Upgrading to Feeds.App 3
This document only pertains to upgrading Feeds.App version 2 to version 3.
Feeds.App 3 is a complete re-engineering of the code that makes of the plugin. Feeds.App 2 was developed with MT 3.0 and released right around the time of MT 3.1 since then. Movable Type has introduce many new features that significantly improve the usability and functionality of a plugin like Feeds.App. Clearer recommendations and best practices for packaging plugins have emerged in that time.
The process of re-engineering was also deemed necessary to better address the many changes syndication landscape that have occurred since version 2's release.
Through this re-engineering, we believe Feeds.App has the been given a strong foundation to move forward and be the best (and hopefully indispensable) plugin it can be.
See "What's New and Different in Feeds.App 3" for an overview of the changes.
System Requirements
Feeds.App 3 requires at least Movable Type 3.31 or Moveble Type Enterprise 1.03. Like these versions of Movable Type, Perl 5.6.1 is required however we strongly recommend using Perl 5.8.1 or better.
Some external library dependencies have changed, but all are included in
the Feeds.App 3 distribution. Previously the plugin required
XML::Parser and Storable. Both of these modules
were problematic because they required compilation and could not be
included with the plugin distribution. Compilation required shell access, a
fair bit of technial experience and elevated permissions on the server.
Many hosts had these common modules pre-installed, however significant
enough number did not. The code has been re-engineered so these
prerequisites are no longer necessary. Also Getopt::Long 2.33
or better is no longer needed with the retirement of the agent command-line
tool.
For more information see the "Feeds.App 3 System Requirements".
Upgrading
Upgrading from Feeds.App 2 to Feeds.App 3 requires the same installation process that a new user would follow. See "Installing Feeds.App 3" for that process. There are a few added steps and considersations that an upgrade includes.
In addition to creating a data table for storing local copies of the feeds, Movable Type will read in the existing version 2 cache files from your server's drive, convert them to Atom 1.0 and then remove those version 2 cache files. (Version 2 cache files have long names of seemingly random numbers and letters with extensions of .http and .feed.)
Do NOT perform the steps listed in the File Cleanup section until these upgrade procedures have run successfully. Some of the Feeds.App 2 libraries are needed in the migration of cache data. The upgrade will fail without them.
Be sure to deactivate Feeds.App Lite. Failing to do so will cause Feeds.App to malfunction and produce unexpected errors.
File Cleanup
Because of the changes in how plugins are packaged and the re-engineering of the Feeds.App code a number of files will be left in your MT installation that are no longer needed.
Clearing out these files from the old version is NOT necessary and completely optional. Not clearing out these old files should have little to no impact. Do not attempt these steps if you are not comfortable with this process. Always be sure to backup your MT code directory in case you need to revert your sytem back to its original state.
The following files can be deleted AFTER you have installed the software and let MT run the upgrade procedure. File names are realtive to your MT system directory.
- docs/feedsapp.html (possibly moved to mt-static)
- extlib/MT/App/Feeds.pm
- extlib/MT/ConfigMgr/Feeds.pm
- extlib/MT/Telegraph.pm
- extlib/MT/Telegraph (directory and all its contents)
- plugins/feeds/manual.pod
- plugins/mt-nontagfix.pl
- tmpl/feeds (directory and all its contents)
- tools/agent
Deprecated Tags
Several tags have been deprecated. These tags will continue to work eith generally the same functions however they eventually will be removed from the plugin. See the "Feeds.App Template Tag Reference" for their replacements.
These changes are mostly to align the tag names with the functionality of the Atom 1.0 specification that Feeds.App uses as its internal format.
- MTFeedIf
- MTFeedDescription
- MTFeedCreatorName
- MTFeedCreatorEmail
- MTFeedCreatorLink
- MTFeedModified
- MTFeedEntryModified
- MTFeedEntryCreated
- MTFeedEntryIssued
- MTFeedEntrySourceName
- MTFeedsVersion
- MTFeedsVersionSlug
- MTFeedsIncludeLatest
Another notable change is the deprecation of the collection
attribute on the MTFeeds, MTFeedsLatest, MTFeedsInclude and
MTFeedsLatestInclude tags. Use file instead.
