Upgrading a heavily modified site

[rookers]

Hi there. Our site (www.mower-magic.co.uk) is quite heavily modified. It is a v7.5 Multi-user site. I now have the v8 upgrade and am slightly nervous to say the least. Whenever I have been through the upgrader before I have had problems.

We are quite into using the Snapshot feature now. Can I just export a snapshot and import it into V8 ? That way I guess we will get to take advantage of back-end new features? And then I can worry about applying the code for new front-end features later ?

Please advise!

PS our new site if now live if anyone wants to test drive it.

Merry Christmas to all Actinickers

Jez

[chris ashdown]

There is nothing to stop you trying it out before you go online.

V8 will be installed on your hard drive seperate to v7 so you can use both untill you decide to go live on v8, in other words keep going on V7 whilst to try importing your snapshot and solve any problems with V8.

You also have the test feature to upload the V8 to a section of your server if you have the space

[pinbrook]

I always use a V7 snapshot into 8, and then choose to use default V8 theme and rebuild.

However I feel a better solution is to build in V8 using default DB, and then at the last mo,
1 take design snapshot of redesigned theme, save it
2 take v7 snaphot and import to 8, using default v8 theme.
3 import design snapshot onto point2.

This gives you v8 theme, with most recent products/orders.

[I-CC]

Weve found importing a snapshot from previous versions into v8 and trying to keep and auto upgrade the original custom theme to be very hit and miss, unless it is a default theme you are entering a mine field of unknowns and quite new 'if you are not 100% upto speed with the new v8 workings' method of how pages are created from selectors, layouts and lots more besides, so the solution we take is to start from scratch, i.e. import the snapshot but take on a blank theme and then build the construction within Actinic from a new.

http://new.twoleftfeet.co.uk/ for an example of this.

[Buzby]

Jo,

Is this a service that you offer? as I feel uneasy about the V8 upgrade.

Every time I upgrade the site it looks a mess.

Many thanks

Jason

[freakmode]

We followed the advice from Jo and it worked a treat.

Now live on V8 and running with no problems.

[rookers]

Hi there
When I tried to save the theme I got:

Warnings
(File Snapshot.cpp, Line 1105) - Registry error 2, key Site - The system cannot find the file specified.

It created an 800k file - will it work ?

[pinbrook]

Every time I upgrade the site it looks a mess.

The method i describe will end up a mess as it is designed to upgrade to V8 without bringing your v7 design with you.

Personally I feel that to get a clean base for V8 it is preferable to recode your design. This way you can get clean code and a stable base for the future.

[rookers]

Oh great - When I try to import my snapshot into V8 I get the dreaded "Actinic has encountered an error and needs to close" - so I close it and restart the app and the same thing happens.