MG 2.0 Photopost Import XFMG 2?

BobHarbison

Active member
I want to verify something I was told recently. Is there a Photopost importer available for XFMG 2 at this time?

Yes, I'm aware I can import via MG 1 and then upgrade. I just did that on one of my forums. But I have three more to do, and any place I can expedite the process is useful.
 
Very tnterested in the development of this importer, and specifically if we can import post-forum migration.

Also willing to do trial and testing as we can quickly duplicate the live forums and run test imports.
 
Is there any update on the importer from PhotoPost to XFMG 2 ?

I just went thru the lengthy process of converting a 4.6M post vB database to VF2 and blindly assumed the PP importer was available.
 
Looks like waiting for them to release it could take a while. I can tell you that I did a total of 4 forums by importing to XFMG 1 and then upgrading. Annoying, and takes a while, but it worked just fine all four times. Basically, you just have to be patient and it will do the work for you.
 
Bob, Were your sites standalone PhotoPost installs with vBulletin integration? Min is: photos.xxx.com is the PhotoPost and forums.xxx.com is the vB and the PP/vB integration was enabled to allow sharing of the user database. I assume this importer is going to support this?...which would also mean that I need to import the vB data before the PP so that the users are there.
 
Mine was Photopost with Vbulletin integration, yes. I imported VB first, and then the PP stuff. It's been nearly a year, but I seem to recall I had to import with XF 1.x as well, maybe since XF 2 doesn't support XFMG 1, or maybe an issue with the VB importer, XF 2 was relatively new then. I imported both PP and the forums in version one, and then upgraded both if I recall correctly. Again, it all worked fine, but it was tedious.
 
About 60K posts and 40K images in this one: http://www.railroadforums.com/forum/index.php
The model train one has 400K posts, but only 5K images in the gallery, they tend to want to have the images as part of a discussion and so post them directly on the forum. Numerous attempts to encourage gallery use have never really caught on.
I'm running across that situation with nearly all of the image-centric XF forums I'm seeing, where the users find it easier to just attach images directly into a forum post so the gallery/media section isn't getting used much. My "Wish List" item is that we could designate per node that post attachments get converted into corresponding designated gallery category entries and then have the post swap the attach tags into media embed tags.
 
I was kind of hoping that there would be something in XF that would put the images from posts into a browsable gallery as well. I originally thought I'd found an option for that, but either I was mistaken or it didn't work, or it's no longer supported, can't recall which, but it wasn't an option. Frustrating, since I know there's plenty of great images buried discussions that people never find after the discussion falls off the active list.
 
I was kind of hoping that there would be something in XF that would put the images from posts into a browsable gallery as well. I originally thought I'd found an option for that, but either I was mistaken or it didn't work, or it's no longer supported, can't recall which, but it wasn't an option.
At least as far as the stock XF features go, that's never been an option. I don't recall if there an add-on to do it but it's possible I may have missed it. At least for XF2 I haven't come across something to do it yet.
Frustrating, since I know there's plenty of great images buried discussions that people never find after the discussion falls off the active list.
Especially since Google likes the structured data of the gallery for indexing over just displaying an image tag in an attachment.

BTW, on a different note, you might be happy to hear that I came across your modelrailroadforums.com site a few weeks ago doing an organic Google search. I'm not into the hobby but was with some family members at a local show and was interested in seeing what kind of communities were out there and a Google search returned the listing. When I saw your post above with the link to railroadforums.com I realized both sites were yours. I'm so tempted to get an HO setup going just to justify buying the Bachmann "Area 51" gas station. :LOL:
 
At least as far as the stock XF features go, that's never been an option.

Might have been one of the other add-on galleries, might have just been wishful thinking on my part. I never managed to make it actually happen, so it either doesn't exist any more, or more likely never did in the first place.

BTW, on a different note, you might be happy to hear that I came across your modelrailroadforums.com site a few weeks ago doing an organic Google search.

Excellent, I am glad to hear that. My railroad site is pretty slow, I blame FB, but the model railroad side has a large enough community that it keeps going pretty well. If it wasn't for that one, I'd have given up on my forums by now. Still don't actually make money from them, but it's fun.
 
Numerous attempts to encourage gallery use have never really caught on.
Interesting, thanks for the insight. The only reason I am doing it is because I have 20 years of data in PhotoPost and I want to put that dinosaur out to pasture. Hopefully, XF will refresh the gallery UX soon. I understand they're super busy doing great stuff, so I'm not complaining :)
 
Well, sadly the PhotoPost gallery is the thing I miss most. Never looked back when I got rid of VB, Xenforo works just fine, even if I did have trouble learning the interface at first. But the presentation and option of Photopost were superior to XMG in my opinion.
 
If they would have put a modern UX on it, they would still be here today (they're completely gone now btw). With all of the latest UX advances on the web, people expect it to be as easy as FB/Twitter/whatever or they won't use it. Probably why people prefer to post pics in your forum vs your gallery. It is so easy to add pics in a forum post; just drag and drop. One of my favorite features. vB was soooooooo tedious with that upload dialog.

The pinboard/Pinterest model is also a nice way to manage a photo gallery. Masonry is really nice where you can keep scrolling and get more and more pics without clicking to go to a new page.

And of course, everything needs to be extremely mobile friendly or you're sunk.
 
You're right about everything when I compare with my own forum. Yes, attachments in threads are important - but very few users even realize that it's easy and at the same time looks nicer to insert a thumbnail of the attachments in the posts. The users attach pictures, but don't add thumbs - because they overlook the buttons. Unbelievable ;)

And yes, an option to switch the XenMedia Gallery to a pinboard/interest mode on request (maybe even no global admin option, but a per-user decision?) would also be nice. Scroll endlessly instead of browsing page by page. Yes, there are users prefering this in my gallery, they told me.

On the other hand, the XenMedia Gallery needs more sorting options and additional views for structured galleries. Galleries that not only want to satisfy the quick pleasure and scrolling, but also seriously present the photos, photo-oriented communities that want order and do not regard photos as short-lived snapshots superficially, but appreciate them as works of art and value them and therefore work through them in a structured way.


To the original question, I would also work with the Xenforo 1.5 Photopost Pro Importer. I used it 15 months ago to import about 100k comments and 70k photos. And just now I updated this old import together with the new photos and comments to Xenforo 2.1. Fits perfectly!
 
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