Wow, the latest Courier nightly is nearly a year old. We can't even get a hint as to if, or when, it will be updated for Umbraco 7. Have shame Umbraco team, have shame.
yes, I really hope we would get some more information about courier for Umbraco 7, because that's been holding me back to use Umbaco 7... and I also hope they will also fix a lot of issues with courier in that version because it's sometimes a pain in ass to work with courier..
I sincerely hope they've ironed out ALL of the kinks in Courier if it's being used in UaaS, otherwise it will very quickly gain the name "UaaSometimes"!
1. Dump courier as a staging/production platform for content editors, it never worked very well and you can use the built in publishing workflow, without needing courier.
2. For your deployment strategy, dont use courier use uSync! it's awesome and it works in U7
I just installed Courier_2.7.8.15.v6.zip on version 7.1.1 and had a YSOD after installing saying "Unrecognized attribute 'id'." I had to open the Dashboard.config file to change <section id="courier"> to <section alias="courier">. The icon doesn't match either but that is just cosmetics. Hopefully nothing else broke during the install.
I don't think it warrants logging a bug since there isn't a proper version 7 package. I'll make further notes here if I run into other trouble.
If you need the ability to copy content along with all of its dependencies....Only courier can do this....although I personally had to give up on Courier because it was too unreliable anyway.
If you want to just keep track (copy) structural bits and bobs that are stuck inside the database, so doctypes, macros etc from one build to another. uSync is perfect and reliable between same versions of Umbraco. It shells these out to the filesystem and you can check them into your source control if needs be.
uSync will also sync templates (so masterpages and views) But it seems to get the two different types mixed up in Umbraco 6. As these are actually in the filesystem anyway it's probably better to add them manually in Umbraco. If there's one thing the dev. team really need to sort out, is removing the database dependency from templates altogether!
There is a content edition of uSync, but it does have a lot of limitations, but you may find it useful.
1. Dump courier as a staging/production platform for content editors, it never worked very well and you can use the built in publishing workflow, without needing courier.
2. For your deployment strategy, dont use courier use uSync! it's awesome and it works in U7
Does the built in publishing workflow allow publishing content to a live server? I can't see that option on my Umbraco 7 install? Please could you let me know how do you do this?
uSync seems not to be set up for live deployment, but rather for keeping - as per the project's webpage: "Courier: uSync.ContentEdition is designed for developers to work together across a source control system it keeps content in sync, it doesn’t offer publishing, or deployment. " (http://our.umbraco.org/projects/developer-tools/usynccontentedition). It's also not yet reached version 1, which makes me nervous! Could you let me know if you're using it for live deployment successfully?
We used Courier v1.3 entirely as an end-user product and we had "Staging" and "Live" versions of our sites with courier keeping the two in-sync by the end-user activated menu option, "transfer to live". Courier at this point of it's lifecycle required all developer assets to be in-place on the live box and could ONLY handle content and linked media either in the RTE or picked with a datatype.
Now you could ask, "Why give end users a staging platform?". At the time, it was recommended by our agency as a means to "test out" new content and allow people inside the business to easily view it before it goes live. For us, this wasn't orientated around developer setups, instead a decision based on end-user need.
Since the hand over of our corporate sites and subsequent on-development of them we've upgraded the builds from version 4.0.4.2 to version 6.1.6. This has been a long and interesting journey which has ultimately ended up in us dropping our staging server altogether for users, along with Courier.
Now end-users use Umbraco's preview functionality and the simple worflow options built into editor/writer security groups. This is more than enough for them and it means they gain full access to the rollback/history functionality that was locked away from them on live.
I've tried many, many, many times to resurrect Courier 2.x as a developer product to manage our staging build but alas since it's inception it's been too unreliable to use. Lately i've started to test out the nightly builds exclusively for Umbraco 7. Apparently a lot has been learned during the build of Umbraco as a Service, and I can say, my intial use of it has been pretty successful! (Shock! Horror!)
We just want a way to transfer changes from the development (developer controlled) server to the live (where only content is being changed by our client's employees) server.
I'm considering starting to use uSync for releases of changes, because most of the work is outside of content - but there will be some content changes, and It'd still be nice to have a way to move those. It sounds like Courier might be it when it leaves beta for 7 - but the sites I'm looking at now are 4 and 7, so it'd be either the old version (which you say is very unreliable) or the beta version (which I'm not going to use for a production server.
Might start seriously looking into uSync, anway. Thanks again.
I have played around with "uSync Content edition" quite a bit and it has quite a lot missing, support for it has been a bit slow and i'm not so sure it can be considered "reliable".
The main uSync product on the other hand is as good as you'd need in day-to-day use and i've found it to be quite reliable. It can slow large sites down on warm up, but once the XML has been built things settle back down. This immediately gives you a repo you can check in, if you use source control. One thing worth mentioning is DONT use uSync on different versions of Umbraco between staging and live. uSync utilises built in APIs that change from version to version. So you can easily end up with XML that won't import!
If you do still need content mirroring, go back to Courier using the latest nightly assuming you're on Umbraco 7. I was quite amazed how well it worked from the off! No more nasty .net errors in big red panels lol!
We have a few additional updates and support for List Views, Grid Editors, and Document Type Compositions coming just on the heels of the Umbraco 7.2.0 release.
The 115 nightly build is a WIP for support of the items noted (grid, doc type compositions, list view) targeted at the 7.2+ release. As with all nightlies it is unsupported - unless we point you to a specific one we've tested.
The 102 build is the supported release (the one on Our). There is one issue with macro parameters if they are content/media pickers, but this will be updated with the next release.
The next release (Courier 2.11.0 for v7) will contain the fix for macro parameters and the support for the 7.2 items but will will work with all v7 versions.
You are always welcome to evaluate the nightly builds and send us feedback - we love that in fact!
Will Courier support Umbraco 7?
Is there any word on if Courier is going to have Umbraco 7 support soon?
Wow, the latest Courier nightly is nearly a year old. We can't even get a hint as to if, or when, it will be updated for Umbraco 7. Have shame Umbraco team, have shame.
yes, I really hope we would get some more information about courier for Umbraco 7, because that's been holding me back to use Umbaco 7... and I also hope they will also fix a lot of issues with courier in that version because it's sometimes a pain in ass to work with courier..
Hello,
Umbraco as a service uses Courier and supports Umbraco 7 so I assume once Umbraco as a service is done they can also update Courier.
Jeroen
I sincerely hope they've ironed out ALL of the kinks in Courier if it's being used in UaaS, otherwise it will very quickly gain the name "UaaSometimes"!
Umbraco is awesome, Courier is awful!
M.
On a more constructive note...
1. Dump courier as a staging/production platform for content editors, it never worked very well and you can use the built in publishing workflow, without needing courier.
2. For your deployment strategy, dont use courier use uSync! it's awesome and it works in U7
I just installed Courier_2.7.8.15.v6.zip on version 7.1.1 and had a YSOD after installing saying "Unrecognized attribute 'id'." I had to open the Dashboard.config file to change
<section id="courier">to<section alias="courier">. The icon doesn't match either but that is just cosmetics. Hopefully nothing else broke during the install.I don't think it warrants logging a bug since there isn't a proper version 7 package. I'll make further notes here if I run into other trouble.
Will Courier support Umbraco 7?
Will Courier support Umbraco 6?
Will Courier ever work?
Only time will tell. In the mean time, please keep advising other Umbraco developers to avoid Courier like the plague.
Can I use Umbraco 7.1.6 and Courier_2.7.5.89.v6 ?
Thanks
Hi Alex
http://nightly.umbraco.org/UmbracoCourier/Umbraco%207/
Courier for Umbraco 7. How good (or bad) it is I couldn't say as I don't use Courier any more.
M.
Hi Martin,
Thanks, it works fine.
no ) it's not work with Umbraco 7.1.6 (
Not surprised it's giving you trouble! Use uSync!
How it can help ?
Well it depends on what youre after...
If you need the ability to copy content along with all of its dependencies....Only courier can do this....although I personally had to give up on Courier because it was too unreliable anyway.
If you want to just keep track (copy) structural bits and bobs that are stuck inside the database, so doctypes, macros etc from one build to another. uSync is perfect and reliable between same versions of Umbraco. It shells these out to the filesystem and you can check them into your source control if needs be.
uSync will also sync templates (so masterpages and views) But it seems to get the two different types mixed up in Umbraco 6. As these are actually in the filesystem anyway it's probably better to add them manually in Umbraco. If there's one thing the dev. team really need to sort out, is removing the database dependency from templates altogether!
There is a content edition of uSync, but it does have a lot of limitations, but you may find it useful.
https://www.nuget.org/packages/uSync/ - Umbraco 7 version of uSync.
http://our.umbraco.org/projects/developer-tools/usynccontentedition
M.
Thanks Martin. But problem is in dlls dependencies. uSync uses different ddls from Umbraco 7.1.6
1. Dump courier as a staging/production platform for content editors, it never worked very well and you can use the built in publishing workflow, without needing courier.
2. For your deployment strategy, dont use courier use uSync! it's awesome and it works in U7
Does the built in publishing workflow allow publishing content to a live server? I can't see that option on my Umbraco 7 install? Please could you let me know how do you do this?
uSync seems not to be set up for live deployment, but rather for keeping - as per the project's webpage: "Courier: uSync.ContentEdition is designed for developers to work together across a source control system it keeps content in sync, it doesn’t offer publishing, or deployment. " (http://our.umbraco.org/projects/developer-tools/usynccontentedition). It's also not yet reached version 1, which makes me nervous! Could you let me know if you're using it for live deployment successfully?
Thanks very much!
Hi Ian
We used Courier v1.3 entirely as an end-user product and we had "Staging" and "Live" versions of our sites with courier keeping the two in-sync by the end-user activated menu option, "transfer to live". Courier at this point of it's lifecycle required all developer assets to be in-place on the live box and could ONLY handle content and linked media either in the RTE or picked with a datatype.
Now you could ask, "Why give end users a staging platform?". At the time, it was recommended by our agency as a means to "test out" new content and allow people inside the business to easily view it before it goes live. For us, this wasn't orientated around developer setups, instead a decision based on end-user need.
Since the hand over of our corporate sites and subsequent on-development of them we've upgraded the builds from version 4.0.4.2 to version 6.1.6. This has been a long and interesting journey which has ultimately ended up in us dropping our staging server altogether for users, along with Courier.
Now end-users use Umbraco's preview functionality and the simple worflow options built into editor/writer security groups. This is more than enough for them and it means they gain full access to the rollback/history functionality that was locked away from them on live.
I've tried many, many, many times to resurrect Courier 2.x as a developer product to manage our staging build but alas since it's inception it's been too unreliable to use. Lately i've started to test out the nightly builds exclusively for Umbraco 7. Apparently a lot has been learned during the build of Umbraco as a Service, and I can say, my intial use of it has been pretty successful! (Shock! Horror!)
If you want to try it for yourself go here...
http://nightly.umbraco.org/UmbracoCourier/Umbraco%207/
Regardless of how good Courier eventually becomes though, I would NEVER give it to end users again...It's purely a developer tool now.
I hope this helps
Kind regards
Martin
That is very, very helpful, thanks Martin.
We just want a way to transfer changes from the development (developer controlled) server to the live (where only content is being changed by our client's employees) server.
I'm considering starting to use uSync for releases of changes, because most of the work is outside of content - but there will be some content changes, and It'd still be nice to have a way to move those. It sounds like Courier might be it when it leaves beta for 7 - but the sites I'm looking at now are 4 and 7, so it'd be either the old version (which you say is very unreliable) or the beta version (which I'm not going to use for a production server.
Might start seriously looking into uSync, anway. Thanks again.
Hi Ian
I have played around with "uSync Content edition" quite a bit and it has quite a lot missing, support for it has been a bit slow and i'm not so sure it can be considered "reliable".
The main uSync product on the other hand is as good as you'd need in day-to-day use and i've found it to be quite reliable. It can slow large sites down on warm up, but once the XML has been built things settle back down. This immediately gives you a repo you can check in, if you use source control. One thing worth mentioning is DONT use uSync on different versions of Umbraco between staging and live. uSync utilises built in APIs that change from version to version. So you can easily end up with XML that won't import!
If you do still need content mirroring, go back to Courier using the latest nightly assuming you're on Umbraco 7. I was quite amazed how well it worked from the off! No more nasty .net errors in big red panels lol!
Kind regards
Martin.
@All
A note that Courier for v7 is available http://our.umbraco.org/projects/umbraco-pro/umbraco-courier-2 ;
We have a few additional updates and support for List Views, Grid Editors, and Document Type Compositions coming just on the heels of the Umbraco 7.2.0 release.
-Paul
Hi Paul
What build are you referring to? 115 on the nightlies?
Build 102 is on Our.
M.
@Martin
The 115 nightly build is a WIP for support of the items noted (grid, doc type compositions, list view) targeted at the 7.2+ release. As with all nightlies it is unsupported - unless we point you to a specific one we've tested.
The 102 build is the supported release (the one on Our). There is one issue with macro parameters if they are content/media pickers, but this will be updated with the next release.
The next release (Courier 2.11.0 for v7) will contain the fix for macro parameters and the support for the 7.2 items but will will work with all v7 versions.
You are always welcome to evaluate the nightly builds and send us feedback - we love that in fact!
-Paul
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