I’m so excited to talk about a few new features in the SwiftModders WHMCS Theme Installer that will, hopefully, make your life a little easier. First up, the “Auto-Updater” feature in version 1.3.0 gives you the ability to update your theme installation automatically from the module. It works similarly to WordPress because the module will check for updates upon use and report available releases. Within the Auto-Updater, you will see the update path, release notes, and other useful information before updating.
So how does the Auto-Updater work?
It’s a bit complex, but the Auto-Updater utilizes the Github API to ping my private repo for updates. When I release new updates, it will automatically authenticate your permission, download the file, and prep it for installation. Before replacing everything in your WHMCS installation, it will create a backup of your current theme setup. The reason for this is because we have to ensure the update completes without issue. If an error is encountered, you’ll be prompted to roll back your installation and try again. After a successful installation, you’ll be prompted to clean up your installation and recompile your customizations.
Keep in mind that this feature is experimental and does require some testing before use in your production environment. It’s highly recommended that you test your upgrades in a development environment beforehand.
Awesome, what’s the next feature?
This one is smaller and quite helpful for those who want to backup their customizations or transfer them between installations. The “Settings Import/Export” will allow you to download a JSON config file of your theme settings. With this file, you can either tuck it away as a backup of your customizations or anything, really. It’s really annoying to lose your customizations due to an error, so this gives you some redundancy to avoid issues like that in the future.
That’s all I have for now! I’ll keep you all posted on my next big project that is already underway. What is it? Well, let’s just say it’ll take your WHMCS experience to the “next level.” 🙂