Implemented Extract Core Importers as an Official Add-on

[ibnesayeed]

XenForo 1.x ships with many built-in importers and they are present in every install of the software. However, this component of the software is never utilized for fresh installs and it is used only once for those who migrate from an exiting forum software, from there it just sits idle. That said, I think the importer component should be extracted out as an official free add-on. This will make the code footprint smaller for usual installs (hence fewer places of security issues). This will also allow independent updates to the importer. Those who want to import an existing board can install the add-on and once the import is over, they can uninstall it (if they wish so). I understand that a compelling reason to keep it in the core is to enable smooth bootstrap or out of the box experience, but people who use any forum software usually already know about add-ons and importers. Another alternate way would be to add a checkbox at the time of full download to add the importer component.

 

[Slavik]

How far back would you want to cut it? Almost every addon which also allows for data import (from other software, or between XenForo addons) has to extend XenForo_Importer_Abstract to do so... removing this just means every time you want to do any import functions, no matter how small or how quick you would need to go back to installing this... which would be highly aggravating and pointless.

If you want to keep the Abstract model, then the importers are basically 1 extra file for each, so the aggravation would not seem worth the few kb saved for the sake of 13 small files.

It also comes down to compatibilities, by including the importers in the main package, they are up-to-date and guaranteed to work with that version of XenForo as new import options are available depending on the version of XenForo (for example, Tags was added as an importer option when Tags were added to XF)

 

[ibnesayeed]

How far back would you want to cut it? Almost every addon which also allows for data import (from other software, or between XenForo addons) has to extend XenForo_Importer_Abstract to do so... removing this just means every time you want to do any import functions, no matter how small or how quick you would need to go back to installing this... which would be highly aggravating and pointless.

Point well taken and I can see the motivation here, however you already suggested how I would think it should be done:

If you want to keep the Abstract model,

The core should have the common ground that can be leveraged by the official add-ons as well as any number of third party add-ons.

then the importers are basically 1 extra file for each, so the aggravation would not seem worth the few kb saved for the sake of 13 small files.

Number of files or KBs are the least things I would worry about. The whole point of my suggestion is to not keeping something in the system that we either once or never.

It also comes down to compatibilities, by including the importers in the main package, they are up-to-date and guaranteed to work with that version of XenForo as new import options are available depending on the version of XenForo (for example, Tags was added as an importer option when Tags were added to XF)

As noted before, since import is not something that we do every other day, it is often only needed at the time of bootstrapping, so keeping the version parity should not be an issue.

 

[ibnesayeed]

@Chris D I think this suggestion can be marked as implemented.

 

[Paul B]

I have prefixed it as such.