Upgrading Pixaria Gallery 1.x

Working with the upgrade package

When you recive the updated version of the software, the first step is to decompress the .zip file you were supplied with to get at all the changed PHP, template and image files. There are lots of utilities that can do this and if you're using Mac OS X, it's built right into the Finder.

Upgrading the database

The first step in upgrading Pixaria is to update the database that holds all of your image, gallery and sales information. This is a very important step but is easy if you have a web based database admin tool like PHPMyAdmin installed by your hosting provider.

To begin, open the folder 'resources/databases' in your unzipped archive and run the .sql update file corresponding to the version of the software you're currently using against your SQL server using either PhpMyAdmin or the command line MySQL tool. If you're a cautious type of person, you may wish to make a backup of the current database before you apply the upgrade.

If you're not sure which database file to run, the easy way to tell, is to choose the database file that has the same version in it's file name as your Pixaria installation. For example, if you're using Pixaria version 1.4.1, you would need to import the SQL commands in the database file named 'pixaria.update.1.4.1-current.sql'.

If you're using PHPMyAdmin or a similar tool to upgrade your database, be very careful to only press the button to submit the SQL update form once. If you double click this form button, you may apply the database update twice which could damage your Pixaria installation.

Backing up the current installation

Before you upload new PHP and template files, it's a good idea to back up the PHP files and templates in your current installation - it's not essential but if something goes wrong, you'll be able to go back to the earlier version more easily.

Uploading new scripts

Next, using an FTP program, upload all the updated PHP files, images and templates to your web server being careful NOT to overwrite the current psg.config.inc.php' file or 'library' directory neither of which should ever need to be modified.

Important note about templates

If your upgrade includes changes to templates (most do) and you have template caching turned on (which is a good idea), be sure to 'flush' the Smarty template cache after the upgrade to ensure your new templates are used. This is an option in the admin pages of Pixaria and can be found under the 'Site' tab. You can also do it manually by deleting the contents of the directors '-/resources/smart/templates_c/'.

Whenever you upgrade, it's a good idea to check out the template difference viewer to see which template files have been upgraded.

Go back to contents

Created: Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Last edited: Saturday, March 1, 2008