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#1 2020-11-14 08:17:20

hcgtv
Plugin Author
From: Key Largo, Florida
Registered: 2005-11-29
Posts: 2,722
Website

TXP 4.6.2 to 4.8.3

Hi,

My sites are on DreamHost, running PHP 7.2 just fine with 4.6.2, but I’m thinking about updating.

Are there any caveats to watch out for and/or am I cool to stay where I’m at for now?

Took a 3 year hiatus, yeah I’ve neglected some sites, but I’m all rested now.

PS. Wordpress still sucks, right?

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#2 2020-11-14 10:39:22

gaekwad
Server grease monkey
From: People's Republic of Cornwall
Registered: 2005-11-19
Posts: 4,137
GitHub

Re: TXP 4.6.2 to 4.8.3

Hi Bert!
There are some security exploits affecting 4.6.2, now long-since fixed. Have a look here for the details. My 2c: at least be aware of their existence and make a decision on whether they warrant an upgrade.

In practical terms, Textpattern 4.7 and 4.8 run just fine on PHP 7.2, and you’ve got 400-plus lines of Textpattern release notes to skim if you’re interested in seeing what’s changed over the last few years. I’d be doing a disservice to the dev team if I tried to sum up, but the demo site has prefab builds ready to play in if you want to drive it like you stole it.

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#3 2020-11-14 11:29:53

phiw13
Plugin Author
From: Japan
Registered: 2004-02-27
Posts: 3,078
Website

Re: TXP 4.6.2 to 4.8.3

What Pete (gaekwad) said.

One additional note, on DreamHost the default / recommended configuration is now PHP 7.4; Textpattern runs nicely on that, of course.

As for upgrading, you might run into some issues with plugins, on the flip side, more things can be build natively without relying on plugins.


Where is that emoji for a solar powered submarine when you need it ?
Sand space – admin theme for Textpattern

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#4 2020-11-14 11:42:02

etc
Developer
Registered: 2010-11-11
Posts: 5,053
Website GitHub

Re: TXP 4.6.2 to 4.8.3

gaekwad wrote #326737:

There are some security exploits affecting 4.6.2, now long-since fixed. Have a look here for the details. My 2c: at least be aware of their existence and make a decision on whether they warrant an upgrade.

My 2c: this is nonsense.

You might prefer to wait 2-3 weeks for PHP8-compatible txp 4.8.4 release.

hcgtv wrote #326735:

PS. Wordpress still sucks, right?

No idea, but Textpattern still rulez!

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#5 2020-11-14 14:17:58

hcgtv
Plugin Author
From: Key Largo, Florida
Registered: 2005-11-29
Posts: 2,722
Website

Re: TXP 4.6.2 to 4.8.3

Pete: I was on the demo site last night, comparing the familiar 4.6.2 admin with the new 4.8.3 admin by bouncing back and forth between browser tabs. Nice resource you got there.

Oleg: Here you go proof – Damn, I’ve forgotten how to Textile :()

Forum admin: I’m posting a reply to this thread, I’m in post preview and I can’t see the thread, don’t remember it being this way.

Sage advice, wait for 4.8.4, will do, thanks guys.

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#6 2020-11-14 14:32:04

gaekwad
Server grease monkey
From: People's Republic of Cornwall
Registered: 2005-11-19
Posts: 4,137
GitHub

Re: TXP 4.6.2 to 4.8.3

hcgtv wrote #326744:

I was on the demo site last night, comparing the familiar 4.6.2 admin with the new 4.8.3 admin by bouncing back and forth between browser tabs.

It makes extensive use of the auto-installer script introduced in 4.7, which is a breeze to flatten and repave every three hours. It’ll likely stay at 4.7 as the earliest / oldest version as I can’t convince myself to have a bodged approach to installing with unzipping an archive and splatting a SQL dump. It just seems so…uncouth.

It’s a $5 DigitalOcean server that runs some Bash of dubious quality (all my own work), triple threat PHP (7.3, 7.4 and the final 8.0 RC before it lands for real in 10 days), Percona 8 and Nginx 1.19. Benchmarks-wise, I can install 6 instances of Textpattern with ~7,000 users each in about 12 seconds. It used to be a lot quicker (~6 seconds) when it was Percona 5.7, but times they are a-changin’.

Which reminds me – this post includes a couple of links to Textpattern WIP on PHP 8.0 RC, if you find any snags please let us know.

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#7 2020-11-14 14:39:06

hcgtv
Plugin Author
From: Key Largo, Florida
Registered: 2005-11-29
Posts: 2,722
Website

Re: TXP 4.6.2 to 4.8.3

gaekwad wrote #326746:

Which reminds me – this post includes a couple of links to Textpattern WIP on PHP 8.0 RC, if you find any snags please let us know.

Let me get up to speed, heck I’ve forgotten how-to everything, and I’ll start kicking tires again.

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#8 2020-11-14 16:59:42

Bloke
Developer
From: Leeds, UK
Registered: 2006-01-29
Posts: 11,269
Website GitHub

Re: TXP 4.6.2 to 4.8.3

Hey Bert! There are plenty of changes. Not only do we now support pageless sections, there’s also our first dippy toes into themes. The almost-complete in-depth primer is on the docs site but there are also some cool implementation details that themes permit, such as development preview on a live site. It’s a real game changer.

Good to see you around and hope you enjoy all the stuff we’ve done.


The smd plugin menagerie — for when you need one more gribble of power from Textpattern. Bleeding-edge code available on GitHub.

Txp Builders – finely-crafted code, design and Txp

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#9 2020-11-14 17:47:37

hcgtv
Plugin Author
From: Key Largo, Florida
Registered: 2005-11-29
Posts: 2,722
Website

Re: TXP 4.6.2 to 4.8.3

Hi Stef,

Last night I spent time on the docs site, specifically the Themes creating section, and also played with the demo site.

Yeah, there are plenty of changes, so I’m going to go back and download every release since 4.6.2 and read the History.txt file in each zip.

When I have a good handle as to where we are with Themes, I will gladly give my opinion.

As you know, I’m not a web developer that came to Textpattern, I was a techie that wanted to put up personal sites. So how I use Textpattern and theming specifically is way different from a web developer.

I subscribe to the KISS principle, one page, one style, a few forms and hardly a plugin in site, I prefer to massage tags to achieve the desired result. I don’t use form types, which I’ve always felt confused me to no end when I first came upon TXP.

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#10 2020-11-15 11:31:50

etc
Developer
Registered: 2010-11-11
Posts: 5,053
Website GitHub

Re: TXP 4.6.2 to 4.8.3

hcgtv wrote #326755:

I subscribe to the KISS principle, one page, one style, a few forms and hardly a plugin in site, I prefer to massage tags to achieve the desired result.

Unfortunately, reducing the need for plugins reduces the number of active plugin writers too.

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#11 2020-11-15 11:52:20

hcgtv
Plugin Author
From: Key Largo, Florida
Registered: 2005-11-29
Posts: 2,722
Website

Re: TXP 4.6.2 to 4.8.3

etc wrote #326778:

Unfortunately, reducing the need for plugins reduces the number of active plugin writers too.

Plugins are normally written to enhance TXP, but over time, those enhancements make it into the core. This is why there are so many orphaned plugins. Not to mention doing an update to TXP, plugins make it a more difficult process and at times impossible until the plugin is updated.

I’m a minimalist by nature, if I wasn’t, I would not be on this forum and I’d be over at WP.org. So by nature, I try to work with what’s in the core, which gave me a huge insight to TXP Tags, the most powerful and elegant set of tags in CMS land. I’ve used Expression Engine, which I also rank as having great tags, and I would still be using EE if the lead developer wasn’t such a dick.

No, I don’t dislike Plugins, I’d just rather do it with Tags :)

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#12 2020-11-15 12:06:58

hcgtv
Plugin Author
From: Key Largo, Florida
Registered: 2005-11-29
Posts: 2,722
Website

Re: TXP 4.6.2 to 4.8.3

Just went to Expression Engine, they Open Sourced it on 11/2018

As for Rick Ellis being a dick, me and him got into a tussle about Open Source on their forums. He put down Open Source, saying his closed development environment was better than an open concept.

But now he’s all in on Open Source, what a dick.

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