Upgrading to Version 9.0
The following details are very important to know before upgrading to version 9.0.
First, if you're upgrading from a version earlier than 8.0, you NEED to view the important release note FYI wiki articles below.
- What to Know When Upgrading to Commmunity Forums 8.0
- What to Know When Upgrading to Commmunity Forums 8.1
- What to Know When Upgrading to Commmunity Forums 8.2
(tl;dr if you've never used customized templates with the Forums module, you probably can skip this section...)
Community Forums 9.0 enhances the way templates are retrieved by using a naming convention of TemplateName{-suffix}.ascx where the suffix is assigned to desired forum groups/forums. This eliminates control panel assignments for each forum group and/or forum to specific templates. For example, if you want a customized TopicsView template for moderated forums, create a TopicsView-moderated.ascx template, and use moderated as the filename suffix for moderated forums.
If in prior versions you had customized templates, you will need to manually handle this migration by:
- determining which forums use which customized templates
- moving those templates to use the proper naming convention and customization suffix
- assigning the suffix to the affected forum groups/forums
It sounds like a lot of work, but it's really simple.
In prior versions, when you wanted to customize a template used in the Forums module, you would copy the existing template (in the control panel) and change it. For example, you might want to put some text on a moderated forum’s “topics view” page, so you create a new template:
Then assign it to the desired forum(s) here:
The customized template then displays:
In V9, this changes. You don’t assign individual templates anymore. You just specify an (optional) string as a file name suffix for desired forums or groups.
You make your edits directly on the file (using the editor of your choice):
If there’s a matching file, it will get used; if not, it will use the default (for your theme, or if not part of your theme, it will use the module’s defaults)
Without a match,
With a match,
This works across all templates. No more database table. No longer necessary to specifically set each template for each forum group and/or forum.
Lastly, if you are working on templates, make sure you turn off template caching, and turn it back on later.
