Inherited CI 1.5.4: Rebuild or update?

[eluser]rubysue[/eluser]
Hi all,

I have been maintaining a CodeIgniter 1.5.4 application for a little over a year now and am fairly familiar with the framework. It is serving our purposes well, but we need to redesign (new CSS/theme) it with a new rebranding.

I have a limited time to accomplish the redesign, but I think I can get the results we need (including a responsive design) with CSS and Javascript, leaving the MVC components intact. I wonder, though: Should I update the code base, too?

Second question: What workflow do you use for development? I normally use a MAMP/LAMP stack and Git for version control/sync between dev and production. I currently access the CI application using FTP, but 660 permissions prevent me from viewing or downloading several essential files, like user.php. While I could change the CSS on this semi-locked production application, this could be catastrophic without a backup or version control. It would feel much safer to at least get another site (even in the same antiquated version of CI) up for development first.

Any thoughts or advice?

Thanks!

[eluser]sv3tli0[/eluser]
https://github.com/EllisLab/CodeIgniter - This is CI github

How ever the currect dev version is 3.0 and stable 2.1.4..

Its good to be up to date, at least for security reasons. But if you can make it without updating CI its your choice

[eluser]rubysue[/eluser]
Thanks @sc3tli0. Are updates generally painful in CI? This would be a pretty major leap, but it looks like minor updates are simply replacing files. Can I assume that if several updates in a row are only replacing core files, I can just skip them?

[eluser]phpkode[/eluser]
@rubysue, Codeigniter probably has the most stable core among all the popular PHP frameworks. Most of version upgrades maintain as much backward compatibility as possible. Ability to quickly upgrade has been one of the strongest point of CI

Please consult this user guide page on how to upgrade from 1.5.4 to 2.1.4 (current stable version). Follow the required steps sequentially from old to new version

http://ellislab.com/codeigniter/user-gui...ading.html

Please be extra careful on steps to be followed on major version changes like 1.5.4 to 1.6, 1.6.3 to 1.7 and 1.7.2 to 2.0

[eluser]rubysue[/eluser]
@phpkode — Thanks, that's reassuring. I will make sure to follow directions.

[eluser]WanWizard[/eluser]
There are a few significant changes going from 1.x to 2.x, if memory serves me well.

Amongst them the change from Controller to CI_Controller (so change all your controllers), the change from "classname == methodname" constructor to using __construct(), etc.

Check the upgrading docs, and go through each one, starting with "Upgrading from 1.5.4 to 1.6.0". I'd expect you to be busy for a while, depending on the complexity of your application.

Also check anything third-party you may use, those need upgrading too.

[eluser]rubysue[/eluser]
@WanWizard, thanks for the advice.

In terms of development process, should I be able to run a site locally on a MAMP/LAMP stack, correct?

Thanks,
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