Textpattern 4.0 Up and Running.
I wish I could say that my switch to the first “stable” release of Textpattern was seamless and glitch-free. It wasn’t.
In the Beginning…
Upon upgrading and logging into the Admin panel to run the update script, I was greeted with a cascade of PHP errors. Actually, it was one error repeated ad nauseum. It took me a minute to figure out how to clear it from my screen (it was a language setting issue), but a novice user would have probably quit right there. Maybe it was an issue with upgrading, and not entirely TXP’s fault. Maybe I wouldn’t have had the problem if I had been keeping up with the release candidates, but I wasn’t. I came straight from 1.0rc1.
My date format was all jacked up as well (oh yeah, the technical jargon is straight flowin’ today!). I had to fumble around until I found a setting under Admin/Site Preferences that move the site from a “Test” to “Production” environment. Then dates worked fine. Undocumented procedures have been Textpattern’s Achilles Heel, and I had hoped for concise upgrade instructions. Alas, there is still quite a bit of the ol’ DIY ethic present in TXP.
I had to update a couple of my plugins, but once I’d done that everything fell into place rather nicely. That is to say, nothing exploded. My site didn’t die.
Still Some Roaches at this Party
I’m still working out some of the bugs (oh, yes, there are bugs) and figuring out how to re-hack some of my favorite mods into the site. There seem to be some CSS problems in the Admin panel but I can tidy that up on my own now, can’t I? My advice: if you feel confident working out issues with Textpattern, upgrade away! If you’re a novice user, wait. There are bugs to work out first.
Short list of things to do:
Restore comment invites to top of comment stack (Big bug)sorta fixed… I’ll let it slide for now. 8/16/05Get alternating rows in comments working again (I’m looking at you, Mr. Hicks)FIXED 8/16/05Get Admin panel CSS ship-shapeRestore or re-edit my eng-gb.txt fileFIXED 8/16/05- Get error pages back up and working
Remove comment number from feedsFIXED 8/16/05Restore full article to feedFIXED 8/16/05
If you notice anything else out of place, let me know. But just so you know, the pink color that is all over these pages is actually supposed to be there. ;)
The Love Story Continues
So is Textpattern worth it? Uh huh! Despite the small headaches, it’s still the easiest CMS I’ve had the pleasure of working with. While the upgrade was a bit rough, perhaps the clean install is still as smooth as butter. At any rate, documentation and process cleanup can only get better, right?
You’re a little tenacious, Textpattern, but I still love you.