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I am still working on customizing my GL site for my specific needs. And I'm trying to do everything as "correctly" as possible, ie. I'm writing a plug-in for adding my new features, and changing the look only in my own custom theme. However, I still find that I sometimes need to change things in the generic code. What are some good ways that other GL users have used, to ensure that come upgrade time, I'm not sitting with a big mess on my hands? The idea of manually re-merging code doesn't sound too appealing, but I guess can not be avoided. -Johann

I don't know whether you edit your code on a *nix system but, if so, creating diffs (files containing the differences between the original and modified versions) of your changes can help significantly. While you might not be able to apply the diff files to a newer version of GL they do serve as a reminder of what you did to what file and speed the process of making manual changes to a newly upgraded installation. Regards, Neil Darlow M.Sc.

Two questions come to mind when reading your post: 1) What code are you modifying and features are you adding? A few examples would be nice. 2) Why not make a feature request? Although, there is no “official” place to do so…guess you’ll just have to post another story? The way I see it, if you are adding features to core GL code then why not share the wealth? Perhaps your modifications will make it into the next GL release. As for those changes that can't be incorporated into GL, try the obvious. Make changes outside core code to avoid migration issues. I think GL has done a fairly good job at making it easy to extend core capabilities and leverage key ojects/functions.

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In a world without walls and fences, who needs Windows and Gates?

Well, off the top of my head here are some of the modifications and tweaks I have made: 1. Smilies codes (type something like :mad: and get a smiley in its place). 2. Tweaking of poll layout, display 3. Fixed the Advanced Search link 4. Major layout modifications - this is where most of my concerns are: how much parity will there be in the themes from version to version? Will there be documentation as to changes in structure and organization between versions? For the most part, my mods aren't that significant and will probably be fairly easy to apply to a new version. GL 1.3.5 is my first install for the company intranet and I am constantly looking to provide more funcationality for employees, so I have never gone through a major GL upgrade but will want to in a timely manner.

Well, there's two things to take into account .. firstly, submit your code changes into CVS or send them to the list, and if we think it'll be a worthwhile addition/change, then it's in. Secondly, I've been thinking about how to addin new Blocks without using the lib-custom.php ... having a subdir called Blocks and making GL scan the directory structure accordingly. Update a standard block, write over the directory. Write a custom block, create a new one. Download an additional block, extract it into it's own dir. This could also be expanded to plugins. You could have a set of standards, like a config.php and index.php to contain the actual code ... mmmm sounds a little phppuke like, but i think we can get past that.

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Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.

Well, I'm adding a "reviews" system. This means someone can review something (a book or a pub or whatever), and attach a rating to it. I'm writing it as a plug-in, but it uses the standard stories table. The plug-in overrides the normal stories submit and save routines, and adds some pre-defined fields (stored in a seperate table) to the submission form. And then converts this all into a "normal" story including a dynamically generated image to show the rating (ie. 5 stars). So the idea is that this integrates seamlessly with your existing topics and stories. So there you have it. That's what I'm working on! :-) -Johann