Xenforo to Xenforo Importer?
- Thread starter Mr.Rick
- Start date
tyteen4a03
Well-known member
Sorry, I meant IPB. Almost forgot ImPex doesn't support XF yet.
Lone Wolf
Well-known member
This has been asked many times and there is still no plan to introduce one. It's one of the craziest things about XenForo. You're expected to use a third party product to transfer one XenForo database to another XenForo database!
What about people who dont have vb licenses? @Kier and @Mike provide a product which is futuristic in so many ways but archaic in a few others. In no other industry would you be told to use a competitors product to complete a basic function of the product you bought!!
What about people who dont have vb licenses? @Kier and @Mike provide a product which is futuristic in so many ways but archaic in a few others. In no other industry would you be told to use a competitors product to complete a basic function of the product you bought!!
TPerry
Well-known member
What's crazy about it? Most importers are designed to move you from ONE forum software to another. Not to MERGE two different forums on the same software. That is normally where you would hire someone to write you a utility to perform the merge (because normally it will be from you acquiring - usually purchasing - a forum) and then wanting it merged into your existing one. That's called "part of doing business" when you are engaged in buying forums.
The software DEV's primary concern is having the ability for individuals to come from one software package into theirs.
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Jeremy
in memoriam 1991-2020
I know at least one other software does it, I believe IPB may do it as well. Looks like phpBB may have it as well. I'd say its decently standard and should be quite easy to write (it is their software). It'll allow merging of boards, which, many people actually want to do.
imno007
Well-known member
Sorry if I'm missing something obvious here, but is there some reason you couldn't export the old database and import it to a new xenforo database - just drop the existing tables from the new database after a new install and then import the old database? I've done the exact same thing with SMF at least half a dozen times over the last several years....
TPerry
Well-known member
Problem is that they don't want a drop.. but a merge of all users and posts from the other forum into the existing one.
I agree it would probably be fairly trivial for the dev's to write, but not something I would say is a front - or even mid - burner item.
imno007
Well-known member
Okay , nevermind! I guess I wasn't thinking very well on that one. If he didn't need to keep existing data on another board, there wouldn't be any need to import another database. I'll blame it on a long day!
Lone Wolf
Well-known member
One of the most important things that any of us with websites have is the database, users are very protective of their posts and content. Users often like to go back and read old discussions too.
What happens if I have 2 or more XenForo forums on current popular TV shows and then those shows get cancelled but users still visit to interact? Would it not make sense for me to merge my forums into one TV Shows website? Keeping all the users and the content from all the sites to have one busy site instead of 2 or more dead sites?
In order to achieve this I have to use one of XenForo's competitors to do a merge between two XenForo databases. Imagine Google saying in order to do a search on science fiction you have to go to Bing to get a passcode and then you can search on Google for science fiction.
There is never a good reason to make your own customers use your competitors product. This should be a basic, core functionality
imno007
Well-known member
While I don't disagree with you on your basic reasoning for why people would want to merge their forums, I'd just point out that those competitors have been around a lot longer than Xenforo - and Xenforo itself, despite having technically originated a few years back, only really got going, in a very real sense, a few months ago, because of the turmoil and stagnation of development brought on by VB's lawsuit. And their first priority is working on their core product, which is understandable, because that's where the interests of most of the customer base lie. To work on the kind of tool you're looking for would have meant stalling work on all those more basic features of the software. There's only a couple guys at work on this, and creating importers - as I understand it, not being any kind of coder myself - is not something that can be whipped up overnight. And now that I think of it, and as I think someone has already pointed out, I'm not sure any of those competitor's you referred to have importers or tools that allow you to merge forums either. Do they? I honestly don't know, but I've used VB and IPB in the past and I don't recall seeing anything of the kind.
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TPerry
Well-known member
This would be one situation out-side the norm... and begs the question, why not have set only ONE forum up in the first place and utilized the power of the usergroups and hidden forums to its full effect? Even if you have a different style for those shows, you can over-ride the default in the node settings.
You could go even further and have custom user fields that would allow them to pick the shows they like then run a promotion to add them into those groups. On your main page you would have categories for
Show 1
Show 2
Show 3
then in each category have your sub-topics and the categories would only display for those usergroups that the user is a member of. You would have a "base" style (think of it as a TV Guide style
) for the main view and then the "show styles" for each of the show(s) topic nodes.I imagine somewhere down the line there will be a utility to merge from one xF forum over to another - but right now the prime emphasis is getting the new version out due to the involuntary hiatus that KAM had to take from coding.
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Moshe1010
Well-known member
I guess this type of scenario is uncommon and therefore, it's better for XF developers to focus on current bugs and features after a long break than "wasting" time developing a tool that would be useful for a handful of customers.
TPerry
Well-known member
Simplest using the built in mysql routines?
backup: # mysqldump -u root -p[root_password] [database_name] > dumpfilename.sql
restore:# mysql -u root -p[root_password] [database_name] < dumpfilename.sql
Then copy your forum files over and duplicate your configuration (assuming you are on a VPS or dedicated server). If on a shared host, then they should be able to do it via cPanel.
That's assuming you want to duplicate the existing to the new. If you are wanting two different forums (both on xF) into the one new one, then you have to do the routine of converting one to another format, then convert it into your new one.
Kainzo
Active member
Sounds simple enough ... but will it copy properly file attachments, etc?
tyteen4a03
Well-known member
If you store them in the database, yes.
Kainzo
Active member
hmm, unsure if I had them.. I'll have to search - is it not done by default?
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