Questions about migrating a complex site

[Calash]

My site is currently running Vbulletin 3.8 with a heavily modified theme to give it some more modern looks. As we are quickly approaching what I would call end-of-life for the software I need to make a decision to ether stick with what I have and patch by hand, migrate to VB4, or to another system. If I am going to another system I would like it to be Xen, but I have some questions.

My site bridges with eFiction, a fanfiction archive. In vB this is done via a custom bridge that I wrote. When you call any eFiction page it loads global.php from vBulletin and pulls the relevant user information from that file along with various templates that are then inserted into variables on the eFiction side. Then eFiction runs with that information and processes the page.

So, for my questions:

1 - Does Xen have a way for an external script to pull user information and possible templates? In VB4 this could be done in a very similar way to an external page. Templates are optional but make theming and integration between the scripts much easier.

2 - When importing do the user IDs stay the same? The bridge relies on user ID so if they are going to move around I would need to develop a translation table that would then alter the eFiction information with the new ID's. Not very fun but I did have to do it when I moved from SMF to VB so I know what queries have to be run.

3 - I will need to find out how easy it is to modify the user profile page to add external content. I have not looked this one up yet so it may be the top post in the tutorial area .

4 - Is it easy to modify the config on TinyMCE in Xen? Efiction also uses it and I would love to have the same config on both sides for consistency.

I think that is it for now

 

[Slavik]

1) AFAIK not at the moment, but it wouldn't take much to do ti via the addon system

2) No, but on import you will get a table called xf_import_log which contains the changes for you, so will be easy to update using this.

3) Check the have you seen videos

4) No idea

 

[MGSteve]

1) As Slavik says, not a ready-to-go script, but it certainly wouldn't take much to knock one up, once you've got your head around the architecture, it wouldn't take very long at all.

2/3 - Slavik mentioned above. its very easy to add another tab into the User profile section anyway, that much is detailed in a couple of threads in the Addons section.

4) Have a look around on the forum I'm sure I've seen a thread detailing doing something like this, but I'm buggered if I can remember where.

Just a quick word, you can't see some of the development forums as they're customer only, not helpful in your case I appreciate

 

[Calash]

No fear of coding with me so as long as there is some way to grab the basic info, be it including some files or even just reading cookies, I can make it work. The template sharing is a "Nice to have" but can be skipped if the tech is just not there.

As long as I have a translation table for the user IDs I can make it work. It can get a bit messy, based on my previous experience, but it can be done. Setup the queries, hit go, and hope it finishes before timing out

I still want to look into gallery and CMS options. I have seen some entries in the add-ons forum but have yet to really research them.

Thank you both for the great feedback.