Questions about Upgrading to 3.7.1

[jpapadpapa]

I hope I did not mess things up. I should have asked first, but I've done a couple upgrades on another forum I own, so I didn't know that I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't realize that I might have to go about the upgrading process differently, since the board I'm upgrading now is so heavily modded.

Anyway, I already went through the whole process as it directs on vBulletin.com, but now I see that I am being prompted to revert back to some of the original templates and then go through and add my mods again. Is this what I want to do? One thing I'm concerned about is the appearance of the board. I added a style and then customized the colors and added a few things, so I have a lot of time invested. I'm scared of reverting the templates back because I guess I'll lose all of my work. I am just a little confused about what to do next.

[dtv100]

the way I did it on my board was I use Araxis Merge to compare the templates.

I add a new style with no mods and compare my default mod skin with the new one with all codes change issue by 3.7.1

Araxis Merge is not free but I sure there got to be something alike out there free or cheaper.

[parash]

Before you want to do upgrade why not ...use same database and make new test forum and upgrade test forums .....check over it if something goes wrong which will make easier to compare the upgrade bugs

[Opserty]

You can use the "View History" (I think that is what it is called) option to compare the templates, set the New and Old templates on the page the appears then it will highlight what has been added and what has been removed.

Unfortunately there is no easy way to get round this, you just have to sit there and copy across code.

[mikesz]

As recommended, you really do need a diff utilty. If you revert, for sure, you can kiss your mods to the template goodbye because the template gets replaced with a clean default version of the target template. If you do a diff between your modded template and the clean default, you can usually figure out what you need to change in your custom template to make it work. Make sure you have a backup before you start.

Forgot about the compare utility just mentioned. That, for sure, is a help to scope the job you need to do to fix the problem.

HTH, mikesz

[Dismounted]

Or you can use TMS (by Andreas) which can handle all template modifications. It only works if you start off using it though.

[jpapadpapa]

Okay, I think I'm getting a better idea of what to do. But, I'm still a little unsure of how to handle the style because I am using a style (Easy Action) that will not be updated to 3.7 because the guy who created it sold all his styles to another company. The new owner started a new thread with the official supported version of "Easy Action". I did not know this until I had already installed the unsupported version and done a bunch of changes.

So, I am guessing that either way I'm screwed. I will still have to go in and redo everything, right? But, what do I do first? Download the supported version of the style and then make my changes with the templates? Or, would it be better to revert back to the default so things at least function alright until I can get the changes done?

[Dismounted]

Create a test board and update the style there. Export it and then import it into your main board.