eolith

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Will Wedge import data from SMF?
« on February 25th, 2013, 03:54 AM »
I have been running an SMF forum (www.exile-tor.com/forum) since 2009 and have been watching Wedge like a hawk. I see a beta has been released and I plan on submitting myself for beta usage. I'm planning on moving my community to a new URL and I figure that's a perfect time to switch to Wedge, and start getting the members used to it.

In doing so, I'd REALLY like to be able to bring over all the old threads to Wedge, and keep it searchable. I don't mind if they're not fully integrated and in a "Legacy" section, as long as they're searchable, we can start new threads (we're not a giant community by any means).

I searched and didn't find anything about importing SMF data, so I apologize if there's a thread out there already.

Thanks Wedgies! (my term for all you Wedge devs/supporters :P)

Arantor

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eolith

  • Wanting to get Wedge on my forums!
  • Posts: 28
Re: Will Wedge import data from SMF?
« Reply #2, on February 25th, 2013, 05:09 AM »
Awesome! Excellent news. Is there a version limitation to the converter? Does it create a whole new set of tables, or does it modify the existing?

Arantor

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Re: Will Wedge import data from SMF?
« Reply #3, on February 25th, 2013, 05:13 AM »
Currently it is a 2.0 only importer - note that it is an importer, not a converter as such.

You install Wedge, fire up the importer and point it at your old DB. Hasn't been tested lately, may be broken, may need some refinements, not sure yet.

eolith

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Arantor

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Re: Will Wedge import data from SMF?
« Reply #5, on February 25th, 2013, 05:23 AM »
Well, when Nao gets up in the morning, he'll have a read of the post in the other thread and we'll see what happens.

What I will say is that we've had some people who joined as beta testers whose participation was... unexciting and uneventful.

eolith

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Re: Will Wedge import data from SMF?
« Reply #6, on February 25th, 2013, 05:31 AM »
Understood. I imagine it's a lot like MMO beta testers who are only there to get what they want out of it.

Is there a list of standards/expectations for beta testers that you could point to (beyond the thread I posted in)? I could give you a better idea of how well I'd fit that bill and potentially save you some time. I'm sure you're busy enough as it is.

Arantor

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Re: Will Wedge import data from SMF?
« Reply #7, on February 25th, 2013, 05:34 AM »
The real standard and expectation is that you try it out and give us feedback. Even if it's just things you like/don't like/wished it had, it lets us know you're trying it out. Especially if you've come from SMF, there are a *lot* of changes to see and get a feel for.

There's also a lot of things that are rough around the edges right now and I've forgotten half of them ;)

eolith

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Re: Will Wedge import data from SMF?
« Reply #8, on February 25th, 2013, 05:37 AM »
Well that I can do. It'll obviously take me some time to dig into how things work, and I've received comments on how well I document stuff, so I'm sure I'll be at least marginally helpful :P

Anyhow, starting the new job in the morning, so off to bed. Thanks for the fast replies.

Nao

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Re: Will Wedge import data from SMF?
« Reply #9, on February 25th, 2013, 03:46 PM »
I think that what Pete forgot to tell you, is that (1) we never distributed the import tool to begin with, because (2) right now it's an *alpha*, not beta, and that as such, there's little to no chance we'll accept to see it run live on another website than this one.

Really -- keeping Wedge up to date here already takes me a lot of time -- and I'm one of the developers! Back in the day, when I was just an SMF user, I left most of my forums at version 1.x because the 2.0 converter wouldn't work on them or I'd simply made too many custom edits to make it easily upgradable. I think that when it goes public, Wedge will have gone through more internal changes that make it harder to keep up.
Of course, the goal in Wedge is to avoid all file edits. I've written a complicated system to ensure that users can easily mod the CSS, some HTML, etc, without any file changes. But there are casual users who'll follow the Wedge releases and not do any custom edits (ideal situation for us), and hardcore users who'll do what they want.
We don't want casual users for alpha testing. Maybe for beta testing.
We don't want hardcore users to run a live forum, precisely because of the live edits they'll end up doing, and thus the increasing difficulty of updating to the latest and greatest versions.

All in all... I don't want you to think you can suddenly switch to Wedge overnight.
No, you can't. I'm sorry about that. I know that I wanted us to go public back in 2011 already... We aren't paid for the job, it's a full-time one, and we can't really see an end to it all. Every year we're postponing to the next. I'm confident we can release a final in 2013, but certainly not before another six months.

eolith

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Re: Will Wedge import data from SMF?
« Reply #10, on February 25th, 2013, 08:30 PM »
In my case, I kept having to repair what broke with the modifications that I installed as I went through the various upgrades. I, too, hesitated to continue upgrading because each upgrade inevitably brought the challenge of repairing my themes/modifications.

Oh, I had no illusions that switching to Wedge would be overnight, which is why I'm willing to make use of this transition period as a time to test Wedge, look at the data conversion issues, and provide all my feedback and lessons learned both to the devs and the community. I'm looking at it rather simplistically: selfish part is that I'd like to test Wedge, and altruistically I'd love to help support the effort because I really like the direction you're taking, and I'm tired of the aging SMF implementation. But you need meaningful feedback, and I believe I can make that happen.

Further, my forums are hardly mission critical, as it's a small, close-knit community of pc gamers, which comes with it's own elevated set of technical experiences.

So, if I can help out, great. If not, that's cool, too. I'll keep watching and waiting :)

Nao

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Re: Will Wedge import data from SMF?
« Reply #11, on February 27th, 2013, 07:23 PM »
Quote from eolith on February 25th, 2013, 08:30 PM
and altruistically I'd love to help support the effort because I really like the direction you're taking, and I'm tired of the aging SMF implementation.
If you're just looking for a 'modernized' version, I hear that Elk's target is to do just that...
Their code won't be as tight as Wedge's for a couple more years, but they're working hard to catch up, I'd say. (It'd probably make more sense for them to work on Wedge directly instead of reinventing the wheel... :^^;:)
Quote from eolith on February 25th, 2013, 08:30 PM
But you need meaningful feedback, and I believe I can make that happen.
Further, my forums are hardly mission critical, as it's a small, close-knit community of pc gamers, which comes with it's own elevated set of technical experiences.
A particular PC game...?

Arantor

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Re: Will Wedge import data from SMF?
« Reply #12, on February 27th, 2013, 07:26 PM »
Quote
If you're just looking for a 'modernized' version, I hear that Elk's target is to do just that...
Yup, they have really gone to town on 'modernisation'. Thing is... you don't need to make the massive shifts they're doing to 'modernise' it. It's very relative. They would likely argue our code is not modern, in some respects I might be inclined to agree, but that's cool.

See, for many people, OOP == modern, and we're not thoroughly OOP, we don't have dispatchers and autoloaders and <insert other shiny language structure>, but we don't consider that we need them particularly. There are OOP aspects to Wedge, just as there were in SMF 2.0. OOP has a place as does functional programming.

Nao

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Re: Will Wedge import data from SMF?
« Reply #13, on February 27th, 2013, 07:32 PM »
Quote from Arantor on February 27th, 2013, 07:26 PM
Quote
If you're just looking for a 'modernized' version, I hear that Elk's target is to do just that...
Yup, they have really gone to town on 'modernisation'. Thing is... you don't need to make the massive shifts they're doing to 'modernise' it. It's very relative. They would likely argue our code is not modern, in some respects I might be inclined to agree, but that's cool.
Well, if you're talking about the controller model, I think it's bollocks, and this from a guy who actually appreciates OOP from time to time... :P

Nah, I was mostly thinking about the graphics overhaul. They also added a dynamic minifier for JS and CSS... I'm wondering what was their inspiration for that.... :whistle:

'nyway!

Arantor

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Re: Will Wedge import data from SMF?
« Reply #14, on February 27th, 2013, 07:34 PM »
Oh, the whole concept of a controller is fine if you're doing something where MVC separation can be useful (having the controller be absolutely unaware of how to get the data, e.g. in a multi-architecture backend), the dispatcher not so much.

But we don't have multi-architecture for databases, though I probably should update it to use MySQLi sometime.