Your help and suggestions converting existing SMF+TP to SMF+Joomla
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- David York
- Hero Rocketeer
- Posts: 326
- Thanks: 0
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I admin a small, mature (re: older aged) gaming community website:
www.tagamers.com
When we got started late last year, we installed SMF and TinyPortal. Both have served us well thus far. We are slowly growing and understanding our needs as we grow. I am implementing Joomla on a couple other sites and am seeing some things that would benefit the TAGamers site by switching to Joomla as well. Of course we will be using a RocketTheme template - possibly be a variation on Carbonation.
On to the questions! I've not made sweeping changes like this before, so help me understand the basic process that need to go through to convert from the existing SMF+TP to a SMF+Joomla!
- A backup would probably be a good first step, right?
- Uninstall TinyPortal so that I have a bare SMF forum
- Update SMF to RC3 (it is RC2 right now)
- Test and backup again?
Here is where it gets hazy for me. Do I simply install Joomla at this point and bridge it to SMF? OR, do I have to uninstall SMF and then install Joomla + SMF. then reload SMF from a backup?
Bridges are another question. I've seen several discussions on them and not enough info to make up my mind which one to use. Anything that can be said to help me understand the differences would help. I'm leaning towards the one provided by SMF but will install whatever is best for us: easy to install, well-maintained and updated.
As I said, I haven't done this before and don't want to lose our forum info. www.Bluehost.com is my host and they are awesome to work with. They use Fantastico so reinstalling and updating is an easy process.
I will greatly appreaciate any advice you can give. - Last Edit: 17 years 6 months ago by David York.
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- Red
- Sr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 131
- Thanks: 0
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Update SMF before you trash it,,,,this guarantees the data base will match the new one!!!!
Do a backup of the old sites data base!!!! you will need it for the new system and as a reference..
However since SMF wont be accessing it anymore you can leave it on the server for now!
I would then Install SMF again ,add modules or any add ons you need.
Then
Install Joomla!
You can use fantastico for both....
Then
Dump the SMF forum data base tables into the Joomla Data base tables (SQL tables)
Add a New user (SMF's SQL Account password etc) to Joomla's tables (You will find the password and account name in SMF config file
Test SMF is working correctly! (Joomla will have no issues with this)
If so you should have SMF and Joomla in one SQL data base (joom1)
This makes backups 100% faster, it keeps it all together and helps solve data base access errors found in some components
So Joomla has access rights to SMF tables and SMF has access to Joomla Tables automatically.
OK backend done....
I don't know if you need the Orstio Bridge with Rocketthemes SMF templates....If so, It's so easy to set up I could get my Brother to do it....(And that's saying something)
Also, Save the content from Tiny Portal to a text file (Microsoft use Note pad!)
You can quickly recompile that in Joomla!.
Any images used within the current website TINY portal content should all be saved to a folder.
egThis image is hidden for guests.
Please log in or register to see it.
Once in there you can upload the lot or simply transfer (much faster) to the Joomla! Images / stories folder, inlcuding any sub folders. From there you can use the Joomla editor (I would use jce and JOgadgets, mmm yummy) to quickly with just 3 clicks, add the lot to the freshly recompiled content, only this time you can tab it, pop it up, make it do things,,,,,
(firefox paiste in the editor is CTL + V)
Hope that sheds some light on the matter....
Should take around 4 hours including SMF data dump to set up Joomla with SMF
The rest depends on you...
You can re-create the site style by editing the Joomla content.html.php file to include the divisions (not tables) for the 3 or 4 images to wrap content windows...its easy to do, if you have patience and time....(patience for IE)
AFAIK that's the only way to add wrapped style like yours to Joomla Content. Modules are easy~ - Last Edit: 17 years 6 months ago by .
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- David York
- Hero Rocketeer
- Posts: 326
- Thanks: 0
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Mitchell, Thank you so much for the reply. I have already begun developing the new site beside the existing site. I installed a new configuration of SMF and Joomla! and bridged it with the latest JoomlaHack bridge. I don't which bridge is 'better' than any other but JoomlaHack includes plugins for Community Builder which will work well for my purposes.
So, basically over the next 1-2 weeks I wll get Joomla! configured the way we need it. Then I will set the old site into maintenance mode and uninstall TinyPortal. I'll go ahead and update the remaining SMF portion to RC1.3 (it already 1.2) before making the final backup to export the forum to the new site. I am assuming that it wil be that simple - backup of the old SMF will import into the new SMF and all will be right? I'm hoping someone will chime in and let me know if I should do it, or expect it to go, differently.
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