tp for cms ... a discussion!

[ed_m2]

hi peeps.. just registered up here.

i've recently installed SMF on our tri club website, and liked what i've seen of it so far. (the base site is running wordpress)
browsing round the SMf site i've seen mention of TP and hopped over here to investigate.

i have another magazine style site which is currently running an outdated version of mambo and have been planning a major revamp and upgrade to joomla.

the main requirements for the site are:
- article listing & management
- latest news listing (maybe a seperate category, may want to pull in some feeds here too)
- forum (duh, smf!)
- user system, article notification subscription, lined threads, article submission
(- event calendar a little later)

i'm not a php expert by any means but happy hacking software about.

those with experience of it, do you think tp is a good direction to go?

a little confused with the forum on joomla/tp/smf integration, what features would joomla offer that tp cannot?

thanks for your ideas/expertise!

ed

[Dragooon]

Joomla is no where to go due to the bridge discontinuation.
About your queries
1 - There you go, its there in TP
2 - You can use a News board to
3 -
4 - User system? Members? Its there, Article notification subscription ? I do not get this one, lined threads? Neither this one, Article Submission will be there in TP 1
5 - There is a built in calender in SMF.

[ed_m2]

thanks.

1-3 good.
4 - bit of a mish mash.
i see articles & categories  as parallels of threads & board areas.
article notification - i mean users subscribing to be informed of new articles or articles in specific categories, in the same way as they might subscribe to a board area for new threads.

lined threads... sorry should be linked, like a discussion topic on smf in respnse to a specific article.

article submission, specific user level able to submit article.

5 - ah true, i havent played with this yet.

if everything is nicely modular and open source then i'm not too afraid to try and tweak it :-)

[ed_m2]

ok... have installed smf 1.1.4 & TP 0.983

still liking what i'm seeing  :up:

off to read up about customising the boxes & theme.

[G6Cad]

Welcome to the club   :up:

[ed_m2]

...really... seriously impressed.

[ed_m2]

just to say... i've taken a look at the database structure for TP vs mambo and it looks like it should be pretty straightforward to write a wee script to copy the bulk of my articles across. the only slightly tricky bit being the way mambo includes images.

i'll try and write the script, hack it till it works sufficiently for me to use... and then share it here in case anyone else is doing similar.

:coolsmiley:

[Ken.]

Sharing of code and scripts is one of the things that we enjoy doing here on TinyPortal and one of the things that make this site so great.
If you can get your script to work and post it that will be a good thing! And if you need any help with the coding as you go through the process you may be able to find that help here on TP.  :up:

[ed_m2]

cheers.

not sure where this discussion should live really.

my pseudo code scribblings look like this so far:

Code Select Expand


// initialise stuff
set up db variables for mambo
set up db variables for smf/tp
set up array to map mambo section ID to tp category ID

switch (on posted action)

case select_articles
   connect to mambo db
   select * (or first 10 or whatever)
   
   echo
        selected articles (title/intro/content)
        check box against each
        (auto fill depending on mambo published flag, probably dont want to copy unpublished articles)
        mambo section ID & name and corresponding tp category (according to defined mapping)

    submit & post either selected article data.. or maybe just mambo IDs
    close db connection
   
case copy_articles
   connect to smf/tp db
   ID = (find highest article ID)
   loop through selected mambo articles
   check no matching title already ?
      ID = ID +1
      smf.smf_tp_articles.date = mambo.mos_content.created
      smf.smf_tp_articles.body = mambo.mos_content.fulltext
      smf.smf_tp_articles.intro = mambo.mos_content.introtext
      smf.smf_tp_articles.subject = mambo.mos_content.title
      smf.smf_tp_articles.author = mambo.mos_content.created_by_alias
      smf.smf_tp_articles.category = mapped mambo category
   close db connection



maybe loop through in sets of 10 articles for ease.

i'm using the form type submit/post method with a case statement for each action... cos thats all i know in my limited php experience.. is there a better way to pause the script and wait for user input ?

i'll try and make that work first.... then add some kind of parsing the info from the mambo images field into the body text.

this is where i work out doing the script takes as long as manually copying all my articles (and i have plenty).. but more "fun" tho 

(incidentally the website i'm converting is www.ultrarunner.co.uk)

[ed_m2]

phew this is hard work.

definitely approaching the script taking as much effort as manual transfer.

learning and awful lot along the way though which is good.

i now have
- a form & array for cross referencing mambo sections with tp categories.
- a form & table to select which articles to copy & which category they'll be going in according to the above array.

almost ready to start test copying a few articles and working on the image handling.

e.