Future upgrade discussion

There has been a bit of talk on the blog lately from some who would rather have the option to upgrade or not to version 5 when it becomes available due to some concerns they have. I would like to address those concerns.

Planned v5 Upgrade Process

First, I'd like to talk about the v5 upgrade process and what our plans are at this time.

Before v5 is released we will re-open our BetaZone which allows you to make a copy of your forum to test with before your real forum goes live with v5. This will allow you to play with all the new settings, update your layout, etc. Essentially you will have a "test" forum that you can play with.

One of the great (until now, unannounced) features of version 5 is the ability to export many of the settings on your forum to import them on another forum. This means you can set everything up on your test forum, export your settings (for things such as your skins, headers and footers, etc), and then save them into your forum once you upgrade to v5.

When version 5 is ready to be released, we are going to give all board owners a period of 2-3 months with an option to upgrade to v5. This way you can take all the time you need to make get your changes ready for the upgrade. After this period of time we will then force-upgrade the rest of the forums that have not opted to upgrade ahead of time.

We feel this is the best approach to give all forum admins the time they need to make sure their forum upgrade goes smoothly.

Templates in v5

As was documented earlier, version 5 is implementing a new templating system. This gives you full control over the HTML of your forum. This also allows you to change or even remove some things that you don't want them.

For example, some have expressed a desire to not have the "last 24 hours users" box. In version 5 you can simply remove the HTML code for this from the Info Center template. Further to this, in v5 there will be a simple option in the settings area to remove this box as well. This is just an example of how you can customize the HTML code in your v5 forum.

Headers/Footers Codes in v5

Some have said that they are worried that the future v5 upgrade (because of the size of the upgrade) will mess with their layouts.

We are overhauling all the HTML for version 5. Many of our coders have requested that we add new features to the code such as using id="[name]" on any elements that would be useful for coders to access. Other changes include naming of all forms. As a result of the major HTML changes, the majority of JavaScript codes that are in use today will not work in version 5.

Further to that, the new codes that will be developed to be compatible with v5 will be much easier for our coders to create.

Another important thing to note is that many, many of the codes in use today are designed to manipulate the HTML of the layout. These codes will not even be needed any more in v5 because we let you edit the HTML code yourself!

So, what is going to happen?

First off, our code database will be upgraded to have all new codes that will work with version 5. Again, we are giving 2-3 month grace period before the upgrade so that you can prepare your forum upgrade. If you have header/footer codes that you need to be updated we will make sure those new codes are provided in our code database.

Now, instead of simply upgrading your forums and keeping all the header/footer codes in which will not work, we will provide a copy of your headers/footers in your admin area and you will need to add in the new JavaScript codes which work with v5. Again, the majority of codes from v4 / v4.5 will not even be needed since you have direct access to the HTML.

We understand that for some forums which have extensive headers and footers this may be a fair amount of work, but the end benefit will be tremendous because of the amount of control that we are putting into your hands.

Last Thoughts

We will take your suggestions to heart in regards to this upgrade. I appreciate your constructive criticism and hope that this discussion will help alleviate some concerns you may have about this future upgrade.

It is important to note that if our members feel that they need more time to prepare their forums, we will give you that time. We would like nothing more than for this to be a smooth upgrade for all of our members and will provide you the support and assistance you require in this process.