Hello friends,
after some time I am back to Zenphoto. The reason: the galleries which I installed for my friends and left to their responsibility where flooded by spam. So I had to do something ;=)
I started to update one of these installtations by reading the upgrade instructions and I found that all of you developers are not clear what has to be done.
It is suggested to update version by version, but nobody can clarify which versions are essential, which are not. The old-version-archive shows at least 14 releases from version 1.1.7 (where I had to start) to version 1.4.2
and here my first pledge:
please name your archive zips with leading zeros, so they will be listed descendant in the correct way (try to identify version 1.4 in the impressive list of 1.4-versions!)
but the real pain is that there is no real information which versions are relevant. In my naive attempt I thought it is enough to go the secont-digit-steps (1.1.7 => 1.2 => 1.3 => 1.4)
But that was naive because you guys don't stick to the standards of release numbers (notice: important changes go to the first level, minor but important changes to the second digits etc.)
So I ended up in a total chaos. My expectation, that database changes are integrated in 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4 was wrong, I had to go back, install some minor releases ... everything was try and error.
And that is not good!
How I ended up?
At last I got a version 1.4 (after 14 hours of try and error, my FTP-client counted more than 21000 transferred files!!!), but, for one reason, one database table (pages) was missing. I could not identify which release created that table.
So I installed zenphoto on a local server, exported that table and imported that SQL into the database at the server.
I think, this experience shows that there are some rules ignored or some standards not held.
And I fear that I have to do the same with the second installation as well. (Don't tell me that these guys should update regularly... they are standard users, they just want to use the system .. until they got flooded by comment spam)
So I have one, no two big whishes:
1)
why not offer SQL-procedures for the necesary updates of the databases?
Whenever you change the structure of the database, please offer the relevant SQL.
Who (in a situation like I was) would mind to run 3 or 4 SQL-statements? Nobody ...
If you offer that, it would be easy to upgrade to the newest version and prepare the database tables for that version. That is is a common practice and it could save a lot of despair...
2) please stick to a transparent version structure:
"1.1.1.1" like "major.minor.revision" or so
(database changes are major versions!)
as described in wikipedia: "The standard GNU version numbering scheme is major.minor.revision,"
so, now I feel better, I had the strong need to tell you my experience of the last 2 days
Cheers, Connie
