Forums

I know I'm a little behind the times, but I can't find anything on the ChronoEngine site that explains the proper way to upgrade from 3.x to 4.x and bring existing 3.x forms into 4.x. Please help!

Hi farscape,

That's because there isn't much help availalble :-( There is no automatic upgrade path.

Because CFv3 requires the Joomla! MooTools upgrade plug-in 'disabled' and CFv4 requires it 'enabled' you will only want to make this upgrade in Joomla! 1.5 if you need to change the plug-in setting for some other reason.

However if you upgrade from Joomla! 1.5 to Joomla! 2.5 then you will need to upgrade. I've now done a handful of upgrades and can suggest a process.

[list=a]

For forms with complex custom HTML: Copy and paste over the HTML* into the Form Code tab of a new CFv4 form.

For forms that used the Wizard or forms with simple custom HTML: recreate the form in the CFv4 Wizard using the same input types and names.

Note: you can also create 'hybrid' forms with some more complex HTML pasted into Custom elements mixed in with CFv4 elements for other parts of the HTML.

Replace any CFV3 Captcha {imageverification} in custom HTML with the CFv4 equivalent - you need to add a new input and the {chronocaptcha_img} to display the image.

{chronocaptcha_img} <input type="text" value="" name="chrono_verification" />

Check the Validation tab settings and add the corresponding CFv4 validations directly into the Form HTML using e.g. class="validate['required']". Copy and paste over any Serverside validation code into a Custom Serverside validation action.

Check the Form JS and Form CSS boxes and copy and paste the contents into Load JS and Load CSS actions in the new form. Note that the JS will need checking later to make sure it runs under MooTools 1.4 - most simple code will be fine.

Check the On Submit Before and On Submit After Email boxes and copy and paste any code there into Custom Code actions in the new form. Check all of this code for CFv4/Joomla! 2.5 compatibility. There are a number of changes that need to be made.

Add any Email actions - copy and paste over the template code and add Static or Dynamic settings.

If there is a DB Connection in CFv3 set up a matching DB Save action.

If there are plug-ins used set up the equivalent CFv4 actions.

. . . and so on until the form is complete.

[/list:o]

The time this takes varies a lot - in my little test from 5-10 minutes for a very simple form up to 90 minutes for a complex form without any plug-ins used.

Bob