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!

[WildWayz]

Yes, you can do that, or just use it as a backup.

Each template is exported to it's own .html file so you can download them, edit them and re-import it.
I have not tried the import part - but export works

--James

[samtha25]

Bang.

[Jawelin]

Excuse. What would be the difference from a phpMyAdmin or backup.php exporting / importing ?

Thanks Firefly.
Bye

[WildWayz]

Not much really - well for backing up.

phpMyAdmin is also used as an SQL query tool and general database management, whereas backup.php just exports your data to a .sql file - makes it easier when updating forums - plus not everyone has phpMyAdmin installed.

James

[Silviu]

Yeap, excellent work. Very useful tool.

[Jawelin]

Excuse again.
What about

PHP Code:

if ($debug==1) {
    makenavoption("Download Set","template.php?action=downloadset","<br>");
    makenavoption("Upload Set","template.php?action=uploadset","<br>");
    makenavoption("Do <img> Tags","template.php?action=imgtags");
} 


just below ?




Thnx

[aldamon]

I don't mean to be crude, but OMFG!!!

Firefly and Hooper, I bought vB last year and have been reading the vB forums for over a year. COUNTLESS people have complained about template maintenance with each release. This one feature will save people, at a minimum, hours of work and vB is truly lucky to have you around.

I have seen all sorts of hacks around here, but this one really takes the cake.

Thanks!

[StarBuG]

WOW!!

VERY USEFULL!!!!!

Mybe sometimes this tool safes my ass!

Greetings

StarBuG

[Admin]

Thank you aldamon and StarBuG.

Jawelin - huh?

[WildWayz]

Want me to see if I can knock up an enhancement so it tar/gzips up the template dir and emails it to you?

--James