Software

Overview

Hop Deeploy Helper is a simple add-on that makes the lives of EE developers a little easier. It collects all of the configuration parameters throughout EE that you might need to modify when switching between production and development, or when migrating between hosting companies. It displays them all on one page where you can verify and modify them all at once, instead of having to go to so many different places: Files, Channels, Settings, Add-ons….

It keeps a history of your settings revisions with easy roll-back if something incorrect was done, and it offers a powerful search-and-replace so you can get all your settings synchronized in a snap. And speaking of roll-backs, you know how EE can make database backups? This add-on has the ability to reload one of those backups into your current database – handy!

It also has a bonus setting: with it, you can disable the one-click update button that clients sometimes have a tendency to click when they shouldn’t.

Installation for EE 3+

1. Unzip the folder to a temporary location on your local hard drive.
2. FTP the files from their local folders to the same locations in your EE install’s /system/user/addons/ folder on the server.
3. Navigate to Add-ons in your EE control panel and install the add-on. That’s it!

Usage

NOTE: We recommend backing up your database before making any settings changes with Hop Deeploy Helper!

To modify your site’s URLs and paths, go to the add-on and choose “Edit Site URLs and Paths.” You’ll see a long list of EE configuration parameters a.k.a. settings.

If you can edit a setting, that setting is stored in the EE database. If the setting is not editable, that means the setting is defined in the config.php file.

To change many settings at once, you can use the Quick Replace section at the top of the page. Enter the “before” and “after” values you want to change, then click “Quick Replace.” 😊 Any setting that you change will show up in red text. That way you can see that it’s been modified.

Be sure to click SAVE after making changes. Saving will create a “Revision.” You can roll back to any previous revision if something doesn’t seem to be working properly.

NOTE:

• Hop Deeploy Helper is a very powerful tool. We test thoroughly, and it’s worked for many other EE developers. But because it directly updates system settings in your database, this tool has the potential to damage your installation in ways that might be prevented if you update the settings in other ways. The current version of Hop Deeploy Helper does not test the validity of input parameters. For example, it does not verify that filesystem paths exist and are writeable.
• You should only use it if you know why you’re using it, and you should always backup your system before you use it.
• You can’t take the previous bullet point too seriously!

Manage One-Click Update

It’s often easiest to give folks superadmin access, but you might not want them updating the site suddenly.

Enable Protect Site to prevent the One-Click Update button from working.

Think of it like a child-proof medicine cap.

Revisions

Your changes to site settings are saved and revisioned, and you can see who made the settings changes and when. This can be handy for praising or blaming.

Click the ‘View’ link to load a previous version of the site settings, then click ‘Save’ to apply those changes.

Restore Database Backups

NOTE: We recommend backing up your database before running any restore!

This lists all the database backup files currently available in the system/user/cache directory from the EE backup tool. Click the “Restore” button next to one of that, and that backup will be loaded into the current database.

No validation is done to verify these backup files are functional or complete. Restoring from one of these files is a non-reversible, potentially destructive action. The restoration may fail for reasons to do with your server environment, available RAM, or any other reason. Use at your own risk — and make a backup first!

Be aware that you will likely be logged out after restoring because your current session may no longer be valid.

Command Line Interface

You can use Deeploy Helper with EE’s command line interface. Two functions are exposed:

Find & Replace

php system/ee/eecli.php hop_deeploy_helper:replace --regex {find} {replace}

This command performs a find-and-replace operation on all settings — just like the Quick Replace feature in the admin panel — and always creates a revision.

If you use the regex flag, the {find} value must be a valid regular expression, such as /[0-9a-z]+/. The {replace} value may also include regex syntax like backreferences. Without the regex flag, both {find} and {replace} are treated as plain strings for direct substitution.

If you want to replace the found value with an empty string, you must use the blank flag. E.g. php system/ee/eecli.php hop_deeploy_helper:replace --blank '/chroot'. This tells the command to ignore the {replace} argument and use an empty value instead. Without this flag, both {find} and {replace} must be provided.

Common usage tip:

When syncing a database from the production site to your local environment, we typically run the following command to rewrite all production URLs to local ones:

php system/ee/eecli.php hop_deeploy_helper:replace --regex '/http[s]?\:\/\/(www\.)?hopstudios\.com/' http://hopstudios.localhost

If you want to change just one setting, EE’s built in function can take care of that for you.

Manage One-Click Update

php system/ee/eecli.php hop_deeploy_helper:one_click_update {enable|disable|status}

This will enable or disable the one-click update function in the admin panel. If you use “status” it will return the current status of the one-click update protection.

EE 3 & 4 Notes

For ExpressionEngine version 3 and ExpressionEngine version 4:

File Upload Preferences (Default Avatars), File Upload Preferences (Member Photos) and File Upload Preferences (Signature Attachments) are not changeable directly in EE.

However, we want to offer you the possibility to change them if ever needed but please be careful when changing those.

If you had previously installed the legacy version of Deeploy helper (directory: deeploy_helper), please un-install and upload the new one (directory: hop_deeploy_helper) to re-install.

Updating

Updating is easy:

1. Download a new version from this website, and extract on your hard drive.
2. Upload the new files to their appropriate locations.

Uninstalling

1. Navigate to the Add-Ons > Modules tab in your EE control panel and uninstall the module.
2. Remove the add-on directory from your EE system folder on the server.

Installation for EE 2

1. Unzip the folder to a temporary location on your local hard drive.
2. FTP the files from their local folders to the same locations in your EE install’s /system/expressionengine/third_party/ folder on the server.
3. Navigate to Modules in your EE control panel and install the add-on. That’s it!

Installation for EE 1

1. Unzip the folder to a temporary location on your local hard drive.
2. FTP the files from their local folders to the same locations in your EE install’s /system/ folder on the server.
3. Navigate to Modules tab in your EE control panel and install the add-on. That’s it!