TTG Tips and Tricks

Since there has occasionally been some confusion over this process, here’s a step-by-step on how to update your site from Backlight 1 to Backlight 3/4.
(also applies to Backlight 1 to Backlight 2 updates)

Download your Backlight 3/4 purchase and unzip it.

Inside the Backlight-3-Installer-xxx folder you will find two folders and two files:

In your unzipped Backlight-3-Installer folder are these four items:

• • backlight/ (folder)
  • galleries/ (folder)

• .htaccess
• index.php

(Note, you may not see the .htaccess file. If not, you’ll need to change your system settings to show hidden files. If you don’t know how to do this, Google it.)

Access your server using your FTP client program

Following the Backlight documentation do the following:

1. In your site’s backlight/ folder remove everything except the data/ and custom/ folders. You can remove by either completely deleting or first downloading those folders and files to your computer as a backup before you delete the files on the server.
   (If you are only using Backlight for your albums, skip to number 4)
2. In the root of your site (at the same server level as the backlight/ and galleries/ folders) remove/delete the index.php and .htaccess files.
3. From your FTP program, upload the index.php and .htaccess files from the root of the unzipped Backlight-2-Installer-xxx/ folder to the root of your site.
4. From your FTP program, open the backlight folder of the unzipped Backlight-2-Installer-xxx/ folder on your computer.
5. Upload everything in this folder, other than the data/ and custom/ folders, into the backlight/ folder on the server.

NOTE: It’s very important that the index.php and .htaccess files are placed in the proper locations. There are actually two sets of these files, one set in the root of the site and different set in the backlight/ folder. Do not confuse these two sets: the set in the root of the unzipped Backlight-2-Installer-xxx/ folder goes in the root of your site.
The set in the unzipped Backlight-2-Installer-xxx/backlight/ folder goes in the site’s backlight/ folder.

Continue with the Backlight 3 installation process by visiting yoursite.com/backlight/installer/ and following the instructions there.

After you’ve installed Backlight 3, don’t forget to visit each of the Admin, Publisher and Designer menu items to upgrade the databases.

Visit the Backlight Modules page and install any add-ons you’ve purchased.

And, from the main Backlight Dashboard, click on the Update Album Files link.

That should do it.

Phplugins

If you were using phplugins in your Backlight 1 site, you will need to update the phplugins file and your functions. In the unzipped download’s /backlight/custom/phplugins/ folder, use the phplugins-pangolin-sample.php.

Open that file and notice the new format for using the functions. Where before you might have:

function ttg_scripts ($style, $path) {

Now you will now use:

function scripts () {

There’s more on phplugins for Backlight 3 in the documentation.

And more on the changes to phplugins from Backlight 1 here.

If you have any issues, be sure to address those to the forum where Ben (one of the developers) will be able to see and answer. Included as much information as you can, including your site url and the php version your site is running. Also be prepared to share Backlight admin and FTP credentials if they are requested (usually by Ben).