I wondered if there is a clear note of the config changes made in each version of Umbraco? When a new release comes along I find it a real struggle to manually have to trawl through dozens of config files with winmerge and make any changes manually (often things like tab/spacing changes are the only differences, which is frustrating in a different way).
If the config changes aren't clearly noted against each release, then perhaps it would be a good idea to do this? I feel it would make the upgrade process (which is already much more difficult than many other CMSs) so much friendlier for developers and would save people a lot of time.
Just a thought anyhow to see if anyone else thinks this would be a good idea. :)
As far as I know, this doesn't exist. I think the release notes for each version mention when there is new stuff in the config files, however a lot of the older releases are no longer available to download since the big security problem a while back. I'd say it's definitely worth compiling a list of this if possible.
I think that it's usually mentioned if there are changes in specific config file that you should be aware of. But it seems to be a bit random how it's described sometimes.
I agree that it would be nice to have a more structured overview of, which config files to merge or not. The upgrade process was something that was also discussed at the retreat before codegarden so the core team are aware that the upgrade process needs some TLC but it's gonna take some time to make it easier.
But perhaps it would be a good idea to make this as a feature request on the issue tracker? http://issues.umbraco.org ?
I've heard something about it should be possible to configure winmerge to ignore places where the only difference is indents and other silly stuff that does not matter but I can't remember who or where...hope someone will share if they know :)
Thanks chaps. I'm guessing that if Umbraco as a service is going to be self-updating (is it? I'm sure I heard that somewhere, but I'm somewhat out of the loop having missed CodeGarden?) then the manual config merges aren't going to be a viable upgrade process. So hopefully this addresses the crux of the issue and improves the self-hosted upgrade experience too. It's great that this was covered at the Retreat - what was the conclusion?
For the meantime, it would be great to standardise and/or clarify where in the documentation the config changes are noted in future versions, otherwise it's very easy to read it as 'for every upgrade you should check for config changes' - which is an innocuous sounding request but actually a very daunting prospect ;)
I'm not sure what the guys agreed upon to be honest. I was in another working group focusing on our, sorry :)
But yes it's been mentioned that upgrading will get easier with the umbraco.com project and then this daunting task should no longer be done if you choose to use umbraco.com.
In what way do you think the documentation can be made better? Is it the actual documentation on upgrading Umbraco you think about or is it upgrade notes on release of new versions?
I think the common complate is BOTH with regard to the often incomplete and/or ambiguous documentation and the fact that bits of it are spread all over this and other sites. The larger the "our" footprint gets, the more spread out information becomes. Sometimes breaking changes are listed, sometimes they are not. I have sites that came from 3.whatever and are now at 6.whatever. I have spent dozens of hours using trial and error, winmerge, etc trying to figure out what is depricated, old, uneeded, etc.
Other examples:
It has NEVER been made clear if many of the "security" patches are now INCLUDED or have to be manually applied even on new installations. Becuase most of the documentation is NOT dated, the relevance is often hard to determine as well. The whole .dll security issue is as clear as mud as well.
Upgrades:
Like the OP said, the fact that those coding add or remove spaces makes things even harder. The BIG culprit is often the difference in spacing between the closing slash and geater than sign in the closing tag. The maddening part is that the same config file will alternate back and forth between styles on each release. So if you "fix" the spaces by copying them from the upgrade file, the next release of that config file may or may not have them. This is simply not acceptable and something that could be easily fixed by A) requiring contributions to follow a convention and B) Ensuring that the closing tags follow the convention in the QC process.
As you have seen, I have been hyper critical of many things as of late, most of them "small". The problem is that there are so many "small" things, they are adding up and having significant impact on the user experience.
As I have voiced over and over, there are always appear to be "big things" in the works, but all of this small stuff is really having a negative impact on the entire experience.
Upgrade config changes
Hi,
I wondered if there is a clear note of the config changes made in each version of Umbraco? When a new release comes along I find it a real struggle to manually have to trawl through dozens of config files with winmerge and make any changes manually (often things like tab/spacing changes are the only differences, which is frustrating in a different way).
If the config changes aren't clearly noted against each release, then perhaps it would be a good idea to do this? I feel it would make the upgrade process (which is already much more difficult than many other CMSs) so much friendlier for developers and would save people a lot of time.
Just a thought anyhow to see if anyone else thinks this would be a good idea. :)
As far as I know, this doesn't exist. I think the release notes for each version mention when there is new stuff in the config files, however a lot of the older releases are no longer available to download since the big security problem a while back. I'd say it's definitely worth compiling a list of this if possible.
Hi Dan
I think that it's usually mentioned if there are changes in specific config file that you should be aware of. But it seems to be a bit random how it's described sometimes.
I agree that it would be nice to have a more structured overview of, which config files to merge or not. The upgrade process was something that was also discussed at the retreat before codegarden so the core team are aware that the upgrade process needs some TLC but it's gonna take some time to make it easier.
But perhaps it would be a good idea to make this as a feature request on the issue tracker? http://issues.umbraco.org ?
I've heard something about it should be possible to configure winmerge to ignore places where the only difference is indents and other silly stuff that does not matter but I can't remember who or where...hope someone will share if they know :)
/Jan
Thanks chaps. I'm guessing that if Umbraco as a service is going to be self-updating (is it? I'm sure I heard that somewhere, but I'm somewhat out of the loop having missed CodeGarden?) then the manual config merges aren't going to be a viable upgrade process. So hopefully this addresses the crux of the issue and improves the self-hosted upgrade experience too. It's great that this was covered at the Retreat - what was the conclusion?
For the meantime, it would be great to standardise and/or clarify where in the documentation the config changes are noted in future versions, otherwise it's very easy to read it as 'for every upgrade you should check for config changes' - which is an innocuous sounding request but actually a very daunting prospect ;)
Hi Dan
I'm not sure what the guys agreed upon to be honest. I was in another working group focusing on our, sorry :)
But yes it's been mentioned that upgrading will get easier with the umbraco.com project and then this daunting task should no longer be done if you choose to use umbraco.com.
In what way do you think the documentation can be made better? Is it the actual documentation on upgrading Umbraco you think about or is it upgrade notes on release of new versions?
/Jan
Jan,
I think the common complate is BOTH with regard to the often incomplete and/or ambiguous documentation and the fact that bits of it are spread all over this and other sites. The larger the "our" footprint gets, the more spread out information becomes. Sometimes breaking changes are listed, sometimes they are not. I have sites that came from 3.whatever and are now at 6.whatever. I have spent dozens of hours using trial and error, winmerge, etc trying to figure out what is depricated, old, uneeded, etc.
Other examples:
It has NEVER been made clear if many of the "security" patches are now INCLUDED or have to be manually applied even on new installations. Becuase most of the documentation is NOT dated, the relevance is often hard to determine as well. The whole .dll security issue is as clear as mud as well.
Upgrades:
Like the OP said, the fact that those coding add or remove spaces makes things even harder. The BIG culprit is often the difference in spacing between the closing slash and geater than sign in the closing tag. The maddening part is that the same config file will alternate back and forth between styles on each release. So if you "fix" the spaces by copying them from the upgrade file, the next release of that config file may or may not have them. This is simply not acceptable and something that could be easily fixed by A) requiring contributions to follow a convention and B) Ensuring that the closing tags follow the convention in the QC process.
As you have seen, I have been hyper critical of many things as of late, most of them "small". The problem is that there are so many "small" things, they are adding up and having significant impact on the user experience.
As I have voiced over and over, there are always appear to be "big things" in the works, but all of this small stuff is really having a negative impact on the entire experience.
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