It took me a while but I have finished testing and updating all 20+ of my aMember plugins with the new version.
I’ve also upgraded this site to run on aMember 3.1.9 PRO. I’ll be putting up a how-to video pretty soon to share more about that experience.
This new version of aMember doesn’t have any critical updates to it so if you’re happy with v3.1.8 of aMember then there is no rush. But it does have a lot of small bugs cleaned up and a few nice new features.
The one thing that it does have, that I ignored and worked around and did not incorporate into my version of aMember or my amSalesPages plugin (yet) is the new tab feature on the member page.
I do think they are cool. In fact I had already started working on a version of that for my amSalesPages plugin, which may be partially what got me into trouble. You see I am using the Thesis Theme for WordPress and I have my aMember templates integrated with the same look-and-feel. It already has tabs at the top for navigation and the styles for those tabs and the new aMember tabs were in conflict, so the aMember tabs didn’t work or look good. I spent a little bit of time trying to make them work but I gave up and just left any changes for those out of my upgrade. Some day I hope that I will tackle it again and make a version that will work. Like I said, I think they are rather a nice way to display everything on the member page.
aMember Upgrade Steps
A quick summary of what I did was:
1. Paid aMember $40 because my upgrade privileges had expired.
2. Downloaded the upgrade kit for 3.1.8 from my member page.
3. Compared any upgraded files with the files on my system that I’ve modified.
Wherever there was an upgraded file that I had modified I re-applied my mods to the new version and put that in a separate folder to use in step 6.
The biggest issues during an upgrade are usually in the template files because they are typically the files most modified.
You can read what I did with them a little later in this post.
4. Uploaded the files from the upgrade kit (with the exceptions noted below).
5. Ran the /amember/admin/upgrade_db.php script.
6. Copied any modified files over the upgraded files.
7. I had to download the new version of the Incremental Content plugin from aMember. You will get a warning if you need to do this.
8. Copied the new version of all of my plugins to the /plugins/protect/ and /plugins/payment/ folder.
9. Tested…tested…tested!
What I Did With The aMember Template Files
When Upgrading from 3.1.8 to 3.1.9 these are what I did with the template files:
Deleted (no significant change since 3.1.8):
- /templates/footer.html
- /templates/signup.html
Kept as is:
- /templates/fatal_error.html
- /templates/aff_guest_failed.html
- /templates/aff_month_stats.html
- /templates/js.country_state.js
- /templates/unsubscribe_link_inc.html
- /admin/ (all)
Merged with my plugin update:
- /templates//cc/cc_info.html
Did Not Copy Since I Did Not Want The Tabs:
- /templates/aff_links.html
- /templates/aff_member.html
- /templates/aff_stats.html
- /templates/aff_payout_info.html
- /templates/aff_stats.html
- /templates/member.html
- /templates/member_add_renew.html
- /templates/member_main.html
- /templates/member_menu.inc.html
- /templates/member_newslatter_archive.html
- /templates/member_payment_history.html
- /templates/newsletter_archive.html
- /templates/newsletter_archive_more.html
- /templates/profile.html
- /templates//css/amember.css
- /templates//css/arrow.png
Kencinnus aMember Plugins Are Ready for aMember 3.1.9 Pro
I would say that the majority of my plugins worked with aMember 3.1.9 Pro without any real modifications. I updated the revision number anyway because that is what I do to signify that the plugin has been tested with that version successfully.
While I was in there testing the code and comparing it to 3.1.9 a few plugins got a tweak or two that make them better.
Most notably in this area is the aMail for AWeber plugin. It will be a lot easier to integrate with the AWeber email parser now because I’m using a different rule that no longer involves the admin email address. So things like weird characters or invalid reverse dns, etc. should not stop it from subscribing your members. If it is working you do not have to change your email parser. This is really just for new installs.
If you’re wondering whether or not the Kencinnus plugins you’re using HAVE to be upgraded, the rule of thumb is that if they involved modifying templates or core aMember code, then yes, you should treat it just like a new install after you upgrade and go back over every single instruction, reading them from the latest readme.txt file, and at least double-check every setting and edit just to be sure.
Even plugins that did not have any file edits to go along with them may have new features now.
