This step won't be necessary in coming versions above v4.4 as we are working on improvements. However, if you are upgrading your V3 site now, you can do the following to clean up unnecessary files after you upgrade the site.

  1. In order to ensure your site works fine after the clean up, first please make an oldfiles/ folder or name it whatever you want. Backup your site files and database (a precaution) in case things don't go well for this process.
  2. Move the following folders and files into the oldfiles/ folder:
    1. api.php
    2. auth.php
    3. favicon.ico
    4. htaccess.txt and the old .htaccess and any that you may have made as backups for the htaccess file. Please ensure you are only moving the v3 .htaccess and not a new one you may have made for V4.
    5. include/ 
    6. install/
    7. module/ 
    8. robots.txt if you are not using it. If you are using it, don't move it.
    9. theme/
    10. token.php
    11. vendor/
  3. For the file/ folder, please open it and delete the cache/ folder from it.
  4. Merge the files from the file/ folder into the PF.Base/file/ folder. If you check those folders that are the same name as v3 folders (such as pic, attachment, etc) in the PF.Base/file/ folder, you should see them all empty (other than cache) so you should have no issues with a merge of the files. Note that there will be folders in the PF.Base/file/ folder that are new for v4 and will have files in them. Don't remove anything in the PF.Base/file/ folders if you don't find them empty. Make sure when doing this step that you are simply copying/merging the files from your original file/ folder into the new PF.Base/file/ folder.
    1. If you are doing this step not immediately after the upgrade, and your site has new content, please make sure you do not delete any of the PF.Base/file/ folders' contents when merging the old content into the new folders or you will delete the new content. The idea here is to simply bring the old data (files) into the new folder system. If you need to ask your host for help, do so, as most will assist.
  5. After doing step 4, move the file/ folder into the oldfiles/ folder you made earlier.
  6. Merge the files from the static/ folder into the PF.Base/file/static/ folder and ensure to merge, don't delete, the newer folder, as mentioned in step 4.
  7. Move the static/ folder into the oldfiles/ folder you made eariler.
  8. Clear your site's cache and fully test the site over the next week or two to ensure no issues are seen from the merger of files.
  9. If all tests fine, you can delete the oldfiles/ folder you moved everything into. If all is not fine, you could restore the files by moving them back into the root (where you have phpFox installed) folder or restore your backup you did before moving the files. 

 

I've tested this myself on a v3.8 upgraded site and things went fine for this method. 

If you have v3 third party modules on your site, you want to disable those before upgrading anyway, but if you didn't follow that advice before upgrading you will want to load those module/ files into the PF.Base/module folder. However, advice is always to disable until you check with the third party developer to see if they work in v4.