Mailing List Archive

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Phillip Smith [mailto:phillip@communitybandwidth.ca]
> Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2009 4:36 PM
> To: Bricolage Developers
> Subject: (Hopefully) quick question about approaches to re-developing a
> content-heavy site.
>
> * Developing new templates on the production server exclusively (vs.
> using a development server), given Bricolage's template development
> sandbox;
[Adam Wilson] For better or worse, this is how we do all of our work at the moment. As we are starting to circle back around and enhance existing elements, it is becoming apparent that we will want a sandbox in the near future.

> * And, last but not least, who's using 1.11.x exclusively now and
> how's it going?
[Adam Wilson] We are, and have been for a while. I am mostly happy. We upgraded to Apache2 about a month ago, and that has been nice, though I lost my log files for a bit in the process (had to add the log file parameter to the sites config file.)

There is one issue that I am not sure is an issue, but think it might be. I haven't been able to nail it down yet, so I haven't reported it yet. I have had more than one user get their stories stuck in a state of limbo difficult to recover from where the story thinks that it has been deleted. There are some SQL scripts to run that usually help, but it seems like at least half the time I have to further poke and prod the database until I finally reach a state of data synchronicity that makes the story available again.

Adam Wilson

On Jun 4, 2009, at 1:36 PM, Phillip Smith wrote:

> One change that makes things a bit trickier is that the page
> extensions are changing from .php to .shtml. Though, I think I've
> figured out a relatively straightforward way to address that in the
> development process.

That shouldn't be too bad.

> Last but not least, there's a hope that we can also upgrade
> Bricolage to the 1.11.x branch at some point during this process.

+1

> So, my question are:
>
> * What are the approaches that people have used when embarking on
> similar re-development projects?
> * What are the pitfalls you've encountered along the way?
>
> Specifically, I'm wondering about:
>
> * Developing new templates on the production server exclusively (vs.
> using a development server), given Bricolage's template development
> sandbox;

I've been doing this. It has mostly worked out okay. I created new
output channels and did all my development there, just putting sample
stories into the new OC and leaving it disabled by default for all new
content. To do the migration, I plan to move all of the templates to
the production output channels and republish everything. We'll see how
that goes…

> * Or developing on a development server, and then synching those
> changes back with the production server at a later stage.

This is a better option if you keep careful track of everything you've
changed or added (templates, output channels, destinations, element
types, etc.). You can then use bric_dev_sync to sync things up when
you're ready to deploy. I think that this is actually be better (and
safer) option when you are able to get access to a clone of the
production install. Mind you, I haven't actually done it myself, so,
caveat bricoleur.

>
HTH,

David

On Jun 4, 2009, at 2:04 PM, Adam Wilson wrote:

> There is one issue that I am not sure is an issue, but think it
> might be. I haven't been able to nail it down yet, so I haven't
> reported it yet. I have had more than one user get their stories
> stuck in a state of limbo difficult to recover from where the story
> thinks that it has been deleted. There are some SQL scripts to run
> that usually help, but it seems like at least half the time I have
> to further poke and prod the database until I finally reach a state
> of data synchronicity that makes the story available again.

Do you have templates doing anything funky with stories? It's often
the case that checkouts will get messed up if you look up stories
using Story->list and forget to include `published_version => 1`. But
deleted stories is a new one on me.

Best,

David

On 4/6/09 21:36, Phillip Smith wrote:
> I'm about to get underway with the re-development of a site that
> receives frequent content updates. The re-development is comprised
> mostly of changes to the site's HTML and CSS; functionally, the site is
> staying relatively the same.
>
> One change that makes things a bit trickier is that the page extensions
> are changing from .php to .shtml. Though, I think I've figured out a
> relatively straightforward way to address that in the development process.

You don't necessarily have to do that, esp. if you're using apache. You
can just change the handler that deals with .php.

It has the advantage that you can retain all the SEO benefits of the
existing pages without having to get them reindexed.

If you do change them, don't forget to create a mapping tool to redirect
search driven links to the correct new place.

> Last but not least, there's a hope that we can also upgrade Bricolage to
> the 1.11.x branch at some point during this process.
>
> So, my question are:
>
> * What are the approaches that people have used when embarking on
> similar re-development projects?
>
> * What are the pitfalls you've encountered along the way?
>
> Specifically, I'm wondering about:
>
> * Developing new templates on the production server exclusively (vs.
> using a development server), given Bricolage's template development
> sandbox;

I take it that the site is using Bricolage already ?

> * Or developing on a development server, and then synching those changes
> back with the production server at a later stage.

I think a lot depends on how much the site is changing. By the sounds of
it, it's just templates so I'd probably be tempted to do that on the
production server, using new OCs as David described.

If it was more structural, I'd probably do that on a dev server so that
I could script the move of content from one category to another.

> * And, last but not least, who's using 1.11.x exclusively now and how's
> it going?

We are for our big content client. It's 'OK'. The story UI is definitely
better than it was before but there's a little bit too much 'magic' ajax
going on without enough feedback on what it's doing, particularly when
working with stories on the desks.

We hope to improve that a bit in the coming weeks and feed it back to
the project.

We are also having a lot more trouble with 'stuck' stories, which are
probably related to the async nature of the ajax calls introducing race
conditions but we can't reliably replicate it yet.

> Any and all thoughts / experiences are helpful. Many thanks in advance,

I'd still go for the 1.11.x branch, even with its idiosyncrasies it's
still better than 1.10.x. We particularly like the ease with which it
can be re-skinned.

Good luck with the project.

S.

--
Digital Craftsmen Ltd
Exmouth House, 3 Pine Street, London. EC1R 0JH
t 020 7183 1410 f 020 7099 5140 m 07951 758698
w http://www.digitalcraftsmen.net/

On Jun 4, 2009, at 11:45 PM, Simon Wilcox wrote:

> We are for our big content client. It's 'OK'. The story UI is
> definitely better than it was before but there's a little bit too
> much 'magic' ajax going on without enough feedback on what it's
> doing, particularly when working with stories on the desks.

Please report these issues!

> We hope to improve that a bit in the coming weeks and feed it back
> to the project.

Oh, even better. :-)

> We are also having a lot more trouble with 'stuck' stories, which
> are probably related to the async nature of the ajax calls
> introducing race conditions but we can't reliably replicate it yet.

Ugh. I wonder if WHO is running into this more now, too.

>> Any and all thoughts / experiences are helpful. Many thanks in
>> advance,
>
> I'd still go for the 1.11.x branch, even with its idiosyncrasies
> it's still better than 1.10.x. We particularly like the ease with
> which it can be re-skinned.

ISAGN for skinning distributions on GitHub. ;-)

David

Many thanks to everyone for input on the question of how to approach
the re-development of a content-heavy site on Bricolage. Greatly
appreciated.

--
Phillip Smith // Simplifier of Technology // COMMUNITY BANDWIDTH
www.communitybandwidth.ca // www.phillipadsmith.com