XF 2.0 Conversion with extras

[spider]

OK, this is fractionally complicated so I will try to break it down into a relatively easy to read form.

I'm giving thought to converting one of my sites from IPB34x to XF2. The site in question has the Core (obviously) , Forums , Downloads and Pages/Content installed, it does not have any other official 'addons' from IPS and although it does have a few very minor/small third party addons they are not relevant and can easily be done without, actually some of them are built into XF2! What I am saying here is I need "forums" and "downloads" as priority, the rest does not matter.

Having done a few test conversions on localhost there is no big concern here with the process itself and I do see redirection scripts that are suitable as well, again no problem.

The primary issues here are twofold:

1. The main one: What to do with the Downloads, I do not currently see a converter for XF2 to 'import' my downloads to XF Resources. I am not sure if I can do it the hard way via IPB > Convert it all to XF1 > Upgrade XF1 to XF2 perhaps. There are approximately 100 'download' submissions currently although they do not grow very quickly, typically two or three every few months.

2. The secondary issue: IPS Pages/Content currently is used for a small articles type system. There are only half a dozen articles however and I have carefully looked at several third party XF2 addons (as well as XF1 addons) however most appeared a bit too much for what I needed. I am aware I could use Resources for this too, however the issue is slightly one of distinction and avoiding user confusion if the same system is used for both file downloads and articles as they really need 'segregation' as I have now.

I am actually not unhappy to do away with (2) to avoid complications, there are only six articles although they are useful they could in theory live in threads/topics with a special forum setup to allow preview before approval or rejection I guess, this is one easy way around it although its not really ideal in my mind. The articles are merely small pieces of text with perhaps in some cases a few attachments, either a tiny file or in some cases an image of the output of the article.

From what I gather the importer with XF2 will eventually ( ? ) support the import from IPS and may include downloads. If memory is correct (I may be wrong please correct me) the reason there is not a method currently to import IPS Downloads to Resources was due to the fact that the XF1 version of Resources did not support multiple files, whereas the XF2 version does.


I would love to hear some input / thoughts / feedback / suggestions on the best way to proceed with this. Please note however I am not in any rush at all as I have been merely thinking about this for a few weeks now and if I have to wait a few more before something is added to the XF2 core product so be it. I do not mind.

Thank you in advance for your replies.

 

[spider]

I thought about this and researched as much as I could.

It would seem that unless I am mistaken if I do the convert to XF1 then the Downloads will not move over. Although the data is still present in the source it will not be in the new XF database.

This leads me to wait until hopefully (please?) the convert tool for XF2 *does include* something for Downloads to be converted over to Resources (again, pretty please!)

In theory for now if I was in a rush I could I suppose manually re-create all the downloads (ugh, an easy job but very boring and very very long) and then manually adjust the timestamps directly in the database to match the originals but that would probably take me a good day or two at least.

I am fully open to any sensible ideas for the immediate moment, although if the Convert tool for IP when it appears does not have anything for Downloads, I only really gain one shortcut in thatt I would not have to go to XF1 first.

 

[sbj]

Honestly, I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you waiting for an importer for XF2, let alone it having an importer for the RM.

I am not sure how your financial situation is, but the best thing you can do is to hire someone from here to build an importer for you.

 

[spider]

Thank you for the reply.

I did wonder how long it may be.

I can't stretch to hiring anyone, I could do it manually by re-entering all the downloads as new submissions and then altering the dates and such via lots of SQL queries to make it look 'as is' but I would sensibly estimate it would take me about 2-3 days work to do that, at least. I am slightly thankful I only have around 100 'download submissions' to deal with, if I go that route.

The delay is simply as the XF1 tool I saw to move threads to resources would not work for what I need, if I had to wait say 3 to 6 months for Downloads to RM to appear for XF2 , that would be fine, but I am not sure if I am waiting for something that may never appear, or not for a long long time, hmmm.

I do know there will be something to move forums over in XF2 eventually as staff here have mentioned a few times and at the moment I could convert to XF1 then upgrade, but I perrsonally would preferr to wait a few months if it would save me the worktime of manual conversion of Downloads.

I do not plan the conversion for a few weeks regardless of things even if by magic the tools appeared next week I would not be doing anything for about a month at least.

I did try to research going via other software as well but that would make things too messy, it may then pick up the Downloads at a push but it would no doubt mess the forums up if I went say IP > VB > XF1 > XF2 , the reasoning for that is I think there is/was a tool to grab IPDownloads and move them to VB and then hopefully third-party tool here would drag them into RM at XF1 level, this is far too much work that way ( lol ) as it would take longer than manually re-doing 100 submissions.

hmmm... It is a bit of a quandary as the best way forwards...

 

[sbj]

I can only speculate and as I said, I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.
There will be a huge release soon, as the 2.1 version is coming out. Not sure if XF has time and plans to work on the importers after that.

And honestly, if we are only talking about 100 download submissions, I would do it manually. 2-3 days are peanuts. You also say you are not in a rush.
I don't understand how you are willing to wait a few months, rather doing it manually in a week at most?
The only problem I see is if you are proficient enough to change SQL entries.

The conversion from XF1 to XF2 is pretty easy. So, import from IPS to XF1->do the manual resources->upgrade to XF2.

 

[sbj]

Btw. I think it will be less painless than you think.
You should really do it manually, like create all those resources manually, which should take you hours at worst.

Then you can reassign all those resources to correct users by using the moderators tool.

And then you can use this to change the dates of the resources.
https://xenforo.com/community/resources/resource-manager-date-change.1572/


edit:
you probably have to change the author and the date for the threads, too, which are automatically created if you create a resource in the RM.
https://xenforo.com/community/resources/change-post-date-by-xon.4494/ or this https://xenforo.com/community/resources/change-date.2371/
https://xenforo.com/community/resources/change-author.2832/

 

[spider]

Thank you again.

That again makes sense to me.

The only thing I had planned on doing if I was manually doing the Downloads was to create and change the dates , authors and things after the XF2 upgrade, not before. In other words make sure it was on the version I was going to use, simply so I did not have to rework all the settings again coming from another platform.

Having said thatt I think given the settings are similar in XF1 and XF2 I would not need to spend much time so it would probably be best doing it as you say as there are the addons to assist with changes for XF1 ready to use (and free)

I am quite happy with SQL queries as long as they do not involve JOIN otherwise I get confused but simple UPDATE or SELECT to find things is no issue for me. It was I think more a problem in finding all the places such as "submission date" , "updated date" and things but the addons you have listed appear to take care of all that.

The downloads, well most have quite a lot of screenshots too, but again no real problem I suppose.


I am not sure what to do about my Articles, I could use RM for that with a new category that does not permit uploads maybe, to be honest I can worry about that much further down the line possibly a week or two after the change over. I will for the moment look at various settings with RM to see if I can get enough "segregation" between what were "Downloads" and "Articles" as I will obviously be using the same addon for both after converting, Mind you: two new links in the menu area and removing or changing the existing Resources so that I had one for 'Downloads' and one for 'Articles' , linking to the correct parent categories may work well enough. The URL's do not matter as long as the users are taken to where they expect to be I guess!

Thank you again for your helpful reply,

 

[sbj]

Well any setting or change which is done in XF1 will be the same as in XF2 when upgraded to it. So you don't have to re-do those things in XF2, once you did all your changes correctly in XF1.

The thing is, I don't think there are free addons available for XF2 for you to use to change the author and dates. So this is why you should do it on XF1, and then upgrade it to XF2.

About articles. Well, you can use the RM for it (which is an ugly approach in my opinion) but if you have not much of that, you shouldn't need an extra addon for that as you already will have the RM.

No problem.

 

[spider]

Well any setting or change which is done in XF1 will be the same as in XF2 when upgraded to it. So you don't have to re-do those things in XF2, once you did all your changes correctly in XF1

Thank you. I had not directly compared all settings and options between XF1 and XF2. I was expecting them to be near the same perhaps with a few changes, my logic was simply "do it once , and take the time to make sure its done right" , I guess I wanted to avoid having to go through it all twice, but by the sounds of it a cursory glance/double check of things is all that is needed after the upgrade, which is sensible anyway for a 'major version' upgrade operation.

The thing is, I don't think there are free addons available for XF2 for you to use to change the author and dates. So this is why you should do it on XF1, and then upgrade it to XF2

Yes I could not see any either. Manual adjustment would not be difficult although time consuming. A quick addon that I can then remove prior to upgrading to XF2 once dates/authors/random bits are rectified is ideal.

About articles. Well, you can use the RM for it (which is an ugly approach in my opinion) but if you have not much of that, you shouldn't need an extra addon for that as you already will have the RM

Yes I am still a bit undecided on this. I think I will probably just add them back in to a new 'Articles' parent category/node after everything else is settled as there are < 10 articles currently and they do not grow very fast. To be honest if it looks bad or members complain I'd probably not use R.M for it as it may confuse with it being the primary 'Downloads' , and just have a special forum set up for Article submissions, something like having it set to moderator approval for new contents as generally they (articles) are not commented on, they are posted and that is it.

No problem.

It is appreciated that you took the time to write several replies to my slightly 'not quite the normal' queries.