Help needed - hopefully paid help

hairydog · 2020-06-12 18:06:41

I know nothing about Textpattern, so please excuse any part of this that is obvious to experts.

I manage a web server and it has hosted a local green/environmental charity’s website for more than a decade. We really do need to update the server to php7.3 and the charity’s website runs on Textpattern, version 4.8.0.

That’s fine, but it seems to rely on a number of plugins that don’t seem to have been updated for about fifteen years, and the few that work at present won’t work after the move.

I have never seen any other Textpattern setup apart from this one, so I have no idea whether it is a standard setup, but I do know that I can’t understand how it is supposed to work.

There are about 2,500 articles, 8,500 images (plus 8,500 thumbnails) and a few scores of audio files.

What I think is needed is someone who can build a sensible structure to the pages and forms to make the content work. I hope that this would be fairly straightforward to someone who understands Textpattern, but I may be wrong.

I don’t know how much money the charity has, but they do have some money available to pay for some help with this.

Can anyone offer help, or suggestions about where to ask?

Last edited by hairydog (2020-06-12 18:07:33)

Dragondz · 2020-06-12 18:58:29

Hi,

Can you post the list of those plugins, maybe there is newer version that works on txp 4.8.

If its possible to update the website on a test installation to see if it could work!

When things don’t work straight forward we usually look at admin/diagnostics to see if there no problem with the installation and put the website on testing mode (you do that on the admin/pteferences tab ) and view the website and look at errors there that can give a clue about what is wrong.

Cheers.

Bloke · 2020-06-12 19:00:58

Hello and welcome to the Textpattern forum. You’ve asked in exactly the right place.

I can certainly audit your site for you and recommend if the plugins are necessary any more, have upgraded versions available, or indeed if Textpattern itself can do the functionality natively now.

Once that’s out of the way and the server is upgraded to PHP 7.3, we can look at shuffling the content around to make the site work better.

I’ll send you a private message in a moment so you have a point of contact and we’ll go from there.

EDIT: Dragondz was faster! And by all means post the list of plugins in use here (found in your Admin->Diagnostics panel, about halfway down under “Active plugins”) so we have a headstart on what to expect.

Last edited by Bloke (2020-06-12 19:02:17)

hairydog · 2020-06-12 19:29:05

The plugins showing as active are below. I don’t know if there should be more, or if these are all actually used.

ako_nav-1.0 cbs_category_list-0.9 chh_if_data-0.10 com_connect-4.6.0-beta.3 ebl-image-edit-1.0 glx_hl_current-0.3 mem_glinklist-0.8.5 ob1_pagination-2.5 sde_newsletter-0.4 smd_calendar-0.56 smd_featured-0.6.0 smd_lib-0.37 upm_file-0.4.1 zem_contact_lang-4.0.3.6 zem_contact_reborn-4.0.3.21 zem_prblock-0.1 (modified)

hairydog · 2020-06-12 19:31:44

Dragondz wrote #323736:

Hi,

Can you post the list of those plugins, maybe there is newer version that works on txp 4.8.

If its possible to update the website on a test installation to see if it could work!

When things don’t work straight forward we usually look at admin/diagnostics to see if there no problem with the installation and put the website on testing mode (you do that on the admin/pteferences tab ) and view the website and look at errors there that can give a clue about what is wrong.

At present, it seems to mostly work on php5.6 (though either is it partly broken or it was badly set up).

I’ve copied it to a server running php7.3 and it is not really working at all.

I made a fresh install of 4.8.1 and copied the articles and images across, but I have no idea how to build a working site from that.

jakob · 2020-06-12 19:41:23

hairydog wrote #323742:

The plugins showing as active are below. I don’t know if there should be more, or if these are all actually used.

ako_nav-1.0 cbs_category_list-0.9 chh_if_data-0.10 com_connect-4.6.0-beta.3 ebl-image-edit-1.0 glx_hl_current-0.3 mem_glinklist-0.8.5 ob1_pagination-2.5 sde_newsletter-0.4 smd_calendar-0.56 smd_featured-0.6.0 smd_lib-0.37 upm_file-0.4.1 zem_contact_lang-4.0.3.6 zem_contact_reborn-4.0.3.21 zem_prblock-0.1 (modified)

Hehe, a good few of those are bloke’s own plugins :-) They all still work on the newest version. A few of those are no longer needed / now do-able with Textpattern’s own tags, but a few are special and probably no longer work. The problem-candidates are probably

ebl-image-edit (it used flash in its day) that was for image cropping and sizing. It’s just an image helper so non-essential for running the site.
sde_newsletter. That’s a very old one and likely not up to date with current newsletter regulations anyway. It’s also not essential for running the site but may have been used to send out newsletters. Fun fact: sde was the prefix for “Small Dog Electronics”, another canine webdesigner!

com_connect replaces zem_contact_reborn and _lang entirely. What zem_prblock did is I believe now built-in. mem_glinklist is now doable with txp:linklist, chh_if_data with txp:evaluate, cbs_category_list with txp:category_list, ob1_pagination with etc_pagination or the recent new txp paging tags. ako_nav and glx_hl_current probably have to do with menu design and setting an active tag for the menu item that corresponds to the page you are on. Depending on the site’s menu structure, that can be achieved by other means.

BTW: you can check which plugins are active on the Admin › Plugins panel under column called “Active”.

2500 articles and 8500 images is quite something!

hairydog · 2020-06-12 19:46:17

It seemed to use a lot of chh_if_data which I couldn’t get to work or find a new version of. Last updated in 2006 as far as I can see.

jakob · 2020-06-12 19:51:04

chh_if_data was a wrapper tag that only output what it enclosed if a tag within it produced some actual content. It was a way of preventing empty divs and headings appearing if no links / articles / images were output.

That’s replaceable with txp:evaluate and the test attribute. The second example in the docs shows how that works.

hairydog · 2020-06-12 19:53:13

Actually, on reflection, I think I updated all the plugins I could find new versions of – there were older versions running before.

jakob · 2020-06-12 19:58:10

I updated my earlier post with some infos on what tags / plugins you can probably use in place of the one’s that have no longer been updated. BTW: we did have a forum member in your area who used textpattern (possibly the previous site author?).

Bloke · 2020-06-12 20:00:14

hairydog wrote #323742:

[plugin list]

Cursory thoughts:

ako_nav-1.0 Can probably be done natively.
cbs_category_list-0.9 Might be needed. Depends how it’s being used.
chh_if_data-0.10 Not needed. Can be done with trim and <txp:evaluate>.
com_connect-4.6.0-beta.3 Needed for contact form.
ebl-image-edit-1.0 If you’re editing uploaded images in Txp, this is needed but probably doesn’t work any more. Avoid if you can.
glx_hl_current-0.3 Probably not necessary as highlighting current article can be done natively
mem_glinklist-0.8.5 Likely still needed unless txp:linklist can group in the same way. No patched version available.
ob1_pagination-2.5 Can be done natively.
sde_newsletter-0.4 Can be rewritten using com_connect and a bolt-on module, but failing that is necessary and may need updating.
smd_calendar-0.56 Fine, should still run.
smd_featured-0.6.0 Should still run, just may need some visual love for 4.8.
smd_lib-0.37 Not needed as far as I can tell from this list.
upm_file-0.4.1 No equivalent native functionality. Easy to do with another tiny plugin or patch this one if it doesn’t work.
zem_contact_lang-4.0.3.6 Not needed if com_connect used.
zem_contact_reborn-4.0.3.21 Not needed if com_connect used.
zem_prblock-0.1 (modified) No experience with this. Paid-for Alex plugin. Anyone?

EDIT: Damn, I’m slow tonight :)

Last edited by Bloke (2020-06-12 20:00:47)

jakob · 2020-06-12 20:07:59

Bloke wrote #323750:

Cursory thoughts:

ako_nav-1.0 Can probably be done natively.

cbs_category_list-0.9 Might be needed. Depends how it’s being used.

chh_if_data-0.10 Not needed. Can be done with trim and <txp:evaluate>.

com_connect-4.6.0-beta.3 Needed for contact form.

ebl-image-edit-1.0 If you’re editing uploaded images in Txp, this is needed.

glx_hl_current-0.3 Probably not necessary as highlighting current article can be done natively

mem_glinklist-0.8.5 Likely still needed. No patched version available.

ob1_pagination-2.5 Can be done natively.

sde_newsletter-0.4 Can be rewritten using com_connect and a bolt-on module, but failing that is necessary and may need updating.

smd_calendar-0.56 Fine, should still run.

smd_featured-0.6.0 Should still run, just may need some visual love for 4.8.

smd_lib-0.37 Not needed as far as I can tell from this list.

upm_file-0.4.1 no equivalent native functionality. Easy to do with another tiny plugin or patch this one if it doesn’t work.

zem_contact_lang-4.0.3.6 Not needed if com_connect used.

zem_contact_reborn-4.0.3.21 Not needed if com_connect used.

zem_prblock-0.1 (modified) No experience with this. Paid-for Alex plugin. Anyone?

EDIT: Damn, I’m slow tonight :)

Hehe, usually you’re faster :-p

zem_prblock just adds rel="nofollow" and I think that’s already standard for comments, right?
mem_glinklist. I’ve done this with txp:linklist sometimes in combination with txp:category_list. It depends on the markup that’s required.
cbs_category_list. This is mostly replaceable with txp:category_list. Only the article count per category is not in the standard tag and it may not be a vital element. It’s doable via other means but adds database queries.

Textpattern CMS

Textpattern CMS support forum

#1 2020-06-12 18:06:41