Site Upgrade to version 2.5

[aldamill]

Thanks Ken - always good to be getting your oats!

[Ken]

OK - ref. back to your list:-

• Menton is a mess, and will stay a mess until we get to look why.
  I have it on my list of things to do.
• In Menton, "About this document", you are right - the link to the Greenhillian article doesn't work on the current site either!
  Not intending to do anything on current, but will fix on the new one.
• Reunion 2010 - emoticon next to Lion's Den - done.
• Arnhem emoticon - done
• Front Page, text "please click here to contact us." now works.
• Front Page, text "If you would like to join, please click here"
  
  Your are right, takes you to index - if you are logged in!
  
  • However, if you were trying to join, you'd not be logged in!
    
  • That said, there is still a problem. I don't really like the appearance. It works, but jumps out of the template.
  • Functional, but not aesthetically pleasing.
  • Needs looking at, but working just as current site?
• "Trial Rubbish" - Yes, it is temporary

Phew!
Thanks Allan

[Kevin]

Template - Progress Report

I think all of the major hurdles in the new template have now been crossed and it is generally fit for purpose. Some detailed areas need a bit of tweaking of course but over all I'm pleased to be where we are after a relatively short period of work.

The template is now in its third incarnation. Beez1.5 - GreenBeez1.5 - GreenBeez_2.5. I have tidied the main index.php up a great deal and it is very much stripped down to our basic requirements now. The style sheets are a different matter as, until now, I have tended to add bits rather than risk deleting something essential. This is a future 'round tuit' project.

I checked the site css against W3C (2.1 June 2011) standards and was surprised to find it had only 9 errors, most of which were typos. (Apparently I have a predilection to missing the 'n' out of background!!) I'll fix these shortly.

It also shows many 'warnings'. These are instructions which are technically made correctly, but with a dubious result. Many arise from the fact that the whole site backgroud is black. This means that many of the original Beez1.5 defaults generate a 'black on black' warning. Others are to do with redundant (in the American sense) instructions. Most of these warnings will be removed by the simple tidy up / clear out process indicated above.

I also checked the home page html against W3C. (The html check should be done for each individual page really, but the home page contains most of the standard template workings.) Again, pleasantly surprised to find only one error. This is an unclosed tag and I don't know where it has come from at the moment. If it's generated by the Joomla code I can't do much about it. If it's in the template I'll find it

[Ken]

The New Template is brilliant, Kevin - it's solved a heck of a lot of problems, and well done.
I know you are pushed for time at the moment, and therefore I'm even more appreciative

I've not been entirely idle:-

• With the exception of the Greenhillians, I think I've now brought everything across (I'll start Greenhillians tomorrow)
• All menus (and sub-menus - the ones that show in red and white) should now be populated (again, Greenhillians apart), and should function, along with any "read more...." links.
  Would appreciate somebody checking out that I've got everything!
• There are still formatting problems in places, but mostly confined to Menton.
  Nothing to do with the template, Kevin - it's all down to strange DIV statements, and hence my problem, not yours
  Possibly the new system is less-tolerant of rubbish!
  I've sorted out some of Menton, so I'm happy that I know what the problem is.... just takes time.
• I've looked at the Join the Site stuff, and it's all come back to me
  Put it on the agenda for the next coffee afternoon - what we have might be as good as it gets.

I'll be back

[Ken]

I appreciate that a number of you are following this topic.
Some of you know why I've been such a while in adding to it, and the rest must be wondering what's going on. To them, I really do apologise, but the past week or so has been quite hectic!

I've detailed below how far we have got.
In fact, the list details where we were last Friday evening, an hour or two before I did something pretty stupid, and blew the new site away!
I did an update of the software (from version 2.5.3 to version 2.5.4)
It didn't work!
.... so I restored the system from Friday's backup....
......... and found that I'd fouled up the backup
I had to revert to the backup from 2nd. April, and then restore what we'd done since via salvaged files. It all takes time - but one learns from the experience

The situation now is as it was on Friday afternoon:-

• All menus in place and functional
• All articles in place, but issues 8-13 of the Greenhillian need formatting problems sorting out - will be done this week.
• Menton etc. now fully functional.
• Kevin's template is working great.
• In addition, Kevin has solved the "Join the Site" formatting problem, and it looks very neat. By all means work your way through it and have a look, but please don't actually click SUBMIT on the application form - we have tried it,and it works, but I can do without a barrage of joining e-mails from the site!

All in all, I'm happy now - and yes, I have done a proper backup - two in fact!

As I say, probably the rest of this week tinkering, then ask you good people to look through it next week, then do the change-over.

[Ken]

Well, that was rather longer at coming than I'd thought!
No further technical problems or blunders - just some very boring editing that I've had trouble finding the time to do, and also kept putting off because it's so boring
It was necessary because the new version isn't so forgiving of "bad code" as the old one, but on the plus side it means that things are tidier, and actually simpler.

Not to worry - as I said at the start, there's no rush with this one, and as far as I am concerned, it's now "ready to fly".

One evening this week, and when I've plenty of time, I'll do a backup(!), and then switch the sites over. The "TEST SITE" in the header has already been changed in anticipation (thanks Kevin), so don't get confused!
On the evening in question (Friday?) I shall ensure that I've had enough Dutch Courage to stop the hands shaking, and not so much as to jeopardise the operation!

[Ken]

Easiest for me just to quote what I've just written in the main forum - it's pretty self-explanatory.

Apologies if anybody was inconvenienced, but I did the latest switch-over between 22:01 and 22:08 BST this evening.
At worst, it's possible that things went haywire for a few minutes.

As you will recall, we effected a change in March to bring us up to the latest security release of the software that we use, pressured by our provider. That was the latest release of version 1.5.

Carrying on from there, we have copied/re-written the site to run on version 2.5 of that software.
The development of it has been watched by some of you, and we referred to the new site as "websiteX".

Here's the complicated bit - I have now switched so that:-
What was "websiteX" has become "website" (this one)
The old "website" has become "website15"

Everything seems to be working here, and if we've done the job right, you shouldn't see any change except that the "Join the Site" pages are much neater.

If you do see any changes, or have any problems, please, please let us know!

If you wish to refer to the old site, it will be here for a week or two - just copy/paste into your browser:-

Code: Select all

http://greenhill-gs.org.uk/website15