I am creating new Content pages, Templates and Document Types for a new project on Test Server. Can anyone tell me how I can move these files when they are completed to the Production (live) Server please?
I'm not sure if Courier 1 is still available, but that should work with 4.0.2.1 - it's nowhere near as good as Courier 2 from what I hear, but it was built for the purpose you require.
Other than that, you could try packaging up your functionality on the demo server and installing the package on live, but that will have limitations in terms of progressive application (e.g. once you've done it once it will be problematic to do again to apply updates). Other than that I think you're into copying files and doing database merges.
Would it be an option to upgrade the site to be able to use Courier 2?
Yeah, the ideal solution would be to upgrade the current Umbraco version to 5 but I am still quite new to this CMS so I don't really want to risk messing up the live sites that are currently hosted on this one. Is it hard to upgrade though? Will things break?
Secondly, how can I make a package from dev to production please?
Okay, so to upgrade from 4.0.2.1 is a fairly well-trodden path. If you have any packages installed then you'll need to investigate (either via the package pages here which sometimes show compatability info, or by contacting the creator) whether those packages are compatible with later versions of Umbraco and/or whether you can upgrade the packages. Package compatability will be your biggest concern. The actual core umbraco upgrade should be relatively straight forward - there are notes in each of the releases, and it would be better to upgrade each version step by step rather than one block upgrade. All of the versions from 4.0.4.2 can be found on Codeplex. Run each one at a time and test each upgrade, then it will be much easier to identify any issues and search or post here for solutions along the way rather than doing one great big upgrade or several upgrades without intermediate testing and not knowing what has broken what.
If you google or search this forum there are lots of posts about upgrading between the different versions of Umbraco (e.g. http://www.littlewebempire.com/blog/2010/10/29/update-umbraco-from-4021-to-452) - like I say, it's not without its gotchas, but it's a well trodden path so there's lots of useful information out there.
You'll want to stop at v 4.8.1 because Umbraco 5 has been discontinued and is effectively a dead version. There was no upgrade from 4 > 5 anyway.
I don't think creating a package is likely to be the solution for you in this case - it's more for porting blocks of functionality between installations rather than updating stuff between hosting environments. If you wanted to try it, it's just a case of going into the developer section of the CMS, right-clicking 'packages' and selecting 'create new'. It will ask you what items you want to package, then it'll wrap these into a zip which you can download and install as a package in another installation. It's neat, but I don't think it's going to be the 'silver bullet' here as it doesn't cope well with modified document types/templates etc.
Finally, for upgrading a live site, frankly, I wouldn't! I'd take a full local copy (file system and database), freeze any updates on live (if possible) e.g. by locking administrator access or user writing temporarily, then perform the upgrade locally and upload this back to live once it's tested and solid. Once that is done you can install Courier 2 to manage future updates from dev to live.
Hi Dan, thanks a million for spending your time on writing this detailed explanation!
I will look into it but it may not be possible to freeze the live version as it is currently being used by too many divisions all over the world with constant updates everyday. I guess it's getting too big and it will take a lot of time for testing after upgrades as you mentioned. Nonetheless I really appreciate your help in this thread and I have learned a lot. Thanks again :)
How to import Content etc from Test to Production?
Hi,
Umbraco version 4.0.2.1
I am creating new Content pages, Templates and Document Types for a new project on Test Server. Can anyone tell me how I can move these files when they are completed to the Production (live) Server please?
Thanks
Courier?
Courier only supports Umbraco 4.5 and above so I can't use it.
Any way of doing it on version 4.0.2.1 other than copying/pasting/recreating manually?
Hi,
I'm not sure if Courier 1 is still available, but that should work with 4.0.2.1 - it's nowhere near as good as Courier 2 from what I hear, but it was built for the purpose you require.
Other than that, you could try packaging up your functionality on the demo server and installing the package on live, but that will have limitations in terms of progressive application (e.g. once you've done it once it will be problematic to do again to apply updates). Other than that I think you're into copying files and doing database merges.
Would it be an option to upgrade the site to be able to use Courier 2?
Hi Dan,
Yeah, the ideal solution would be to upgrade the current Umbraco version to 5 but I am still quite new to this CMS so I don't really want to risk messing up the live sites that are currently hosted on this one. Is it hard to upgrade though? Will things break?
Secondly, how can I make a package from dev to production please?
Thanks
Okay, so to upgrade from 4.0.2.1 is a fairly well-trodden path. If you have any packages installed then you'll need to investigate (either via the package pages here which sometimes show compatability info, or by contacting the creator) whether those packages are compatible with later versions of Umbraco and/or whether you can upgrade the packages. Package compatability will be your biggest concern. The actual core umbraco upgrade should be relatively straight forward - there are notes in each of the releases, and it would be better to upgrade each version step by step rather than one block upgrade. All of the versions from 4.0.4.2 can be found on Codeplex. Run each one at a time and test each upgrade, then it will be much easier to identify any issues and search or post here for solutions along the way rather than doing one great big upgrade or several upgrades without intermediate testing and not knowing what has broken what.
If you google or search this forum there are lots of posts about upgrading between the different versions of Umbraco (e.g. http://www.littlewebempire.com/blog/2010/10/29/update-umbraco-from-4021-to-452) - like I say, it's not without its gotchas, but it's a well trodden path so there's lots of useful information out there.
You'll want to stop at v 4.8.1 because Umbraco 5 has been discontinued and is effectively a dead version. There was no upgrade from 4 > 5 anyway.
The other thing to note is that the data schema changed in Umbraco 4.5, which will probably mean that your XSLT macros will break. To tackle this, you could re-code those for the new schema, or use a config setting to maintain the legacy schema (documented here: http://our.umbraco.org/wiki/reference/xslt/45-xml-schema/switching-between-old-and-new-schema).
I don't think creating a package is likely to be the solution for you in this case - it's more for porting blocks of functionality between installations rather than updating stuff between hosting environments. If you wanted to try it, it's just a case of going into the developer section of the CMS, right-clicking 'packages' and selecting 'create new'. It will ask you what items you want to package, then it'll wrap these into a zip which you can download and install as a package in another installation. It's neat, but I don't think it's going to be the 'silver bullet' here as it doesn't cope well with modified document types/templates etc.
Finally, for upgrading a live site, frankly, I wouldn't! I'd take a full local copy (file system and database), freeze any updates on live (if possible) e.g. by locking administrator access or user writing temporarily, then perform the upgrade locally and upload this back to live once it's tested and solid. Once that is done you can install Courier 2 to manage future updates from dev to live.
Hi Dan, thanks a million for spending your time on writing this detailed explanation!
I will look into it but it may not be possible to freeze the live version as it is currently being used by too many divisions all over the world with constant updates everyday. I guess it's getting too big and it will take a lot of time for testing after upgrades as you mentioned. Nonetheless I really appreciate your help in this thread and I have learned a lot. Thanks again :)
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