…. well, it’s already out, but I’ve been holding off installing it. But now that Doyce has, I probably need consider it.
There are three basic concerns in such a conversion:
- Stuff that uses old plug-ins or features under Movable Type 3.x that won’t work under 4.x. Requires research and possibly workarounds.
- New stuff I’d want to use in 4.x that conflicts with stuff I’m currently doing (with the question of whether they can be used in a single blog or are installation-wide — the latter of which would ratchet up the pressure).
- If I want to make a “clean start” on a blog’s templates to use all the bright, shiny new technology, how long will it take me to come up with something I like the look of (and that won’t be broken by my past blogging tweaks).
The last item is, in some ways, independent. I don’t *have* to make a clean start. Maybe.
I actually have several blogs here, which is what makes the major upgrade (or apprehensions about it) the most troubling, since I don’t want to leave any of them up in the air during the transition.
***Dave Does the Blog: This baby’s got template coding, post styles, CSS tweaks, and add-ons/plug-ins dating back to MT 1.x. I really want to (as Doyce was suggesting) start clean, get rid of a lot of the cruft and stuff polluting the sidebars, etc. But I need to look very carefully at the plug-ins I use (already largely cleaned out, but …), and the CSS styles I’ve embedded into the posts in particular.
Blog of Heroes: While this is a relatively old blog, I’ve not done anything fancy with the coding. I don’t expect it would take long to get it looking “production” quality.
Boulder Dude: BD’s blog is hosted under my installation. It’s pretty close to vanilla, and it could be converted over as-is, I suspect.
Doing Write: Nearly vanilla late-model templates, so not a big worry.
Margie’s Kitchen: An older blog, not very customized. It would probably convert fairly cleanly.
WIST: On the one hand, I have been very twisted in how I implemented this, forcing some square corners into the round holes. On the other hand, it’s a pretty recent implementation, and I only made some very small CSS tweaks. It should convert/upgrade, using the current templates, without problems.
I also have some closed/private blog installs for Catspaw (two versions) that would probably not work out of the box — but I’m not as worried about that at the moment, both because of my general sloth on the project (bows head in shame) and because I have a big manuscript print-out I could work from without too much initial trouble.
So I would want to do a fair amount of research work on DDtB before I converted, then figure on another several hours post-conversion cleaning it back up into shape. The other blogs I’m figuring can come over pretty much as-is, no need to even convert CSS/templates until I want to, but I’d want to leave another several hours to test and fix potential problems. That may be way overkill and pessimistic, but I’ve learned not to underestimate these things.
So, in theory, with sufficient research (mostly screen caps, backups, making lists, delving into installation tales), figure on a good weekend of time to do the upgrade. Now, if only I had a free weekend to spare, it would be a piece of cake. 🙂