Whats the best way to cope with forum updates & our custom templates?

[Hoolio]

Should we have an offline "staging area" copy to test on?

What do we do if functionality gets broken?

I don't want to yank the forum off line

Is there a preview or code compare function coming in the new version?

any advice - appreciated

 

[Paul B]

Set up a local install for testing.

http://xenforo.com/community/resources/how-to-install-xenforo-locally-to-your-pc-using-xampp.355/

If you use any third party add-ons or styles, you will need to wait for the authors to update them to work with newer XenForo versions.
Which means you won't be able to upgrade to the latest XenForo version straight away.

There is a template diff feature in 1.2.

 

[Shelley]

Should we have an offline "staging area" copy to test on?

What do we do if functionality gets broken?

I don't want to yank the forum off line

Is there a preview or code compare function coming in the new version?

any advice - appreciated

If you can keep all your edits in EXTRA.css (you can still have a customized unique style) by doing soley css changes you'll be able to update right away without turning the board/forum offline. I think the longest time it took for me to update my style was 5 minutes at most, most of the time instantly.