Template Backup System!

Hi everyone.

Here's my newest hack, called Template Backup System (TBS).
This is a very powerful tool for backing up and restoring your templates, especially good for upgrades.

I know you can do this using vBulletin's buil in style manager, but the beauty in this hack is that it exports only templates, and further more - they are saved to individual files in a folder you choose.

Why you ask? This could help a lot when upgrading to a new version of vBulletin. Just like you can compare files using programs such as Araxis Merge or Beyone Compare, you can now also compare templates, and easily keep track of changes that were done between versions.
After you save all changes to the template files, you use this script again only this time in the opposite directions - restoring the templates back into the system.

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This hack was in testing process for quite some time now, over a week and a half actually.
It has been tested extensively by the magnificent Hooper, and I truly believe it's 99% bug-free.
Most of the features in the hack are actually his ideas, so thanks a lot Rick!

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Before I continue, I need to say the expanding / collapsing feature will only work on Internet Explorer. It was only tested on it really, but I think the style.display thing is only supported by it.

Anyway, let's install this baby.

First of all, we need to edit admin/index.php a little bit.
Find this:

makenavoption("Add Template Set","template.php?action=addset");

and replace it with this:

[high]makenavoption("Add Template Set","template.php?action=addset","<br>");
makenavoption("Template Backup System","tbs.php?action=modify");[/high]

Save admin/index.php and upload back to your server.

Now edit cp.css (in the main forums folder). Now here's a file you don't edit often, huh?
Find this:

.cc { /* custom color */
	COLOR: darkblue;
}

and add this right after it:

[high].rc { /* custom color */
	COLOR: darkred;
} [/high]

Save cp.css and upload back to your server.

And last but not least, download tbs.php (attached to this post) and upload to your admin folder on your server.

That's it, installation is done.

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A few notes.

You can add new groups for template listing by editing tbs.php.
At the top, you will see something like this:

$groups['calendar']='Calendar';
$groups['emailsubject']='Email Subject';

and much more. To add your own group, simply add this:

$groups['[high]template_identifier[/high]']='[high]Group Name[/high]';

[high]template_identifier[/high] is the beginning of each template in this group, and [high]Group Name[/high] is the name of this group.

When saying "Using this requires a minimum amount of RAM." I am not kidding. If you don't have enough memory your browser will simply crash when clicking the Check All box. Trust me.

Make sure the folder you are saving templates into is CHMODed 0777, or PHP will not be able to create files in it. Also, the folder is a relative path to the admin folder, not the forums folder!

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That's all I have to say.
Feedback and feature requests are welcomed as always!

Have fun!

[TheComputerGuy]

nice work nice work, FireFly deserves title "Hacker That Makes Life Easier"

All in favor use the hack like me

[Hooper]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by holev
great hack!
but one question..
why save it as .html's on the server? visitors can go around stealing your templates. why not export as a .zip to your pc?

[Crinos]

or you can just rename the folder where you store your templates into something else only "you" know ... it doesn't have to be /templates for the hack to work

[Axel Foley]

Chen, in tbs.php line 569 there is:

PHP Code:

  makeyesnocode("Choose templates to export selectively?<br>(otherwise all templates will be exported)","selecttemplates",1); 


Should be:

PHP Code:

  makeyesnocode("Choose templates to import selectively?<br>(otherwise all templates will be imported)","selecttemplates",1); 


And I also wanted to ask you a question. If I set NO to "Choose templates to import selectively?" will it import ALL the templates or will it import only modified templates?

Could you explain a little bit what Initially Check means?

Thanks for the great hack! It saves LOTS of time...

[VirtueTech]

finally

Great job FireFly!

[Hooper]

Hmmm. I didn't catch that Import /Export line . You may have just mentioned that one word needed changing. At least it's Not a bug.

I believe on import if select all is checked it will import all templates that you exported as such. So if you check all the default as well as Custom templates but not changed templates, It will import as such.

[Parker Clack]

I nominate this for hack of the year. This is such a timesaver. It imports as well as exports without a hitch.

Great job Chen and Hooper!

[Axel Foley]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Hooper
Hmmm. I didn't catch that Import /Export line . You may have just mentioned that one word needed changing. At least it's Not a bug.

I believe on import if select all is checked it will import all templates that you exported as such. So if you check all the default as well as Custom templates but not changed templates, It will import as such.

[Hooper]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Axel Foley


You haven't read my post carefully. Where have you read the word BUG? Look at the subject of my post, it says TYPO.

Regarding your explanation, it's not very clear what you mean, I think you didn't catch what I'm asking. And since this hack deals with templates (a delicate matter ) I think it's better if Chen (or Hooper which is the betatester) replies to my post.

C'ya...

[Axel Foley]

That's what happens when you don't sleep for 24hrs...

Sorry Hooper...

Anyway...I didn't understand the explanation...