X3Photo Gallery Forums

With the release dated 20081015, we did some major changes to the config/theme structure of Imagevue V2. If you are updating from an earlier version, you must first delete your existing "imagevue" folder before you upload the new files! You can of course still keep your "content" folder.

Themes
Themes are now reduced to cover only visual/static settings like colors, shadows, sizes and opacity etc. Other settings like interactivity, positions and events are now moved into the main config. The advantage of this, is that you now can change the gallery config as you like, and still be able to use any theme without changing- or having to redo your core settings!

You can still edit them theme files of course, and changes will be saved in a separate userTheme file. This means that you can change the themes as you like, and you will keep the changes even after updating to a new version!

config
The main config, which earlier used to consist of only server settings, now includes all settings that control how your gallery works. We have moved many of the settings from the themes, directly over to the config. The advantage is that you can control how your gallery works through the config file, and yet be able to try out any theme files without loosing your settings.

You can also edit the config as you like, and changes will be saved in a separate userConfig file. This means you can change the config as you like, and you will keep the changes even after updating to a new version!

Technical
For those of you who want to know what's happening in the actual file system, please read on. With the new structure, default files config.xml, theme.xml and lang.xml are stored under imagevue/include/. These files should not be edited, because they are maintained by us. They always include updated settings with descriptions. These files are used as base to fill in any missing settings in specific themes or in the user config file.

Now, when user edit the config from admin, a new file is created imagevue/config/userConfig.xml. This file is maintained based on differences with the default config.xml file. When updating to new versions, this file will be kept, therefore your custom configurations are maintained also.

Similarly, when you edit a theme from admin, a new file is created imagevue/config/userThemename.xml. This file is maintained based on differences from the original theme file in the themes folders. When updating to new versions, this file will be kept, allowing your custom theme changes to be maintained. The original theme files are still located under imagevue/themes/themeName/. They should not be changed manually.

All languages are now under imagevue/language/. As we add new language items, some language files may get outdated, but they can now easily be updated by going to the language editor in admin and filling in new items(which default to english).

All "user" files are now stored under the imagevue/config/ folder, so it is important that write permissions are set for this folder!

Unfortunately yes, you will need to re-apply your entire theme/config changes. This is one of the main reasons we are still in beta, and also why this last release addresses that exact issue. Upgrading AFTER this release, you will no longer have to worry about maintaining your changes, because they are stored in separate files.

You will however need to set up your customizations again this time.

rdch wrote:Please can you provide a list of exactly which folders and files it is safe for me to edit, that will not get overwritten when I upgrade?

You need to overwrite the entire "imagevue" folder, there are no exceptions ...

content/ <- Keep this folder with your images and folders
imagevue/ <- delete this folder, and re-upload latest