Santa Barbara Botanic Garden  |  SBBG Photos

What did they need?

Faced with a mandated update to PHP 7 from a much older version, the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden found that their custom digital asset management site was breaking.

What did I do?

I created a separate installation of the site, using it to upgrade the PHP version and troubleshoot, temporarily reverting the old website to PHP 5.

This was a good time to explore and remedy some old "pinch points" that had long been tolerated, resulting in an easier workflow for volunteers.

Who did I work with?

I worked directly with the Information Resource Steward who relayed issues faced by their volunteer staff since the launch of the site several years earlier.

What did I learn?

This was a chance to do some code refactoring and learn more about the differences between the MySQL and MySQLi PHP database extensions.