XF 1.5 Plan of Attack: IPB 3.4 to XF 1.5

[Tiki Tiki]

My live site has IPB 3.4 installed in the root directory. In the not too distant future, I may be adding WordPress as a CMS to replace IP.Pages, at which time I would want XF in a subdomain (community.mysite.com), but for now, I'm thinking root is going to be best.

What should my plan of attack be for installing XF 1.5, and importing IPB, since IPB is already in the same directory? Is there anything I need to worry about?

What about IP.Gallery to Media? And IP.Downloads to Resources? Are there importers for those?

Does our XF license allow us to set up an unpublished test installation on the web and/or on our local computer using MAMP/WAMP? I'm thinking a whole lot of testing/tinkering is going to be needed.

Thanks!

 

[Paul B]

What should my plan of attack be for installing XF 1.5, and importing IPB, since IPB is already in the same directory? Is there anything I need to worry about?

You will need to install XF in a different directory, perform the import, then archive the IPB installation and move XF to the root.

There is an importer for the gallery (XenForo Media Gallery), but not for downloads.

Does our XF license allow us to set up an unpublished test installation on the web and/or on our local computer using MAMP/WAMP?

Yes.

This thread outlines the basic method when performing multiple test imports: Importing guidelines

 

[Tiki Tiki]

Thanks, @Brogan. Another question about importing: What happens as far as member/group mapping goes? Are my IPB admin/moderator accounts going to remain intact? A new XF installation starts out with user Admin, as member #1, doesn't it? What happens to that account after importing my IPB database (where I already have a #1, but that account is no longer an administrator)?

 

[Amaury]

They'll remain intact in the sense that they'll still be members, but you'll need to adjust permissions accordingly. If there isn't a user group to go to, everyone will default to the Registered user group, which should be everyone's primary user group.

 

[0ptima]

Does our XF license allow us to set up an unpublished test installation on the web and/or on our local computer using MAMP/WAMP? I'm thinking a whole lot of testing/tinkering is going to be needed.

Yes and testing the conversion is the way to go.

 

[Tiki Tiki]

[x] Install XF, XF Media, and XF Resources in 'community' subdomain.
[x] Import IPB 3.4 database.
[x] Tweak various settings to liking.

Okay, I've got things looking pretty good, I'm ready to take this live, but now I'm wondering if I shouldn't just leave XF at community.mysite.com rather than move it into the root. However, I don't have a CMS ready to install in the root directory, nor do I know when I'll have the time to set something up.

Can I put something in .htaccess that redirects all traffic to mysite.com to community.mysite.com? Is there a better method? Any problems with doing something like this?

I know that XF's URLs aren't the same as IPB's, so I'm assuming it's going to be a while before Google et el have things re-indexed. If I have to go through that process at least once, why not just start off with the forums at community.mysite.com? Otherwise, I'll end up having to go through the process all over again after I get something ready to put in the root. Yes? No?

 

[Paul B]

It depends what CMS you go with in the future.

If it's a XenForo add-on then it will work like other portal/home page add-ons which require XF to be installed in the root.

If it's a third party application, then XF would need to be installed in a directory.

 

[Tiki Tiki]

WordPress for the CMS. I would want WP to be in the root directory, mysite.com, and XF to end up where it is currently, community.mysite.com. That's why I'm asking if I shouldn't just leave XF were it is.

 

[Paul B]

If you plan to have WP in the root then you should install XF in the directory now, to avoid having to implement redirects at a later date.

It's fairly simple to redirect traffic from the root to the forum.

 

[Tiki Tiki]

That's what I'm thinking. But, to be clear, when you say directory, do you mean subdomain? XF is already installed at community.mysite.com. I'd hate to end up having to move it to mysite.com/forums later on.

How should I redirect traffic? .htaccess?

 

[Paul B]

Yes, I mean install XF in the location now where you plan to have it long term.

Yes, you can use .htaccess to redirect.

 

[Tiki Tiki]

One other thing... If I use .htaccess to redirect traffic from mysite.com to community.mysite.com, does that mean I'm screwed as far as using the IPB import scripts go? Or is there a way to simultaneously send all traffic to the subdomain and to make corrections to outdated IPB URLs?

So far, I have this for .htaccess in the root directory:

RewriteEngine On
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteRule (.*) http://community.mysite.com/$1 [R=301,L]

But that's not going to do squat as far as redirecting IPB URLs goes, is it?