XF 2.0 Question about customizing before importing

[tourmeister]

Howdy,

From the import/install guide,

Once installed, configure the software as required; whether that be importing a style or creating your own, installing any add-ons, setting the options in the ACP, configuring permissions, etc.

If you intend to retain the IDs of the imported forum, do not create any content at all: categories, forums, members, threads, etc.
If you do, you will not be able to retain IDs due to duplicate entry errors.

The next step is the most important; using phpMyAdmin or similar, take a backup of the XF database.
This backup will then be the clean master database, which can be used over and over again until you're ready to do the import for the final time.

My question is how are you to experiment with customizing your XF2 install without first importing so that you have a forum structure to work with? If I have no subforums, threads, posts, etc,... how can I see what things will look like?

Am I missing something about this process?

 

[spider]

What I did was to do a test import first, this is practical if your forum is not too huge, then you can play with the 'test' import just to get a feel of it and how it looks. Also you will then be aware of any pitfalls or issues with the import process perhaps, if nothing else you will then be aware of what happens. If your forum is huge this will probably take too long perhaps. A 'test import' is I think well worthwhile if you have not tried it before.

I should mention I have not done the live import yet but this is not really caused by anything other than waiting for a few third party items to appear and me having time to sort things out.

 

[tourmeister]

If I create some nodes and subnodes with a few threads in each, just so I can see how stuff looks, and then delete all of that so I get back to just the one Main Forum node with nothing in it, will that leave the database in a suitable condition to create a backup prior to performing the import from my vB 3.8.1 database?

 

[spider]

Yes and no (as I see it) it will leave it empty if you empty it out however tables are probably auto_inc so the first imported thread won't be ID1 etc as that will of been used.

The best way to do what you want I think is to just have a temporary test installation and play with that as you see fit. Then do a new installation and use this untouched one for the 'real' import. You could of course use the test install for the import to try it out with too but I generally think if the primary reason for the install of XF is to import you are best to have a new,fresh one to do this with.