Website Resource Installing & Upgrading Addons

The basic process for installing an addon is this:

• Download the addon/upgrade
• unzip it on your PC
• FTP into the server and upload the files to the appropriate directory
• go into the XF ACP and select either Install addon or Upgrade existing addon (you have to use Upgrade if the addon exists)
  
• Tell XF where the .xml file is and proceed.
• XF automatically installs or upgrades from this point forward. XF goes through a bunch of parsing & rebuilding, takes a few minutes.

By default, you have to do this repeatedly for each addon/upgrade which can take a while.

On GIRS I have installed the addon "Install & Upgrade" to help manage addons and simultaneous installations/upgrades so it's slightly different.

Enter ACP
Home -> Install & Upgrade

You have 3 options:

1) upload ZIP file; this is nice because you don't have to FTP into the server and upload, but it doesn't always work right so don't use it. Unfortunate, because you can select multiple zip files and do everything on one shot. They're supposedly working on a fix. Problem is, not all developers package their addons exactly the same and this causes fubars.

2) get zip file from XF; also nice, but same issue as #1

3) old school. Not really 100% old school, it's better than without the addon because you can push multiple addons at once (only one rebuild)

So the way to do this is still manual:

• Download the addon (s) and/or upgrade(s)
  
• unzip to your PC
• If doing multiples, find the .xml file and copy it in a separate directory
  
• FTP into the server and upload the files to the appropriate location(s)
  
• repeat these steps above for all addons/upgrades (the Install & Upgrade addon can differentiate so you can do both types at the same time). I combine all the files necessary for upload into one sub-folder and upload them all in one shot.
  
• under Old School, click Browse and find the directory with all your .xml files, highlight them all, and click Open.
  
• XF automatically installs and/or upgrades from this point forward. XF goes through a bunch of parsing & rebuilding, takes a few minutes but it only does it once for all addons.

There are certain addons that I do not install as part of a group, because they are larger and/or more complex, and I just don't quite trust the group-installer (though it's never caused me issues using Old School). These are:

XF Media Gallery (prob could)
XF Resource Manager (prob could)
Xenforo core upgrade (can't do it with this addon anyways)
Styles (can't do it anyways)