Transitioning from Editor/PE 5.4 to 6.1, has anyone had any big issues?

[mramshaw]

We are about to transition our Editor/PE Server combo from version 5.4 to 6.1. Obviously nobody else will have our exact customizations, but has anyone who has done this version transition had any big issues or known problems with stylesheets or acl files not working any more? For starters, it appears there is no upgrade file to run, I just need to uninstall 5.4 and do a fresh install of 6.1, is that correct? Thanks for any help or opinions that people might share!

[GarethOakes]

Hi Mike,

I haven't done this exact version upgrade before, but some notes from my other experiences below:

* The 6.1 installation can live alongside the 5.4 installation, if you want (as long as you don't run the applications simultaneously)
* Tomcat/PE may have issues with "side by side" due to port number allocations
* Editor has an OCX component which is registered, the last version registered wins
* You can re-register Editor OCX component if needed (eg. when starting 5.4 vs 6.1 register a different OCX)
* 6.x series needs different license files to 5.x series (new licensing called "FlexNet")
* If you run license servers then you need to use FlexNet license servers for 6.1 licenses
* Styler will auto-upgrade your stylesheets, usually no problem UNLESS you have edited source
* With edited source, you should remove/reapply the edited source before/after the stylesheet upgrade
* If you have a lot of customisations or scripts then you may get some error/warning messages to fix up
* Sometimes, the errors are more subtle and do not produce error messages...

Cheers,
Gareth Oakes
Chief Architect, GPSL
www.gpslsolutions.com

[JeffStevenson]

Hi Mike,

As an addendum to Gareth's note, we've found the stylesheet upgrade tool in 6.1 is pretty good and better than 6.0. However, for complex stylesheets or those with source edits and customizations, it's sometimes useful to step through the upgrades by upgrading the stylesheet from 5.4 to 6.0 first. So the upgrade path would be...

5.4->6.0->6.1

* Editor has an OCX component which is registered, the last version registered wins
* You can re-register Editor OCX component if needed (eg. when starting 5.4 vs 6.1 register a different OCX)
* 6.x series needs different license files to 5.x series (new licensing called "FlexNet")
* If you run license servers then you need to use FlexNet license servers for 6.1 licenses
* Styler will auto-upgrade your stylesheets, usually no problem UNLESS you have edited source
* With edited source, you should remove/reapply the edited source before/after the stylesheet upgrade
* If you have a lot of customisations or scripts then you may get some error/warning messages to fix up
* Sometimes, the errors are more subtle and do not produce error messages...

Cheers,
Gareth Oakes
Chief Architect, GPSL
www.gpslsolutions.com

[ClayHelberg]

Another thing to keep in mind: if you have source edits in your 5.4 stylesheet, you might have an opportunity to get rid of them in a 6.0/6.1 stylesheet. PTC added significant functionality to Styler in those updates, so you might be able to replace the older source edits with regular Styler rules. If you can do that, it will make stylesheet maintenance going forward much easier.

One more minor thing: if you have ACL code that modifies the menus, you might need to tweak some of it, due to changes in the strings used for certain OOTB menu items.

[mramshaw]

Thanks for the replies, everyone! We have no source edits in our stylesheets but we have to export them to a fosi for publishing and we do have to make some fosi edits at that stage. I will have to read up on the new additions to styler, it would be nice to get rid of the fosi edits we have to make.