Web Design and Web Development Blog from Webilicious in Tasmania

This is the first article in a series of Joomla component migration instructions. Published so far are:

JEvents Migration

As a general rule, and before starting the migration, it is usually best to:

• upgrade both the source and target websites to the latest available versions of the component
• backup the source and target websites

Option 1: Manual Migration

If you only have a few categories and events, it may be easiest to install the latest version of JEvents on your target website and recreate the categories, events and configuration manually.

Option 2: iCal Export/Import

JEvents has an iCal export/import option that enables you to export calendar events from your Joomla 1.5 website and then import these into your Joomla 2.5 website. I was tempted to use this method as it looked easier than option 3 but in the end, I ended up using the migration script which was easier than it looked.

• turn off sef urls and purge urls
• create an Export JEvents menu item on the Joomla 1.5 website
• copy that url
• on the Joomla 2.5 website, create a new calendar and import from the above url

Reference:http://www.jevents.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&;t=13394

Option 3: Migration Script

The JEvents crew have written an excellent PHP script that does all the hard migration work for you. They had planned to incorporate the code into the component, so didn't spend much time refining the script instructions. Fortunately, they are receptive to feedback and the instructions have now been improved as follows:

• This PHP script assumes you have used the jUpgrade or SP Upgrade tool or similar to migrate from 1.5 to 2.5 to preserve user ids.
• First update JEvents on source and target websites to the latest JEvents version, and back up both websites to be safe!
• Download the script from http://www.jevents.net/downloads/category/70-j15-j25-migration and unzip.
• In phpMyAdmin or similar, remove all the Joomla 2.5 JEvents tables:
  • j250_jevents_categories
  • j250_jevents_exception
  • j250_jevents_icsfile
  • j250_jevents_repbyday
  • j250_jevents_repetition
  • j250_jevents_rrule
  • j250_jevents_vevdetail
  • j250_jevents_vevent
  • j250_jev_defaults
  • j250_jev_users
• In phpMyAdmin or similar, add read permission for the Joomla 2.5 database user to the Joomla 1.5 database (if a different database).
• Install the managed people, managed locations and any other JEvents club addons (if you are using them) on your Joomla 2.5 site.
• Edit the upgradejevents.php file and change line 11 to reflect the relative path of the destination website.
  • e.g. if source is www.websitename.com and destination is www.websitename.com/j25, amend line 11 to: change define("NEWSITEPATH", "j25");
  • e.g. if source is www.websitename.com/j15 and destination is www.websitename.com, amend line 11 to: change define("NEWSITEPATH", "..");
• Upload the upgradejevents.php file to the root of your Joomla 1.5 installation.
• Log in to the backend of Joomla 2.5 as a Super Admin.
• Run the script by calling it in your browser e.g. www.j15site.com/upgradejevents.php
• All being well the script will migrate the data, creating categories automatically with default permissions and show:
  • migrated categories
  • migrated main tables
  • updated category references
  • reset access levels
  • migrated user permissions
  • migrated categories
• Check your events and categories to see that they have migrated across correctly.
• You may need to set up JEvents configuration manually on the destination website as the script does not migrate configuration settings.

Reference:http://www.jevents.net/downloads/category/70-j15-j25-migration

Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 2.5 Migration

The Webilicious ® website has finally been updated to Joomla 2.5. It's refreshing to be doing some web design and web development on my own website which has been neglected for a while! I am intending on blogging more, and will now have one less excuse!

Search Engine Optimisation

After some first rate results for clients, I'll soon be testing recently acquired search engine optimisation skills on the Webilicious ® website. Web design, web development and similar phrases are hotly contested search terms so it will be interesting to see how well I can do!

Web Design

The "Momentum" template from RocketTheme has been installed and customised. I'm not convinced about the background yet so let me know if you have any better ideas.

New Features

Other new features include:

• additional social networking "share" and "follow" buttons
• JoomPlace Testimonials to show off existing testimonials and for clients to leave new ones
• link to my Nibbler profile page
• added Recommended page to recommend services and products to clientsNibbler Test Score

The website scored 7.4 in the Nibbler test tool at launch time which I'm happy with in the meantime!

Update: It's now scoring 8.7 since validating some code in the RSS feed and adding a printing stylesheet.

Feedback is welcome!

Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 2.5 Migration

The VW Club of WA asked me about some changes to their Joomla 1.5 website. It made sense to to migrate the website to Joomla 2.5 now so that work would not have to be repeated later, and so that is what we have done.

Web Design

The excellent "Momentum" template from RocketTheme has been installed and customised for the web design. Much of the original layout has been retained but the new template is more versatile and allows the forums and events calendar to be displayed at the full width of the page, something that couldn't easily be done with the original template.

Migration

The challenge with this project was ensuring that users and their associated gallery, forums and events data were all migrated together. A migration tool such as jUpgrade or SP Upgrade needs to be used to ensure that user IDs are the same on the source and the target website so that forum posts and so on are attributed to the correct user.

I used SP Upgrade and at €24.95, this is excellent value. SP Upgrade migrates most of the Joomla core features including users, categories, articles, images, contacts, weblinks, news feeds, menus and even modules if you want. With the modules, you still have to install the Joomla 2.5 versions and usually choose new module positions etc as these are often different.

Migrating JoomGallery, JEvents and Kunena are not so straightforward and these will likely be the subject of future blog posts.

Update: Click on the links for the relevant articles.

Features

Other features implemented on the website include:

• "accordion" news feature using RokNewsPager from RocketTheme
• social networking "share" and "follow" buttons

Nibbler Test Score

The website scored 7.3 in the Nibbler test tool at launch time which is reasonable. The social networking buttons that have been added to the website should help boost the score when members and visitors start clicking on them!

Feedback is welcome!