Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Starter Kit Update (Rev. 070531)

It's only been about a week and a half since the initial release of the Small Business Starter Kit, and we've already released an update!

But don't worry, this will not be a regular event. We just happened to get some great feedback after a few users got their hands on the kit and thought of a few additional changes to sneak in since we would be doing a new release anyway.

The result includes a much nicer design for the documentation / help site, for example, and the default site itself now has a slightly cleaner design. If you already downloaded the original release (rev. 070524) of the starter kit and have begun working with it, we've created an upgrade package so that you don't have to start all over again. If you're in this camp, I'd suggest the following approach:

  1. Make a complete backup of your site database and files (just in case the upgrade package fails or overwrites something you hadn't expected, since there is no way to uninstall it).
  2. Download the upgrade package and install it using the Installation Wizard available in the Sitecore Desktop user interface.
    1. If all goes well, you're done!
    2. If you ran into problems:
      1. Restore your site from your backup.
      2. Create your own package including your Home item (not including subitems), plus each subitem (except for the Standard Items folder), plus any media library entries you may have created.
      3. Install the newest starter kit.
      4. Install your package in the new starter kit installation.

Hopefully the simple upgrade will work fine. Let me / us know about your experiences.

I hope to post some "behind the scenes" explanations of some of the fixes, as they will give readers some insights into how the site works, so stay tuned!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

well, i guess i'm "in that camp".. actually quite good this happened since i can try my packages and see to it so they end up where they're supposed to :)

P.

Anonymous said...

Thank you Kerry and the Sitecore team for putting together this Starter Kit! As a Sitecore developer, I've learned so much from your SCPrinters Demo site in version 5.1-5.3. Have you considered using this starter kit in your developer training courses? I think this would be a very valuable experience for new and existing Sitecore developers to experience some of the capabilities of Sitecore CMS.

Robert
Web Manager
rhuynh@acsa.org