Searching around the net and I haven't found any succinct info on the best method for upgrading an Umbraco package. I found some incomplete documentation stating that simply re-installing a package works but might create duplicates, thus implying that uninstalling before installing the desired package is the way to go.
I've done the later a few times in the past and it always works fine but seems rather un-intuitive. Not to mention the natural fear of losing data related to the package (though this shouldn't happen).
So, is there a sure-fire update method for every package? For example, how should I go about updating a popular package like Archetype?
I think that you need to take the updating process of a package, from package to package, some of the Umbraco packages are available on NuGet. For example are the Archetype package available on NuGet. https://www.nuget.org/packages/Archetype.
And if you can´t find anything in the documentation for the package, or release notes, I think it is always a good a idea to ask in the space for the package on Our, if there is to be aware of when you are upgrading to the latest version of the package.
If any other people in this community has something to add, please just do it.
The short answer is that for packages that don't use nuget there is no better way of upgrading them unfortunately.
As Dennis writes some packages contain upgrade instructions, which should of course be followed if possible but even so I think it's always a good idea to do a backup of the files and database anyway. If one is using some source control like git or mercurial then it's only a matter of backing up the database if the package is relying on tables in the database.
If the package only consists of files, which are going to be overwitten then it's of course easy to simply rollback in case something acts up. But no there is no easy way unfortunately and that's a shame...not sure how to improve it if a package does not want to use nuget for managing the package upgrades.
How to update a package
Searching around the net and I haven't found any succinct info on the best method for upgrading an Umbraco package. I found some incomplete documentation stating that simply re-installing a package works but might create duplicates, thus implying that uninstalling before installing the desired package is the way to go.
I've done the later a few times in the past and it always works fine but seems rather un-intuitive. Not to mention the natural fear of losing data related to the package (though this shouldn't happen).
So, is there a sure-fire update method for every package? For example, how should I go about updating a popular package like Archetype?
Hi Matthew,
I think that you need to take the updating process of a package, from package to package, some of the Umbraco packages are available on NuGet. For example are the Archetype package available on NuGet. https://www.nuget.org/packages/Archetype.
I think it a good idea to see if you can find something about upgrading process in the documentation for the package you are trying to upgrade, an example of this is the Contour package, there is a guide on upgrade how to upgrade. https://our.umbraco.org/projects/umbraco-pro/contour/documentation/Installation/Upgrade
And if you can´t find anything in the documentation for the package, or release notes, I think it is always a good a idea to ask in the space for the package on Our, if there is to be aware of when you are upgrading to the latest version of the package.
If any other people in this community has something to add, please just do it.
Hope this helps,
/Dennis
Hi Matthew
The short answer is that for packages that don't use nuget there is no better way of upgrading them unfortunately.
As Dennis writes some packages contain upgrade instructions, which should of course be followed if possible but even so I think it's always a good idea to do a backup of the files and database anyway. If one is using some source control like git or mercurial then it's only a matter of backing up the database if the package is relying on tables in the database.
If the package only consists of files, which are going to be overwitten then it's of course easy to simply rollback in case something acts up. But no there is no easy way unfortunately and that's a shame...not sure how to improve it if a package does not want to use nuget for managing the package upgrades.
Just my 2 cents.
/Jan
Thanks for the input, guys. I had a feeling it wouldn't be so simple.
It might cause confusion for other devs if only a handful of installed packages are maintained via Nuget, so I think I'm going to stay away from that.
nuget doesnt apply to me because our umbraco site didnt start with a VS project.
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