Upgrade from one version to another

Hi There

I need to know how you plan to do next releases before I commit to NopComerce as my e0commerce platform.  So far I had to blow away my current installation and do a fresh install everytime you have a new release.  You do realise that you can not expect users to do this on an ongoing basis because we are configuring and editing your solution to meet our specific needs.  Are you planning on having an upgrade option available going forward?  DO you plan to publish some documentation/guidelines as to what your customers can "edit" without being impacted too much with an upgrade to a next release?  It will also be nice to know what you consider your core product - totally hands off if customers expect to do upgrades with a click of a button?

I have work for many years at software companies and the biggest challenge always seemed to draw the line between what is core and what is configurable allowing customers to change the solution to their specific needs and still stay on the upgrade path for future releases.  I have lived through the nightmare of trying to upgrade to future releases without proper definition as to what can be changed and what is core.  I hope that you have considered this and will be able to give me satisfactory answers and with a next release demonstrate it.

If you want to modify source code, you should understand that you have to track your changes. This way you easily upgrade your source code to the latest version.

Hi.

The latest release (1.11) allows for easy upgrading from nopCommerce 1.10 using an installation wizard. This will be the case for all future releases.

We are working all the time on making nopCommerce easy to customize and a way to keep your changes when a new version is release. Most content is stored in the database so this is not affected by upgrades. We are currently working on CMS features that will allow pages like Shipping Information to also be stored in the db and modified within administration. We have implemented better structured themes to make it easy to make design changes. We will also be implementing nested master pages so that you can have greater control over the layout of your stores pages without having to modify the default pages. This way your custom master pages will not be affected by upgrades.

One great thing about nopCommerce is how easy it is to change and customize. However, if you are making extensive functional changes it is very difficult to accomodate for these when we release new versions. This is why we encourage people to contribute to the project so that features are standardised and included in official releases.

To summarise, all db content is upgradeable. Themes are transferable(but of course will not include formatting for any new controls/features we add). Static pages (Shipping Info, terms etc.) will be upgradeable once CMS features are implemented.

Hope this answers your questions.

Ben

Great - now I just need to know where to find the installation wizard??? so that I can do an upgrade.  I tried opening the NopCommerce Visual Studio file for 1.11 and got an error "System.Runtime.IteropService.COMException.  So I assume trying to open this file is not how you run the upgrade.  Can someone tell me how to do the upgrade please?