Rebuild Styles... Dangerous?

[C_P]

I have about 4-5 styles installed.
I am going through and just trying to do some maintanance work, etc.
I came across the Rebuild Styles option.
Rebuild Styles This function allows you to completely rebuild all style information. This is necessary after a major upgrade, or if you have manually edited any of the 'special' templates.
Note: this option requires that your MySQL account has ALTER, CREATE and DROP privileges.
If you are not sure, do not use this option!

As I have converted from a SMF board and have a vBadvanced portal installed,could this be dangerous?

Also, are there any areas I should not do in the Update Counters area in admin CP?

[Zachery]

No, there is no danger in running any of the counters, however i would not recomend rebuidling the search index unless you have a specific reason.

[Ocean]

No, there is no danger in running any of the counters, however i would not recomend rebuidling the search index unless you have a specific reason.

You know, Zachery, I never fully understood the "Rebuild Styles" Update Counter.

Can you explain to me what this function actually does?

[Zachery]

To be fully honest, i only have a somewhat limited concept of what it does, however, something similiar is done when you add a new style or add a template to a parrent that gets filtered down to the rest of them.

[Ocean]

To be fully honest, i only have a somewhat limited concept of what it does, however, something similiar is done when you add a new style or add a template to a parrent that gets filtered down to the rest of them.

I'm sure you'll understand if I find it amusing that this option is so ambiguous that even vB Staff don't quite know its purpose.

That having been said, I still would like to get all the details on what - exactly - this function does. I can't feel safe using it, or even know when to use it, otherwise...

Can you ask a Dev to pop in and enlighten all of us?

[Zachery]

Well, The only time I ever really used it in the past was back in the beta 3 and 4 days, after installing myvbindex (now vBadvanced), the templates were installed directly into the database, they were there, but i needed to update the templates in order for them to showup.

Its' one of thoughs features that don't get used too often, but its there if you need it

[Ocean]

Well, The only time I ever really used it in the past was back in the beta 3 and 4 days, after installing myvbindex (now vBadvanced), the templates were installed directly into the database, they were there, but i needed to update the templates in order for them to showup.

Its' one of thoughs features that don't get used too often, but its there if you need it

Well, "there if I need it" doesn't help much if I don't know what I'd need it for in the first place.

Add to that the fact that if I don't know what it does - exactly - I don't know if it's safe to use. Or under what circumstances it's safe and what circumstances it's not.


So, I don't know about anyone else, but I would still like to get a more detailed and complete description of that item, if possible.

[Forum-Style]

i used this many times Rick on our test server, we use it to update any cashe while we change skins over and edit the templates, i would say its not going to effect anything on your forums, all i would say it would do is update all skins if you editted your template alot

Thou thats what we used it for, and believe me we used it alot lol, amount of templates left that where VB default is like hmm practically none.

Would be great thou if some bod could clear it up for sure thou

[Zachery]

vBulletin should auto update all the templates when you are editing the templates. I will see if a dev can comment on this

From the AdminHelp


Rebuild Styles:
Update this counter to rebuild your style structure.

Renumber all templates from 1
Renumbers the template IDs to be in consecutive sequential order. This has no functional purpose except for freeing up template IDs so you don't run out.

Check For Styles With No Parent
Styles with no parent are broken. This option checks for those broken styles.

[Forum-Style]

Thank Zach is kind of you

[Ocean]

vBulletin should auto update all the templates when you are editing the templates. I will see if a dev can comment on this

From the AdminHelp


Rebuild Styles:
Update this counter to rebuild your style structure.

Renumber all templates from 1
Renumbers the template IDs to be in consecutive sequential order. This has no functional purpose except for freeing up template IDs so you don't run out.

Check For Styles With No Parent
Styles with no parent are broken. This option checks for those broken styles.

Well, the two additional functions that it does - the renumbering and the checking for styles with no parent - I understand.

But the way it's worded, they do seem to be additional functions to the main one - and it's that main one that has me boggled.


But I appreciate your trying to bribe a Dev into coming by, and I await anxiously. (Okay, maybe not anxiously, but you get the idea...)

[Jake Bunce]

It rebuilds inheritance among the styles. A child style inherits the templates and settings of its parent. That inheritence is not calculated on-the-fly, it is done by copying the inherited templates and settings to the child so the child is complete in itself.

[Ocean]

It rebuilds inheritance among the styles. A child style inherits the templates and settings of its parent. That inheritence is not calculated on-the-fly, it is done by copying the inherited templates and settings to the child so the child is complete in itself.

Would I be correct then, in assuming that this can be run at any time without causing any damage, corruption, or unintended modifications to anything?

[Zachery]

Would I be correct then, in assuming that this can be run at any time without causing any damage, corruption, or unintended modifications to anything?

It should be safe to assume so, there are no dangerous settings in the update counters area honestly, anything unsafe would be in the query runner.

[Ocean]

It should be safe to assume so, there are no dangerous settings in the update counters area honestly, anything unsafe would be in the query runner.

Oh, I'm sure. However, there are certain items in the Update Counters section (such as Update Post Counts, Rebuild Statistics, and Rebuild User Reputation) that cannot be run preventatively without causing possibly-unintended modifications to data.

I wanted to make sure that Rebuild Styles didn't do something similar, since I do periodically update various counters for preventative reasons.