Skin selection in the back office uses screen-shots of the skins and lets you preview them in a new tab/window by clicking. Kinda neat.

The write tab has a simple/expert option where simple leaves out quite a few options and expert is what you're used to seeing.

Traffic data is displayed in totally different ways. Much better to me, but that's just an opinion.

"Stable enough" is sort of subjective, but I decided to go with it (from 1.8.7) because the 1.9.* branch has had enough time to get lots of bugs worked out so I figure it's stable enough for me.

The best reason I can think of to upgrade is 2 reasons: 1.9.* is where all the real development is happening. Eventually there won't be any other releases in the 1.8.* family, and I doubt 1.8.7 would have happened if it wasn't for a minor security risk. The real reason is that if you ever intend to upgrade again you'll want to stay with whatever is current because the cumulative effect of small changes will make upgrading even harder.

For your skin the biggest changes to note are that 'pingbacks' is becoming an obsolete term. the feedback_link function still likes it, but that's the only place pingback should exist. Next is how _feedback.php works. There is a new hook that lets you put smilies out there for your commenters. Some other changes too, so what I did was compare my skin to the 'custom' skin and made the changes that were obviously needed. I then did the upgrade and worked through the few bugs that came up.

Here's an idea for you: do a second installation using 1.9.2 then upload your skin to it so you can see what it'll take to make your skin work well in that version. Then you're in the clear when it comes to upgrading your real installation. You could even do a second installation of 1.8.7 and copy your database over to it, then upgrade your skin and any hacks you've done using a real copy of your database.

I have to second EdB I upgraded from 0.9.something to 1.9.2. It cost me two entire days to update. Mostly because I hacked my way in the code, but still, the changes where so enormous that I had to basicly start over again.

EdB wrote:

The best reason I can think of to upgrade is 2 reasons: 1.9.* is where all the real development is happening. Eventually there won't be any other releases in the 1.8.* family, and I doubt 1.8.7 would have happened if it wasn't for a minor security risk. The real reason is that if you ever intend to upgrade again you'll want to stay with whatever is current because the cumulative effect of small changes will make upgrading even harder.

Indeed, you remark is fully correct. The longer you wait, the more effort it will take to migrate. But sometimes the time to migrate isn't available for me, ...

EdB wrote:

For your skin the biggest changes to note are that 'pingbacks' is becoming an obsolete term. the feedback_link function still likes it, but that's the only place pingback should exist. Next is how _feedback.php works. There is a new hook that lets you put smilies out there for your commenters. Some other changes too, so what I did was compare my skin to the 'custom' skin and made the changes that were obviously needed. I then did the upgrade and worked through the few bugs that came up.

What about following part in the 1.9.2 custom skin :

	// -------------- START OF INCLUDES FOR LAST COMMENTS, MY PROFILE, ETC. --------------
	// Note: you can customize any of the sub templates included here by
	// copying the matching php file into your skin directory.
	$current_skin_includes_path = dirname(__FILE__).'/';
	// Call the dispatcher:
	require $skins_path.'_dispatch.inc.php';
	// --------------- END OF INCLUDES FOR LAST COMMENTS, MY PROFILE, ETC. --------------

In my current skin this part is totally diffence :

<?php // START OF INCLUDES FOR LAST COMMENTS, STATS, ARCHIVE DIRECTORY, PROFILE, FLIGHT LOG
switch( $disp ) {
 case 'comments':
	 // this includes the last comments if requested:
	 require( dirname(__FILE__).'/_lastcomments.php' );
	 break;

 case 'arcdir':
	 // this includes the archive directory if requested
	 require( dirname(__FILE__).'/_arcdir.php');
	 break;

 case 'profile':
	 // this includes the profile form if requested
	 require( dirname(__FILE__).'/_profile.php');
	 break;

 case 'msgform':
	 // this includes the email form if requested
	 require( dirname(__FILE__).'/_msgform.php');
	 break;

 case 'subs':
	 // this includes the subscription form if requested
	 require( dirname(__FILE__).'/_subscriptions.php');
	 break;
} ?>

</div>

For the moment it's not yet clear to me if I can just take over the new part ?

EdB wrote:

Here's an idea for you: do a second installation using 1.9.2 then upload your skin to it so you can see what it'll take to make your skin work well in that version. Then you're in the clear when it comes to upgrading your real installation. You could even do a second installation of 1.8.7 and copy your database over to it, then upgrade your skin and any hacks you've done using a real copy of your database.

Thanks for the proposal. In fact I was ofcourse aware of these possibilities, but never did the preparation. This time, I performed the upgrade first on a development subdomain of my hosting. Currently I am updating my skin code, ...