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New here

Hello,

while thinking on upgrading the old SMF codebase which is not fully functional anymore i stumbled across ElkArte.

Before i start any migration attempt a few questions:

The code base is a somewhat hacked SMF 1.1.16 with the Dilbert Theme.
Forum language is German - we need full German localisation.
We have a few thousand users and a 10 year old posting history.

As i like the friendly light brown colors of that Theme: are there any themes which provide similar color schemes?

And now to the more important questions:

the SMF code has been extended to support more than two genders (which are integer numbers on  SMFs database level, the range is just extended...) . What about ElkArte? What would happen if i try a migration? Is there any way to retain these additional genders? Would i have to implement this (i debugged that code sequence, so i have some idea what's going on) before i import any SMF database?

In SMF 1.1 and, AFAIK, also 2.0.x the server URL and the path to the installation directory are kept in the database at various places. This make the use of a dev platform difficult - the forum cannot just be moved to a different place / domain without editing the database. i know that it can be done piping the database dump through sed, but i do not like that. How does Elk behave in this respect?

What should i consider on the server - i (need to) use an old debian version with a self compiled old PHP (AFIR some 5.2) in order to be able to run that old code, but i would like to migrate to nginx/fastcgi and a less old version of php. Would ElkArte run on php 5.4.45 which i know is not the latest as well?

Finally: is there and document describing the migration from SMF 1.1.x to ElkArte?

Thanks

Beate

Re: New here

Reply #1

Quote from: bea – Forum language is German - we need full German localisation.

Welcome to ElkArte, Beate. As I am somehow responsible for the german translation for ElkArte I like to pinpoint you here:

http://support.elkarte-hilfe.de/index.php/topic,110.0.html

Here you can find the german language files. If you have any suggestions regarding the translation please feel free to make them here:

http://support.elkarte-hilfe.de/index.php/topic,28.0.html

Quote from: bea – As i like the friendly light brown colors of that Theme: are there any themes which provide similar color schemes?

I can give you a CSS file for the light variant of the default theme which can easily be changed to a color scheme according to your taste.

Quote from: bea – Finally: is there and document describing the migration from SMF 1.1.x to ElkArte?

There is a little description on my online manual:

http://elkarte-erste-schritte.de/install.html

Specific questions will be answered in my support board or here, as my board is kind of deserted somehow.  :(

Re: New here

Reply #2

Thanks.

If i understand correctly, ElkArte will be installed in its own path, so i will be able to delete the old forum software and its database tables after the migration.

What about domain names?
Can i do the development on, say,  test.my.domain and then switch the server to www.my.domain when i am done (which is possible with CMSimple and an intelligently configured Drupal)? Or do i need to modify my database or some configuration files?

I am on a vserver, so i have full access to my system environment...

best

Beate

Re: New here

Reply #3

Extending my thought, something like this should work:
Code: [Select]
	foreach ($settings as $key => $value)
{
$id = substr($key, -3);
if ($id === 'url')
{
$settings[$key] = str_replace('live_domain', 'test_domain', $value);
}
elseif ($id === 'dir')
{
$settings[$key] = str_replace('live_dir', 'test_dir', $value);
}
}
to add just after:
Code: [Select]
	$settings = $themeData[0];
in Load.php.

The other directories... should work because even though are defined in Settings.php, they are checked in index.php and if wrong are fixed.

The only part left are attachments that may require some other adjustments.

Actually, something like this could even become part of a debugging component of sort. To consider.
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Re: New here

Reply #4

Heck, sorry!
I thought I posted that one before, but I wrote it and forgot to click post. xD
So that one is the post I was referring in the message above.

Anyway, hello and welcome to ElkArte! :)

Quote from: bea – The code base is a somewhat hacked SMF 1.1.16 with the Dilbert Theme.
http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=80 This one, right?

Quote from: bea – As i like the friendly light brown colors of that Theme: are there any themes which provide similar color schemes?
I guess the brown is http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?action=download;lemma=80;id=377;image ?
Colors are mostly defined in CSS, change them is not too difficult, and there are for sure two or three people that can help. :)

Quote from: bea – the SMF code has been extended to support more than two genders (which are integer numbers on  SMFs database level, the range is just extended...) . What about ElkArte? What would happen if i try a migration? Is there any way to retain these additional genders? Would i have to implement this (i debugged that code sequence, so i have some idea what's going on) before i import any SMF database?
Multiple genders were introduced in 1.1 (still in development).
Of course there are only so many ways to implement such a feature, so I think migrate them in a way that is 1.1 compatible should not be that difficult. :)

Quote from: bea – In SMF 1.1 and, AFAIK, also 2.0.x the server URL and the path to the installation directory are kept in the database at various places. This make the use of a dev platform difficult - the forum cannot just be moved to a different place / domain without editing the database. i know that it can be done piping the database dump through sed, but i do not like that. How does Elk behave in this respect?
Unfortunately, we have inherited and retained this behaviour, so it's mostly the same.
Just a thought: what I would do, is create a small addon that str_replace the "live" directories/urls into the one used for testing with a loop over $settings.

Quote from: bea – What should i consider on the server - i (need to) use an old debian version with a self compiled old PHP (AFIR some 5.2) in order to be able to run that old code, but i would like to migrate to nginx/fastcgi and a less old version of php. Would ElkArte run on php 5.4.45 which i know is not the latest as well?
5.2 is the minimum version required for Elk 1.0, but 5.3+ is recommended (and is as well the minimum for 1.1).
It mostly works with PHP 7 as well, but some issues with sessions are reported so it's still a bit unclear.
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Re: New here

Reply #5

With SMF we had this php file to copy into the forum root folder and open it with the browser to correct the paths. This should work with ElkArte too, I used it once with ElkArte. But you should delete it from the server when you don't need it anymore.

@emanuele: What do you think about the file?

Re: New here

Reply #6

It's already around (in the tools repository https://github.com/elkarte/tools/tree/master/repair_settings ), but this requires you to change parameters during the migration (the thing that bea is trying to avoid). ;)
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Re: New here

Reply #7

If clicking on a link means changing parameters during migration, yes.  ;)

Re: New here

Reply #8

That's not really about migration, more about development. ;)
And it's: configure your live site, move it to development, and then configure it to let it work as development and not live without touching the configuration.
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Re: New here

Reply #9

To pick this old thread up. Until now i have not upgraded. How stable is the 1.1 (beta?) version of Elk? Usable in production for a "daring" user - which means, the most important basic features should work flawlessly. My old SMF installation also has some glitches....

Is there already a German language pack for 1.1 - again perfection is not necessary?

If i am honest i would prefer to have a shell / sed /awk / emacs / whatever script which works on Database A (dump, backup) and extracts the necessary tables and writes them into an ElkArte database which i can load. That would allow me to configure the new site with an older backup and later on repeat that procedure during the actual migration. Such a script might be easily modified to account for different file system structures and domain names.

(Yes, i admit, i am thinking in an old fashioned way... but i did my 1st steps into IT doing FORTRAN on punched cards...)

Re: New here

Reply #10

I will work on the german translation the next days. It should be available soon.

Re: New here

Reply #11

Glad to hear of another punch card user, had to use those once or twice back in the days of learning FORTRAN 77

We just added 1.1 RC1 to the github releases, it contains all of the 1.0.10 fixes and should reflect what this site is running.  I have not had a chance to install that package to make sure the merge went well (or as well as it could, poor emanuele !)

The biggest "block" to running 1.1 in production could be that 3rd party addons/themes have not been updated to work with it.  Some may work fine, others will need some tweaks, others some actual effort to get working.

Would you be updating from ElkArte 1.0 or some SMF version?


Re: New here

Reply #12

Quote from: bea – This make the use of a dev platform difficult - the forum cannot just be moved to a different place / domain without editing the database. i know that it can be done piping the database dump through sed, but i do not like that.
Just a little note on this after re-reading the topic after a few months: this works fine because you are on SMF 1.1, on SMF 2.0 (and unfortunately ElkArte as well since it's not among the settings that were migrated) it may be less easier, because if you use multiple attachments directories the paths are stored as a serialized array and using sed it would most likely not change the length of the string and break the unserialize.
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Re: New here

Reply #13

I also tried to make a copy of my forum editing the database file with rpl command (similar to sed) and I got the same problems that Emanuele wrote above with multiple folders for attachments, so it won't work. We need to use the repair settings file to correct the paths for attachments
sorry for my bad english

 

Re: New here

Reply #14

Weeelll.
If it is just paths and URLs and you know what you are doing enough to use the CLI, write a simple script that takes as input path (base path of the forum) and URL and fixes all the relevant shouldn't be particularly difficult (assuming all the paths are sub.directories of the root of the forum).
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