Beware upgrading to 4.2.3

[Rheddy]

The problem is that it depends on how many modifications you have made to your forum software. This is exactly why I prefer to use as few modifications as I need to, aside from plugins and forum skins. There are some customizations that I use for my community but they are few and far between. Since IPS 4.2 is still relatively new, upgrading to the new version is going to cause problems if you use a lot of modifications, which is why I disable any forum skins I use that employ them and disable plugins and enable a default skin before upgrading to any new major release (4.1, 4.2, 4.3, etc).

Sure, there is a lot of work involved when upgrading the next new release but this is a given since the IPS code always changes.

[Tracy Perry]

On 9/6/2017 at 9:11 AM, Morisato said:

Sure, there is a lot of work involved when upgrading the next new release but this is a given since the IPS code always changes.

Really, for the template system it shouldn't be a "given".  
From my experience, the IPS templating system (syntax) is not any more difficult than the XenForo one, and one of those 2 have a VERY effective and robust history/merge system in place (and it's not IPS).

It's really rather ridiculous that any time you do an upgrade and you have customized templates you are expected to have to manually redo all those custom modifications or risk something not working.

[Rheddy]

The history for the IPS suite bears it out that the code always changes. I've been a customer of IPS since way back when 1.3 (final) was released and with each new major release, the code has changed. From 1.3 to 2.x, from 2.x to 3.x, from 3.x to 4.x. Even during IPS3, the code for the forum skins would change from 3.1 to 3.2 and so on. One of the concerns with customers of premium skins would be if upgrades within a certain IPS release would qualify for updated releases free of charge or for a discount. The thing is, there's not a guarantee that the skin template code won't change. It might be minor changes but it's enough to get an update for whatever skin you're using.

Modifications that you have on whatever templates you're using, it's always a safe bet to back up those changes or remember the changes you made to them. This is what I do, keep a copy of template modifications in a file so that when an update or upgrade to the software is released, that I won't forget and I can just go back in, and replace those mods. Personally, I prefer using an updated version of whatever modifications, plugins and skins that I do use.

It's just not a guarantee and what I consider dangerous planning if you keep moving forward thinking that updates within an IPS release won't affect the changes you've made to your forum skins. I prefer to err on the side of caution and believe in backing up everything, no matter how innocuous it might be.