IPB Updates and theme customizations...

[lotsen]

Hello,

I was curious what happens to theme changes outside of the visual styler (such as modifying and adding code snippets to header templates, userpane etc directly) if I were to update IPB software? I'm used to WordPress and using a child theme to avoid things like that. Does IPB do anything like this?

[Steph40]

@lotsen

It is very much unlike WordPress. There is always a lot of changes for themers to deal with and they always (at least some) complain about it. Make the process painful. It is always better to wait for your themer to update his theme then update ips. Don't mean to be negative that has been reality  since I got ipb in 2011.

[Rhett]

The best method (if you can) is to do all theme changes via CSS and do not edit any templates, using our custom.css file on each theme. This is retained on upgrades, and makes all upgrades painless through all minor versions, on a major version upgrade, there may be a few items to adjust, an example is going from 4.1 to 4.2, there are a few new items.

I did this on my own sites and for a few customers of mine when upgrading to 4.0, not one of them has had any issues through about 100 plus versions.

[lotsen]

I appreciate the answers, and I do understand keeping all my styling changes in custom.css I was referring more to template code changes (adding, deleting and/or modifying certain pieces of code). It would be nice to see if somehow IPB  could use a system similar to how you can make a child theme for WordPress. I understand they are completely different, but the concept is the same for any software that uses themes.

For now, I'll just keep notes in notepad of the changes made so I don't forget anything when I have to redo the changes on IPS updates.

Thank you!

[Rhett]

39 minutes ago, lotsen said:

I appreciate the answers, and I do understand keeping all my styling changes in custom.css I was referring more to template code changes (adding, deleting and/or modifying certain pieces of code). It would be nice to see if somehow IPB  could use a system similar to how you can make a child theme for WordPress. I understand they are completely different, but the concept is the same for any software that uses themes.

For now, I'll just keep notes in notepad of the changes made so I don't forget anything when I have to redo the changes on IPS updates.

Thank you!

We do have child themes, and also a very nice compare template tool that will compare to the stock template and highlight your changes. These tools work great for those who manually edit templates, it does create more work on upgrading though, if there are changes to any templates i which you have edited on the current upgrade, which is why I mentioned, if you can, to limit theme changes to CSS. You can really to a lot with CSS.   For those who really go wild with template edits, we also have a version compare tool here, this will highlight the changes on each version. https://invisioncommunity.com/index.php?app=core&module=system&controller=plugins&do=diff

 

[Jennifer M]

@lotsen

Our theming (in this sense) is actually better than how Wordpress does it. As @Rhett states you can make child themes of main themes. The better part is that you don't have to use our theme as a parent to keep relevant default theme items and our templates system actually indicates to you which templates are modified so you can reference them at any time (you can even filter by them!!). This also shows you (in a child theme) which template changes are inherited to the child theme and which are unique to that specific child theme.

Unlike Wordpress requiring a child theme is unnecessary to retain changes within a theme as IPS will not overwrite a modified template. It does, however, mean that if you make changes to a template that in future versions a change may be required to make sure the template has all of the features added to it.

[lotsen]

5 minutes ago, Jennifer M said:

like Wordpress requiring a child theme is unnecessary to retain changes within a theme as IPS will not overwrite a modified template.

That's actually pretty cool to know

[mark007]

4.1.19.4 -> 4.2 beta 8

I have created two designs that are copies of the default theme. For both designs (Default2grau and Default3grau) I made at the templates changes. Default2grau is frontend default (especially for guests and because of the adsense problem AJAX pagination, Default3grau members theme).

What happens to these designs (templates)? Are the changes overwritten?

[Rhett]

28 minutes ago, mark007 said:

4.1.19.4 -> 4.2 beta 8

I have created two designs that are copies of the default theme. For both designs (Default2grau and Default3grau) I made at the templates changes. Default2grau is frontend default (especially for guests and because of the adsense problem AJAX pagination, Default3grau members theme).

What happens to these designs (templates)? Are the changes overwritten?

If you have edited any templates, they are not touched on upgrade. They would then need to be manually updated after the upgrade if there have been any changes to those templates on the upgraded version, you can use the "compare" feature to check this if needed.

[AlexWebsites]

On 7/16/2017 at 10:34 AM, Rhett said:

If you have edited any templates, they are not touched on upgrade. They would then need to be manually updated after the upgrade if there have been any changes to those templates on the upgraded version, you can use the "compare" feature to check this if needed.

Where is the compare feature? I've seen it come up after upgrade but is there manual way to lets say upload a 4.1 theme into a 4.2 installation and compare? I like the theme differences tool but within the application I recall a comparing feature asking what you want to keep, new or old...how do you access that?

[Rhett]

4 minutes ago, AlexWebsites said:

Where is the compare feature? I've seen it come up after upgrade but is there manual way to lets say upload a 4.1 theme into a 4.2 installation and compare? I like the theme differences tool but within the application I recall a comparing feature asking what you want to keep, new or old...how do you access that?

That is an old 3.x feature, you can compare them in Invision 4, but the theme upgrade tool you are referring to isn't a thing anymore. 

Here is a guide on upgrading a 4.1 theme to 4.2 though, hopefully this will help you https://invisioncommunity.com/4guides/themes-and-customizations/upgrading-themes-to-42-r288/

[AlexWebsites]

2 hours ago, Rhett said:

That is an old 3.x feature, you can compare them in Invision 4, but the theme upgrade tool you are referring to isn't a thing anymore. 

Here is a guide on upgrading a 4.1 theme to 4.2 though, hopefully this will help you https://invisioncommunity.com/4guides/themes-and-customizations/upgrading-themes-to-42-r288/

Thank you. When you upgrade IPS do all the theme templates get upgraded with code changes in templates or do you have to go through the theme differences tool and make those edits manually in your custom theme. I updated one site theme and besides a few custom CSS edits I had to make for layout changes, it looks good. I'm just not so sure about some of the templates and one specifically is in front > system > settings, the device management wasn't added to my custom theme template. I manually added:

	{{if settings.device_management}}
						<li>
							<a href='{url="app=core&module=system&controller=settings&area=devices" seoTemplate="settings_devices"}' id='setting_devices' class='ipsType_normal ipsSideMenu_item {{if $tab === 'devices'}}ipsSideMenu_itemActive{{endif}}' title="{lang="ucp_devices"}" role="tab" aria-selected="{{if $tab === 'devices'}}true{{else}}false{{endif}}">
								<i class='fa fa-laptop'></i> {lang="ucp_devices"}
							</a>
						</li>
					{{endif}}

 

[Rhett]

CSS edits should be done in the custom.css file, then they are retained on every upgrade. If you edit the actual templates, then those edited templates are not updated on upgrade, and you would have to manually update them, or revert your changes and re-add to the stock template. 

 

[Florent Bouillon]

Hello,

I have a similar "safety"  question. I just saw there was a security update, and during the process it changed "theme templates". For such an update it is certainly better not to wait to apply it. But is it somehow possible to know if the templates of an additional used theme from the Marketplace are impacted? (in particular if the safety problem could concern a customized template, and therefore being still present despite IPS update)

[Jim M]

18 hours ago, Florent Bouillon said:

Hello,

I have a similar "safety"  question. I just saw there was a security update, and during the process it changed "theme templates". For such an update it is certainly better not to wait to apply it. But is it somehow possible to know if the templates of an additional used theme from the Marketplace are impacted? (in particular if the safety problem could concern a customized template, and therefore being still present despite IPS update)

The responsibility lies with the author to update their themes with each release we make, security or otherwise. If you have a third party theme and are concerned with this, there are tools to you if you are comfortable reviewing/editing HTML/Template code. Otherwise we would suggest utilizing the default theme if this is a giant concern and your third party author has yet to update your theme.

There is no way to signify a security update from a change the author made but this can certainly help you evaluate if you're comfortable with HTML/Template code. This is a tool I adore in the ACP -> Customization -> Themes -> edit HTML and CSS. It allows you to remove unmodified templates and only leave modified ones from the list:

Then you can compare the template to default:

Please keep in mind any edits made to templates are at your own risk and may cause inadvertent issues.

[Florent Bouillon]

Thanks @Jim M, this option is indeed wonderful.

In my case, the idea would be: is it possible to use it in a way to see what changed between 2 versions of a template? Typically again on the recent security update, I saw it changed some template. Can I see somehow which changes were applied (on the default theme), so that I can know it and eventually duplicate it by myself on my customized theme?

[Jim M]

50 minutes ago, Florent Bouillon said:

Thanks @Jim M, this option is indeed wonderful.

In my case, the idea would be: is it possible to use it in a way to see what changed between 2 versions of a template? Typically again on the recent security update, I saw it changed some template. Can I see somehow which changes were applied (on the default theme), so that I can know it and eventually duplicate it by myself on my customized theme?

You're very welcome.

The last option I showed would compare your current custom template to what the current default template would be for the release you're on. 

We also have the Theme Difference tool in which you can see changes release to release in just our default templates.

[Florent Bouillon]

@Jim M sorry to come back on the subject, I have a question on this topic again.

I saw that the update 4.2.4 -> 4.2.5 updated the templates in the used theme as well (an IPSmake theme). Can you confirm me this thought: when there is an IPS update which touches to the templates, it updates all impacted templates in all themes... excepted maybe the customized templates of the theme ? Or what does happen when an update has to go on a template which was customized ? Does it replace it entirely, or does it modify only the right section of the code ?

[steve00]

8 minutes ago, Florent Bouillon said:

@Jim M sorry to come back on the subject, I have a question on this topic again.

I saw that the update 4.2.4 -> 4.2.5 updated the templates in the used theme as well (an IPSmake theme). Can you confirm me this thought: when there is an IPS update which touches to the templates, it updates all impacted templates in all themes... excepted maybe the customized templates of the theme ? Or what does happen when an update has to go on a template which was customized ? Does it replace it entirely, or does it modify only the right section of the code ?

All templates and css files (not custom.css) will get overwritten to newest version as long no changes were made to them

If changes were made to any template/css file then they do not get overwritten and you have to do those manually (just revert the template(s) and re-add your changes to the template(s) )

Hope that makes sense ?