Actinic Support

[leehack]

The problem we and others have with the delay to 9.03 is that we are waiting for it to arrive before we move to V9 at all, this is not an issue about upgrading from an earlier version of V9. We are still on V7, and really want to move on now, and don't want to go to V8 then V9.

I build all V9 sites in V8 up until the last day and then upgrade before hand over, i have not seen any knock on effect and because it is an upgrade to V9, you actually escape quite a few of the V9 bugs. It's the only successful way i have found so far and can see no detrimental effect at all. The V9 database is very similar to V8 and most of the other parts involved are what i do anyway, so they are the same whether it be V8 or V9 as its good ole html and css.

[Mark H]

"Well - I would not wait to be honest. Unless you have some really odd setup with your current site then IMO V9 is working OK - I have now converted/built many V9 sites and they are all working well."

Thanks Mal, that's reassuring.

"you will need to start from scratch using V9 as upgrading from 7 to 8 or 9 is not recommended unless your site is pretty much standard Actinic which by the looks of it it is not"

This is what we're thinking, plus we have another (even more) non-standard site in the pipeline and would rather start from scratch in V9.

[Mark H]

Lee - I'm sure you're right for most sites, but as Mal says, ours is not standard Actinic.

[oldcelt]

Sorry - was about to post to the wrong thread!

[leehack]

The less standard they are, the more my point becomes true Mark. If you are doing a custom layout, the difference on whether you use V8 or V9 is so miniscule, so just select the version that works best. If i am designing a custom layout for either V8 or V9, there is no change to my procedures at all.

Your wait is not achieving anything apart from delaying the inevitable - the car crash upgrade from V7 lol.

[Mark H]

Sorry - was about to post to the wrong thread!

Probably not, Ken, this one's covering telephone numbers as well

[pinbrook]

Well - I would not wait to be honest. Unless you have some really odd setup with your current site then IMO V9 is working OK - I have now converted/built many V9 sites and they are all working well.

You need to decide now ie the next few weeks or wait until after christmas.

yep its not realistic to use the delay on 9.0.3 as a reason not to go forward, use 9.0.2 as it will take weeks to upgrade then by the time you have finished 9.03 will be available. The design process is the same

upgrades to actinic are just the same as buying new technology, as soon as you buy it its superceded a week later. I'm miffed at the mo as i bought an eeepc in April, since then its been upgraded to have a 9" 1024 screen and now for the same price i could lease one with mobile broadband for the same money. but thats life, i'll get over it

Totally agree with Mal about Xmas, i've also advised a couple of clients not to upgrade until after Xmas, carry on with your working site, develop the v9 site, release it after Xmas

[Mark H]

The less standard they are, the more my point becomes true Mark. If you are doing a custom layout, the difference on whether you use V8 or V9 is so miniscule, so just select the version that works best. If i am designing a custom layout for either V8 or V9, there is no change to my procedures at all.

Your wait is not achieving anything apart from delaying the inevitable - the car crash upgrade from V7 lol.

We really want to use V9, and will not go through any upgrade process with our sites (previous experience), so it looks like we'll start the new site with V9.01/2.

We'll start again from scratch with the existing V7 site - much of the CSS and images etc are recyclable

[Mark H]

Thanks Jo, that confirms what we are thinking.

[leehack]

I would not start a site in 9.0.2 if I had the choice, but if you are feeling brave (time-rich) go for it. You seem to have missed the point though. A custom design built in V8, upgraded to V9.0.3 when out, will be 99.85% the same, but it will have saved you some time. The 0.15% is the changes in the head area, which in 9.02 don't currently work anyway and will take one minute to update at worst once in 903. Good luck anyway, see you on the other side.

[Mark H]

Thanks Lee, our view until today also was that starting on V9.02 was a bit brave, but Mal and Jo seem to be suggesting that this should be OK.

The last upgrade we did (V6 to V7?) was a disaster, it just took one look a the site and didn't play nice. I think we'll probably start the new site (and the learning curve, which will take a while - we're still V7) in V9.02 and V9.03 will probably be there by the time we want to go live. Will leave the existing site in V7 for now.

PS bear in mind that with V9 we just have to figure out what Actinic "code" is needed to be functional and where to drop it into a custom HTML/CSS page, as we did with V7. A lot of the learning curve with most developers in Actinic is trying to get Actinic to look the way you want - part of the reason we use custom pages is to avoid this, because we are not creating lots of Actinic sites over time, so we don't need to aquire that skill.

[Goz]

I've been using 9.0.2 for new sites for a few months now. There are a few issues which are well documented but nothing that has stopped me putting a site together.

[leehack]

I think their main points were that there is no reason to delay as it will take you that long anyway, 9.0.3 will be out, i don't think for one minute they are suggesting that 9.0.2 is OK to use, the forum tells us otherwise.

I think your main point to take on board is that whether you upgrade from v7 to v9 or from v7 to v8, your site will look like roadkill. So you have to start again most likely (always a good plan on custom v7 sites), so been as V8 and V9 are the same in design terms to you, choose the most stable version, which is V8, as its pretty rock solid nowadays.

If you get yourself into creating your own exterior layouts using DW for example, you need not worry about most of the actinic variables etc. the vast majority of it all comes in via one single include 'INNERLAYOUT', that brings the complete central area of your site in for all pages. There are selectors for each other area and this is the easy part of the whole process tbh.

[pinbrook]

I think their main points were that there is no reason to delay as it will take you that long anyway, 9.0.3 will be out, i don't think for one minute they are suggesting that 9.0.2 is OK to use, the forum tells us otherwise.

yep i was saying do the design work in 9.02, given you have to learn how to design in 9 this will keep you occupied for a good while.

before you go live 9.03 should be available.

As Goz says the problems with 9.0.2 are well documented - these are functionality issues that will not affect you in the design process and indeed may not even affect your live site..

[Mark H]

Thanks everyone, I think we are confident now to proceed as in #86, design new site in 9.02, go live in 9.03, start existing V7 site in V9 at a later date, avoid upgrades at all costs........

"If you get yourself into creating your own exterior layouts using DW for example, you need not worry about most of the actinic variables etc. the vast majority of it all comes in via one single include 'INNERLAYOUT', that brings the complete central area of your site in for all pages. There are selectors for each other area and this is the easy part of the whole process tbh"

This is exactly what we do, and we find it far easier to create what we want this way