Upgrade cycle, more for member comment that a hard and fast suggestion ...

[Jethro]

One of the things that really really irritates me with my present brand of software is the amount of freaking upgrades each year that now require pretty much a whole day to implement. When you have done three in two months it's getting beyond the point of endurance and you start to wonder whether or not having forums is such a good idea. I'm getting tired installing not only the core software, but upgraded mods and skins as well.

Okay putting soap box away for the moment.

Anyone else agree?

I would like to see major new releases of Xen, remembered not to call it Zen, at the most once a year with point releases not requiring major site rebuilds. Is this possible, is it desirable, what do folks think?

 

[Floris]

I actually want quick maintenance releases that occur frequently enough.
The software is new and there's enough work to be done for it. I think regular enough releases will help improve features, fix permission issues, functionality, and allow for somewhat rapid deployment. I don't mind that I upgrade quarterly to new versions or maintenance releases.

 

[Andy Huang]

Once a year is leaving a lot of potential bugs unfixed...
You can easily elect to not upgrade a specific point release, and upgrade a bunch of them in one go should you wish to do so. But I don't think community would generally be glad about that...

 

[Jethro]

Remembering folks point releases allow for bug fixes etc, and can be done multiple times during the year. I'm talking major releases where you need your styles updated, any mods you have updated, and pretty much your entire forums rebuilt to a new version. When you run a site with over 12 styles and a couple of major modules it can become a nightmare, as you not only have to worry about the core software but you also need to ensure the third party suppliers have releases that are up to date. This is particularly true if forum software is only one aspect of your net solution, requiring a lot of effort to maintain in comparison to other aspects of your site.

 

[Brandon_R]

One of the things that really really irritates me with my present brand of software is the amount of freaking upgrades each year that now require pretty much a whole day to implement. When you have done three in two months it's getting beyond the point of endurance and you start to wonder whether or not having forums is such a good idea. I'm getting tired installing not only the core software, but upgraded mods and skins as well.

Okay putting soap box away for the moment.

Anyone else agree?

I would like to see major new releases of Xen, remembered not to call it Zen, at the most once a year with point releases not requiring major site rebuilds. Is this possible, is it desirable, what do folks think?

I don't think xenForo will have that many changes per upgrade instead just some bug fixes etc which most likely won't interfere with mods and styles, hopefully. But there is always an exception.

 

[Floris]

Security releases, maintenance releases, beta releases, developer releases, or point or major releases, it's all fine with me. I believe the product is dynamic enough to grow, and extend, and during upgrades it might take little time to tweak to new situations, but it shouldn't require source code changes and all that. So there shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Dean]

If the modification/theme community cannot keep up with each release, then the customers, in addition to the people that make the modifications/themes, will become increasingly frustrated. If that happens enough it will discourage using the software.

It is a balance. xf could be the easiest software to write modifications and themes for, but if those are sufficiently complicated, they will be difficult to keep maintained.

The software should not be updated any more than it needs to be (whatever that means).

.

 

[Floris]

They don't have to keep up. Properly coded addons and customizations should not be conflicting with point releases, major code change releases say version 2.0 to 3.1, should be enough time for people to update their addons / customizations.

I rather see progress, than legacy idle time because there's a portion of customers running outdated customizations.

 

[Jethro]

They don't have to keep up. Properly coded addons and customizations should not be conflicting with point releases, major code change releases say version 2.0 to 3.1, should be enough time for people to update their addons / customizations.

I rather see progress, than legacy idle time because there's a portion of customers running outdated customizations.

We may be arguing at cross purposes here. Would agree that addons should in the main handle point releases, maybe some tweaking, if coded using standard classes etc, it's when the standard classes change and the underlying structure becomes a new beast, your example of 2.0 to 3.1. Taking into account most third party developers are doing it in their spare time and have other commitments, rapid changes can lead to frustration for all parties.

Please note no one is having a go at Xen here, I'm just getting my frustrations with other software out in the open.

 

[Floris]

i think it is reasonable to ask someone that develops software FOR a platform, to update their software if their platform changes. I doubt this will be a weekly basis or even monthly, but it's realistic to expect that it's at least in between bigger version changes.

 

[feldon30]

The issue is ease of upgrades, not frequency. Address the real problem.

• Step 1: Forum Backup
• Step 2: Post announcement.
• Step 3: Wait 15-30 minutes.
• Step 4: Shut down forum.
• Step 5a: Download a GZIP file, SSH into your website, extract the GZ file to the right place. CHMOD *. CHOWN *.
• Step 5b: Download a ZIP file, extracting it, and replace ~400 files by FTP.
• Step 6: Update templates as needed.
• Step 7: Check any plugins to make sure they are still working.
• Step 8: Reactivate forum.
• Step 9: Monitor forum closely for next 8-12 hours to make sure no problems crop up.

Repeat for each forum.

Wordpress plugins are installed automatically via FTP layer. And they have a list of versions they are compatible with.

 

[Kim]

That is also an issue I agree, we did a point release on the weekend that took 4-5 hours.

A customer recently had the same point release upgrade take 12 hours in total, not including before or after, just the actual upgrade >_<

I think the whole point is that in an ideal world upgrades would be quicker, easier, and less intrusive, and ideally no more frequent than is absolutely necessary.