If they use manual template edits, that's a different story.

What type of customizations are you talking about?