Pogwatch gets upgrade to Evolution (MODx 1.0)
13 Aug 2009 MODx
I finally took the plunge with Evo today, after finding it cures one of the problems I've had with editing. I did the file replacement by individual files and directories, for reasons outlined below. So far all is well, save a couple of minor glitches.
A post on the MODx forums echoed a problem I've faced when working on listings using a Geshi snippet. I have a simple checkbox template variable to add in a stylesheet for the listings. When I'm editing pages mainly containing snippets and chunks, I don't like to use a rich-text editor, so I have the editor set to "None" in the configuration. When I am editing a lot of formatted text, I select TinyMCE from the drop-down, and use the HTML button for code amid my florid formatted prose.
Working on the pages describing pkBlog, I kept finding that the checkbox had unticked itself, and eventually realized that this happened when I switched to TinyMCE. The forum post described a similar problem with another type of TV, so I thought it time to check if Evo had fixed it. I tested it locally - it didn't work! Then I realized I still had the RC1 version. Testing with the actual release, all is well with the checkbox, and everything else seems to be OK, so I decided to updgrade on the server.
One thing I hate about installing and upgrading software such as MODx or Wordpress from zip files to a server is unzipping locally and then uploading hundred of small files, especially things like TinyMCE config files for heaps of languages I will never use. So in general, I try to unzip on the server, which takes a few seconds instead of half an hour to an hour. Upgrading is a bit of a problem, though, as I worry about overwriting things that shouldn't be changed, or being unable to overwrite by moving directories around with FileZilla.
So today I unzipped everything into a new folder, renamed the manager directory and moved the Evo install and manager directories into position (preserving the old config.inc.php file), and selectively overwrote the files in each directory under assets, either deleting and moving the new uploads into their place for files I'm not currently using, or uploading and overwriting from my local install for customized files and folders. It took a while, but less time than a blanket upload of the unzipped version, and with better control.
The Upgrade Install went well, and I only had to copy my custom configuration for TinyMCE from the older version to the new to get back to business as usual. Comments in Jot had gone a bit weird, but it only took a bit of research with Firebug to see that the location of icons for editing comments had moved, and that I had put Jot into a subdirectory of Jot instead of overwriting the original. A little deleting and moving, and all is now well.
I am developing Pogwatch almost entirely on the live site now, so I'm looking forward to snappier operation from the tidied code. I'll be sticking with Evo for the time being, as I suspect I'd be out of my PHP and DB depth with Revolution for now, and I only aim to work on smaller sites anyway. MODx 1.00 will suit me fine for that. Great software, great team!