About to update 'Uniform' Style, but unsure what edits I'll lose

ALFrisbee

Active member
A little while back our forum site had the 'Uniform' style implemented/installed. Looks great, especially the feature allowing us to have custom backgrounds.

After taking over the admin work, and being quite a XenForo/php/css noob, I did an upgrade to XenForo to the latest version. All went well, except I ended up getting prompted in the CP saying I had 'out of date templates/phrases'. It was (unfortunately) only after reverting a few templates, that I found out that they were marked as 'out of date' as they were from the Uniform Style, which hadn't been updated, and thus by reverting them I've mucked up the display of a couple of my forum areas.

e.g. if you look at www.xdsclan.com, on the Home tab, the bits circled in green below are the right Style, but the bit in red uses one of the Templates that I (stupidly) reverted post the XenForo upgrade:

3.webp

I now have the updated Uniform files, and am ready to install them ... however I was wondering if anyone had advice as to how to check for the location of edits/customisations in the files, before I update the Uniform Style, and potentially lose any customisations that've been made!

Thx heaps in advance!
 
Importing a style will not overwrite any customizations you have made, unless (during the import) you choose the option to overwrite an existing style. Otherwise all deletions are done manually by reverting templates.
 
Importing a style will not overwrite any customizations you have made, unless (during the import) you choose the option to overwrite an existing style. Otherwise all deletions are done manually by reverting templates.
Thx Jake. Just to confirm, I only have/use the one style (Uniform) ... and i'm wanting to update it with the new Uniform files.
Does what you've said still apply? Or only for when you're importing a new/different style?
 
Import the new version as a new style, so you will have two of that style. Then you can apply your custom templates to that new version of the style.

In the future I suggest applying your template changes to a child of that style. That way you can override the parent and the template changes will automatically apply
 
Import the new version as a new style, so you will have two of that style. Then you can apply your custom templates to that new version of the style.

In the future I suggest applying your template changes to a child of that style. That way you can override the parent and the template changes will automatically apply
Good stuff, thanks Jake, I'll give that a go!
 
Uh oh ... so I can't quite do this as easily as originally thought.
As the Style is the same name as the existing one, if I FTP to my server, it'll overwrite the existing 'Uniform' files.
If I rename the Uniform folder, which gets uploaded under the \Styles directly on the server (of which there's of course already a 'Uniform' folder present), I assume a bunch of the references in the xml install script (and other files) will be broken?

I tried a few things anyway, making sure I didn't overwrite any existing files, or overwrite the existing style, but tried the 'Import' (plus I tried 'create') style, and now have managed to totally break my site :(
[edit, no ... site back up ... it was crashing out during the 'Rebuilding caches ... templates' bit earlier ... and don't think it ever finished properly (just got white screen when I tried to browse our site) ... just did another import of the style, and it finished the cache rebuild ... and site now back up]

Any advice on how to import/upload a new version of my Uniform style, without overwriting what's there??
(As I'm not familiar with the underlying code, i'm not confident in going through all of the files and changing references to a different folder path (but could easily with some guidance if that's what's required).

I'm not sure if i'm making sense :(
 
I was talking about the XML, not the separate image files. Those files can be dealt with separately. If the new version of the style has new images then you can upload only those new images.
 
Now that I've had a closer look through each of the (many) subfolders in the update, they're indeed just images, with an accompanying index.html in each.
(with the exception of a couple of js files).
So in theory, can I leave all of those subfolders containing the images, and NOT FTP them up (ideally I don't want to overwrite/change any images until I've tested it), and simply create a new Style by installing the xml file only?
I did try that first, but the cache rebuild process kept hanging halfway, so thought that that was because I hadn't uploaded the accompanying image files?
 
That is not related to the image files.

If the rebuild process fails after installing a style then a white screen is expected because the cache didn't finish rebuilding. Installing the style again will work because that rebuilds the cache again. Or you can visit /install and click the button to rebuild the master data. That will rebuild the cache without installing anything. If the rebuild stalls or gives an error then try refreshing the page until it completes.
 
Ah thankyou, I didn't know about the /install trick (was searching madly for options in the ACP to rebuilt the template cache when my site was 'down' earlier ... ended up re-importing the style xml file to make it do it, after which it came good, phew!).
Ok, so where i'm at now, is that i've successfully created a child style, under my existing 'Uniform', for 'Uniform v1.1.3' ... but as it doesn't have any corresponding files/images behind it (i.e I didn't FTP them up to the site) it looks broken :)
Is it possible for me to rename the upload folder, to Uniform_v1.1.3 (instead of just Uniform), then have the 'imported style' referencing the files in that renamed folder?
 
A child style is identical to the parent. Then you can further customize templates and settings in the child.

The style image path is a property:

Admin CP -> Appearance -> Style Properties -> General -> Path to Images
 
Thanks again Jake.
So with the 'path to images' still pointing to "styles/uniform" for my newly imported child Style, technically even though i haven't uploaded the new image set, it should still be able to get the images it needs from the path above (because it's simply an updated Style for what's on my forum already, not a totally different Style).
The fact that it looks 'broken' might be due to me not having done something with the templates?
I can't help but feel like i'm lacking a basic understanding here ... which is confusing the issue :( Apologies.
 
Post a URL showing what is broken. I will take a look.
http://xdsclan.com/ ... i've now enabled the 'Uniform v1.1.3' Style to be selectable by users (had it hidden before).
I'm going to assume that it's just the templates that aren't linked (or linked properly) to the new child style ... but tbh, I don't really know how to do that properly, or more to the point, which templates i need to link in?
 
The main section of page sits too high (or our logo too low), i.e. they overlap. The font colours/graphics are a tad mucked up (easier to see on the Forums tab).
It's most likely just broken (or not included/linked) templates?
Is it easy to explain what I need to do to get the templates used for Uniform, also included for the sub-Style Uniform v1.1.3?
 
The main section of page sits too high (or our logo too low), i.e. they overlap.

Probably adjust this setting:

Admin CP -> Appearance -> Style Properties -> Header and Navigation -> Height of Header Logo

Is it easy to explain what I need to do to get the templates used for Uniform, also included for the sub-Style Uniform v1.1.3?

Probably manual copy and paste between styles since they are two separate existing styles. A child style would be good for template customizations moving foward though.

The font colours/graphics are a tad mucked up (easier to see on the Forums tab).

I need specific examples so I can provide specific instructions.
 
Import the new version as a new style, so you will have two of that style. Then you can apply your custom templates to that new version of the style.

In the future I suggest applying your template changes to a child of that style. That way you can override the parent and the template changes will automatically apply

This may be answered elsewhere, but I cannot find it. I did what you suggest, but now see two "default styles". Can I rename one of the two so I can tell them apart?
 
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