Upgrade from Wowchemy v5 to Hugo Blox

[nunesgh]

I have not upgraded my websites for a while and now I see that a lot has changed over here...

Are there any instructions on how to upgrade from Wowchemy v5.0.0 to Hugo Blox? I could not find anything.

[matteoacrossi]

I am also having troubles, there is no clear documentation.

[gcushen]

The templates along with their changes are all fully tracked in Git.

Wowchemy/HugoBlox is a framework that empowers a huge range of customization. Hence, each user can have different templates, different Hugo modules installed, different Wowchemy v5.X.X versions, and different customizations, so the specific changes will vary depending on site.

Theme/template management is performed by Hugo's module system. Unlike some other site generators, Hugo does not currently have a GUI or automated migration system for upgrading Hugo modules. If you feel such features would be useful, feel free to add your feedback on the Hugo Issues/Forums.

In the absence of such an automated migration system in Hugo, we can use Git or your diff tool of choice. To view the specific changes required to upgrade your site, you can utilise a tool such as Git diff (tutorial) to compare your site against the latest version of the template that your site is based on.

Alternatively, you can start fresh with the latest template and gradually migrate files in your content folder across.

As an open source project, the documentation is based on what users, such as yourself, contribute. If you feel the docs can be improved, then you're welcome to contribute to help others in your situation.

[cvanelteren]

Hi there @gcushen, thank you for the wonderful package and support over the years. I am also facing issue trying to upgrade to tailwind. It would greatly help your users to see how these transitions can be made. System upgrade for my website occur less frequently than others, which makes it a bit frustrating if I spend once in a while trying to figure out what changed over the years. It is therefore a bit stark to see "well git tracks the changes" -- it simply is not a great user experience to be able to go through commits to see what is changed, and makes it harder for other to contribute to these transitions; I don't feel like writing a tut after spending hours trying to figure out what the changes did, I am just happy that I get it working an forget about it for a while again. I would therefore invite you to reconsider the past statement, and offer some support for those trying to keep up with this amazing package.

[gcushen]

Hi there @gcushen, thank you for the wonderful package and support over the years. I am also facing issue trying to upgrade to tailwind. It would greatly help your users to see how these transitions can be made. System upgrade for my website occur less frequently than others, which makes it a bit frustrating if I spend once in a while trying to figure out what changed over the years. It is therefore a bit stark to see "well git tracks the changes" -- it simply is not a great user experience to be able to go through commits to see what is changed, and makes it harder for other to contribute to these transitions; I don't feel like writing a tut after spending hours trying to figure out what the changes did, I am just happy that I get it working an forget about it for a while again. I would therefore invite you to reconsider the past statement, and offer some support for those trying to keep up with this amazing package.

Thanks for your feedback and for acknowledging the effort that goes into maintaining HugoBlox. I appreciate your perspective on the upgrade process and the challenges you've faced.

As an open source project for the open research community, HugoBlox thrives on community contributions and support. While I understand your frustration, it's important to recognize that as a volunteer-driven initiative, our resources and time are limited. The "git tracks the changes" approach along with the existing release notes and Discord community support, while not ideal for everyone, is currently the most efficient way we can manage updates across the diverse range of customizations that users implement.

I'd like to clarify a few points:

1. HugoBlox uses Hugo Modules for theme/template management. Any improvements to the upgrade process (such as attempting to automate it) would need to be implemented at the Hugo level, not within HugoBlox itself. If you feel strongly about this, I encourage you to voice your concerns and suggestions directly to the Hugo team. Then, Hugo may become more intuitive to upgrade theme/template modules like other popular site generators allow for.

2. The strength of open-source projects lies in community contributions. If users who successfully navigate upgrades took the time to document their process or contribute to our knowledge base, it would greatly benefit others facing similar challenges. This is the essence of open-source collaboration.

3. HugoBlox is not a commercial company like WordPress with dedicated support staff. It's a community-driven project where knowledge sharing among users is crucial. Referring to "your users" (i.e. referring to all the users as mine) mischaracterizes the nature of our open community. I encourage you to join the community on Discord, where you'll find the community sharing knowledge for upgrading and where you can get help with upgrading.

If you're interested in seeing improvements, I encourage you to consider how you might contribute. This could be through documentation, tutorials, or even code contributions. Every bit helps, and it's through these collective efforts that open-source projects evolve and improve.

Lastly, if you value the project and want to support its continued development, consider making a donation on GitHub. This can help allocate more resources towards addressing community needs.

Thanks for your understanding and for being part of the HugoBlox community. Let's work together to make it better for everyone 👥

[cvanelteren]

Hi @gcushen thank you for the clarifications. It prompted additional questions for me.

1. It is currently unclear to me how exactly templates are pulled and overridden. In my case I have a custom template for the landing and about page which normally resided under layouts/partials/blocks/v1 and previously under a slightly different path. According to the blox and general hugo resources they should now reside under layouts/partials/ directly, however when adding this to that path, nothing is updated. Generally, the pipeline is very complex and since we don't have all the files locally debugging and finding where and how the files are handle is opaque. A general section on the website for hugoblox would be greatly appreciated
2. Naming. The package has been known as academic kickstart, wowhchemy and now hugoblox. There are some resources on hugoblox website that still refer to wowchemy, which makes it confusing to attempt to fix as it casts doubt on whether the manual pages reflect the latest changes. The community could help with this, or the pages should be marked as incomplete and removed from the website until this is corrected.

In general, I think people are more than happy to put into some development time. Speaking for myself, I would most definitely be. However, this is under the condition that contributing is relatively easy to get into. There is only limited time one has to be able to get your hands dirty and move the dial by significant amounts. Expectation management for the community is therefore key here.