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CC6 and Blueprint - compatible?


Dirty Butter

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The info about v6 says you can use your old skins, but I want to be sure that v6 is compatible with Fusion and Blueprint. I do intend to change to a modified Foundation skin in time, but there's no timetable for that. I have to learn a lot and modify a lot before I will make MY Foundation live.

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Welll..... I know this isn't necessarily good answer, but I would run away from Blueprint as soon as you can, only because it's no longer supported - as you know - and the underpinnings are not really up to date after 2 years with all the changes to web browsers, and the fact we've run into a bunch of issues with the other theme Vector, especially in Firefox lately, and found it won't work at all with the next generation server optimizations like mod_SPDY at all (CSS won't load due to the funky compiled LESS CSS vs direct link to static stylesheet).

 

I have not tried it yet with CC6 (was waiting for b3 to even install CC6); but we're going to go ahead and try to wrangle the new base theme as it will at least WORK with all modern browsers and mobile devices properly.

 

Just my two cents, and sorry for not answering the question really :-)

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If the Fusion module "phones home" to verify license, and "home" is 'shopdev.co.uk', WHOIS info suggests the server to be located in Chicago, and the domain owner is a UK individual having a Westchester California address -- which probably does not exist, unless it's a typo. (google street view).

 

But, back to being "on subject", I'll be happy to test anything there is about this skin/mod, but there will be requirements that only the ShopDev dude can satisfy.

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The info about v6 says you can use your old skins, but I want to be sure that v6 is compatible with Fusion and Blueprint.

Fusion along with Blueprint and Vector skins do work perfectly well with V6

...but I would run away from Blueprint as soon as you can, only because it's no longer supported - as you know - and the underpinnings are not really up to date after 2 years with all the changes to web browsers, and the fact we've run into a bunch of issues with the other theme Vector, especially in Firefox lately, and found it won't work at all with the next generation server optimizations like mod_SPDY at all (CSS won't load due to the funky compiled LESS CSS vs direct link to static stylesheet).

The lack of contact and support from the Shopdev developer over the past year is of course a concern but there are a huge number of sites using their V4 and V5 skins without any problems and will continue to do so for a long time as they are extremely well written and stable. The unfortunate situation is that both Blueprint and Vector are so far advanced functionality wise over any other skins available, that unless a store owner is willing to pay a lot for a customised skin or has the skills to do it themselves, these are still the best choice (not withstanding the support concerns).

Vector does use LESS CSS (Blueprint doesnt) so if there are issues that cannot be fixed with mod_SPDY (dont know specific details of the issue but as 99% of code is available for Vector a solution could be possible) but this is unlikely to affect many people for a long while yet as while mod_SPDY looks promising, it has many problems of its own so much so that cPanel (which a large majority of stores will be using) will not be integrating it in the foreseeable future.

If the Fusion module "phones home" to verify license, and "home" is 'shopdev.co.uk', WHOIS info suggests the server to be located in Chicago, and the domain owner is a UK individual having a Westchester California address

Shopdev skins do call home for a licence check and while the shopdev.co.uk site still sells and functions perfectly, of course there is a concern as to whether the site and domain will continue to be paid for and be live - although that is no different to any other developer. Omar has always travelled around so a split between UK and USA isnt surprising and while the domain is due for renewal at the end of April this year, the whois information also shows that details were last updated in May last year some 4 or 5 months after anyone last had contact with him

Ian

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The last I heard from Omar he was far afield somewhere in Asia I think travelling and visiting family. I believe ShopDev was created as a side line whilst at university. I have tried to reach out to him many times recently. 

 

I can only assume that he has other interests like maybe a full time job and career now. I certainly no longer recommend his skins. SHame. 


Oh and they *should* work fine with v6 in theory.

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Well, I'm content with that answer, Al and others, as I intend to upgrade to b3 with it and see how it goes.

 

I've already built a Blue Foundation skin, but I'm struggling with the column organization. It was so simple to understand in Blueprint. Not quite so obvious in Foundation for me, at least. I'll start a new thread about that and maybe get some help with that.

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If Blueprint isn't using the same coding as Vector, that's great news all around.

We spent a week trying to get Vector to work with various workarounds, including creating static CSS and over-riding the settings, but the conflict between how they did the dynamic LESS stuff along with the Fusion system, just breaks in Firefox, although we got it working in EVERY other web browser. (And of course, I'm likely to blame 'stupid' FireFox there ... but .... lots of people love it ...  which sucks for me because I liked Vector, aside from the CC5 three page checkout funnel where people get lost ... but that's another issue ....)

 

FYI, mod_SPDY is being built into the next version of Apache, so it will soon be a part of the web base platform, not host specific; so those who want it will be able to use it. Which is good since Google is really pushing the "https everywhere" concept. I just suffered switching 15 years of content to "all https" which we switched over on Dec. 1 ... ugh. Pain, in all the diodes down my left side.   ;-)

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If Blueprint isn't using the same coding as Vector, that's great news all around.

It uses standard css rather than LESS

We spent a week trying to get Vector to work with various workarounds, including creating static CSS and over-riding the settings, but the conflict between how they did the dynamic LESS stuff along with the Fusion system, just breaks in Firefox, although we got it working in EVERY other web browser. (And of course, I'm likely to blame 'stupid' FireFox there

The fact that it worked in every other browser apart from Firefox indicates it isnt a general problem with LESS and mod_spdy and research backs that up ! Sounds like you spent a fair bit of time on trying to sort the problems but I dont think they would be unsolvable as this is simply a Firefox quirk

aside from the CC5 three page checkout funnel where people get lost ... but that's another issue ....)

Changing checkout to a single page has been done with Blueprint and with Vector before

FYI, mod_SPDY is being built into the next version of Apache, so it will soon be a part of the web base platform, not host specific; so those who want it will be able to use it. Which is good since Google is really pushing the "https everywhere" concept. I just suffered switching 15 years of content to "all https" which we switched over on Dec. 1 ... ugh. Pain, in all the diodes down my left side.   ;-)

 

Hmm - not quite. Google (after doing almost nothing with the mod_spdy code for a LONG time prompting an ill fated fork which caused even more problems !) have donated the project code to Apache who have only said that it is likely to form part of http 2.0 version of Apache and that the aim is sometime on 2015 (read late 2015 for beta maybe) but even then this doesnt mean that cPanel or other hosting control panels will support it. mod_spdy has and still currently suffers from a lot of problems both performance wise (which it is obviously supposed to and one day will, fix) and also that it relies on and requires other modules many of which are currently outdated and in one case contain a serious security risk !

 

OK so we discovered a bug in the /js folder which broke some of the v5 skins. From Beta 4 backward compatibility for v5 skins should be improved.

This is important for anyone running V5 skins under V6 so if trying to run Vector or Blueprint or any other skin other than the stock foundation one.

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Spoke too soon. I had modified 6.0.03b to include most of my v5 edits. I expected some things to not work as they did, but Blueprint was working properly. Upgraded to 6.0.04b and I can't get Blueprint to work. I took plushcatalog offline, as it only shows the category/subcategory list, with homepage products shown all down the left hand side. Same thing happens with stock Foundation.

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I had to go back to 6.0.03b. I couldn't get Blueprint or Foundation to work correctly on .04b. This is WITH my own modifications, mostly from Bsmither's v4 and v5 hacks and a few developer's hacks. Some worked, and some didn't, but nothing I added to 03b caused major issues. I'll try tomorrow on a clean install and see what happens.

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Blueprint is working on a clean install of 6.0.02b upgraded to 6.0.04b. It worked on an upgrade of 6.0.03b with our full database, with edits to core files, but not upgrade to 6.0.04b

 

So it's either our database causing the problem, or more likely the core edits. I'll try to narrow down where the issue is, but today's not going to be a good day to work on it.

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