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What would you recommend as the easiest way to upgrade scripts when Drocket uploads new versions? The Admin on our server, (stupidly) deletes all the scripts, and completely freshly reinstalls them, nuking all the changes I make. . And I can't think of any other way, heh.

dw3rby wrote:What would you recommend as the easiest way to upgrade scripts when Drocket uploads new versions? The Admin on our server, (stupidly) deletes all the scripts, and completely freshly reinstalls them, nuking all the changes I make. . And I can't think of any other way, heh.

Either have a long talk with your Admin, get a new Admin, or find a new server to work on. Those are the best choices. Alternately, you could save all the changes you make offline and reinstall your modifications afterwards. That would be ludicrous to be forced to do though.

You both have a problem doing it the way you currently operate. Unless your scripting efforts are better appreciated, you are wasting your time scripting on that shard.

On the updating methodology, here is how I approach it each time:

One person needs to be responsible for merging the old and the new. You can then upload the new files when they have been tested. Some of Drocket's changes are as trivial as putting in a space before a ( and others are major rewrites. This can take a couple of hours to sort through and test.

The way I do it is to work from a backup of Drocket's zip file.
In Drocket's zip I sort by date and DELETE all files that are older than the last script release. I then delete all the ecl files. That leaves about 100 odd files that need to be checked.

I then open each file one by one and use an editor that can colour highlight differences between his files and your current files. I usually do the cfg files first followed by any files in the scripts/include directory, then work package by package with the cfg then inc files then src files.
Do test compiles after each inc or src change and don't drink beer while you are trying to concentrate.
Of course, you should run a "test" shard of all the change before you upload the files to the "production" shard.

Unless you have made thousands of changes all over, you should be able to do most of them very quickly indeed.

I hope you get it sorted out quickly. It must be frustrating with your current 'system'.

Regards,
Stephen Donald.

SDonald wrote:
I then open each file one by one and use an editor that can colour highlight differences between his files and your current files.

What program do you use to do that? Thanks for the pointer, hopefully I won't have to rescript everything I change anymore.

I use a program called 'Beyond Compare' that will search thru the entire directory, and only list changed files. It then allows you to bring up those files for comparison, and also transfer the changes from one to the other. It is a very useful tool.

Haven't seen Beyond Compare. I can only comment on Ultraedit which I bought online.
Apart from having pol syntax highlights available, you can compares 2 files (even from inside a zip) in an output window with red and yellow highlights to show the differences. You then dbl click on the output window to show the lines highlighted and side by side to edit them.
Most good editors could do something like that I believe.

When you get used to it, the tool doesn't slow you down and you can concentrate on the code itself.

Regards,
Stephen Donald.

Yeah, I actually do the pol editing in Ultraedit, cause I can compile it in there with it's tools, plus I like its syntax hiliting. But I found for comparing a BUNCH of files, beyond compare works a lot better. You can choose to see the entire file, or just the differences. You can choose to only see files that are different also, then either move the file over, or just move the lines that are diferent over. A pretty slick program for doing a lot of comparisons quickly.

Caramon,
The moving of lines appeals a lot. I might check it out too.
Thanks.