FAQ

How can I help?

Become part of the community. Brainstorm. Make some Modules. Design some themes. Conjur up some Feathers. Translate it. Promote it. Use it. There are many ways to help without costing you a dime, but if you really want to, you can Donate.

How do I stay up-to-date?

It's not that hard to upgrade Chyrp. In fact, it's not hard at all, especially after version 2.5, which features automatic updates. Prior to 2.5, all you have to do is back up /includes/config.yaml.php, overwrite your Chyrp install, and restore the config file. After that, navigate to /upgrade.php in your browser and see if anything needs to be done there. Be careful when overwriting though, especially with the modules, feathers, themes, and locale folders; some applications delete the folders before uploading the new ones. You may want to also subscribe to the blog with your RSS reader; any new releases will be announced there.

How and why does it use AJAX? (does it go overboard?)

The reason for AJAXifying Chyrp was realizing that you shouldn't have to navigate to another page to change something that's staring you in the face. It wasn't done just to throw another buzzword into the mix; it's been made useful. Another point in AJAXifying it is to save bandwidth (“What!?,” you may say). Instead of reloading the entire page and re-grabbing the header, footer, etc. etc., it only grabs the part of the site it needs to. Creating a post simply sends a SQL query and shows the post, instead of loading everything all over again.

Because we've all seen AJAX abused too many times, Chyrp is made to use it only where it works good. For example, creating a new post uses AJAX, because it's already definite where it's going to end up (the content, with all the other posts [unless you made it a draft, in which case it goes in to "Your Drafts" and tells you so]). However, for creating a page it uses regular old form submitting. This is because pages are meant to be their own section of the website. There's no point in having it fade in to the content or do anything fancy, because you'll end up going to its own page anyway.

Most areas that utilize AJAX are administration functions. Editing, deleting, creating posts; reorganizing pages; nearly everything is made all fancy for you. There aren't many places for a user to see AJAX; most of the time they come in, read, and leave a comment (if you're lucky).

How do I develop and use modules?

See the Documentation.

How do I create and use themes?

See the Documentation.

How do I create and use feathers?

See the Documentation.