Migrating from TXP to EE - Step 1 Sep 22. 080
Ok so a lot of this will be obvious but hey, here we go… I’ve decided to tackle the migration by setting up an ExpressionEngine Core Install on a sub domain (http://ee.nathanpitman.com) where I will be able to get everything up and running before I switch from the old Textpattern install for good.
First step quite obviously is to install ExpressionEngine Core (The free version of the CMS). I won’t explain how to do this, it’s dead easy and there are a ton of useful resources out there for you to look at if you’ve never used EE before.
First thing to do after you’ve completed the install is to modify the default custom field group for the default weblog to match the fields which you have in Textpattern. Textpattern has a ‘Body’ and ‘Excerpt’ field so you could simply rename the default ‘extended’ field if you want to feel at home.
As we’re migrating from Textpattern all our posts that we will be importing will be formatted with Textile or XHTML so we’re going to need to mimic that environment in ExpressionEngine. To do so we’ll need to install a handy little 3rd party plug-in called ‘Textile’! You can download the Textile Plug-in from the ExpressionEngine website. Once installed you will need to log-in to your ExpressionEngine control panel again and change the default formatting for the custom fields (body and excerpt) to use ‘Textile’ rather than XHTML. Don’t worry if some of your Textpattern blog posts have XHTML in them, Textile will still render these just right.
Finally, before we move on to exporting our blog entries from Textpattern we need to install a module that will allow us to more easily upload and manage files as we are used to doing so with the Textpattern ‘Files’ tab. The nearest equivalent that I have found over the years is the Low File Manager Module. It doesn’t provide download counts but it does pretty much everything else you could want and ties in beautifully with the ExpressionEngine File Upload preference settings.
Next we’ll be looking at how to export all our blog entries from Textpattern and pull them into ExpressionEngine. :)
Blogging the migration from Textpattern to ExpressionEngine Sep 22. 080
I have made a cast iron decision. I am migrating (this) my personal blog from Textpattern to ExpressionEngine. I thought others might find it useful if I blogged my progress along the way.
So, this is the first of a number of posts which will explain the how, why when and what in as much detail as I can muster. If you’re looking to do the same then perhaps you’d like to follow me…
:)
Update: Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, Step 4, Step 5, Conclusion.
ExpressionEngine Extension: NoScript Messages Sep 18. 081
While working on a project recently I noted that ExpressionEngine uses a ‘JavaScript:history.go(-1)’ within the ‘User Message’ templates to allow you to return to the page from whence you came if you submit a form without completing all the required fields, perform a search and return no results etc.
I wanted to ‘do the right thing’ and ‘hacked’ an alternative as documented in this thread on the ExpressionEngine Forums. This hack picked up the referring page URL and passed that to the User Message template instead.
I kept a note of my hack and when I had to upgrade this particular install to the latest point release I set about re-implementing it. At this point Derek Jones helpfully pointed out that I could create an ExpressionEngine Extension to do the same job, negating the need to ‘re-implement’ the hack again and again. Thanks for the prod in the right direction Derek! Here’s my first ExpressionEngine Extension – ‘NoScript Messages’.
Download: ext.noscript_messages.php.zip
Obviously let me know in the comments if you have any thoughts on how this can be improved. Enjoy!
Building websites with ExpressionEngine 1.6 Aug 17. 080
This week I had a rather nice email from a lady called Alice at Packt Publishing here in the UK. Packt are a publishing company specialising in IT focused books and have just published a new book last month called Building websites with ExpressionEngine 1.6.
The book, written by Leonard Murphy is aimed at ExpressionEngine beginners. Alice has been kind enough to send me a copy for review so once I’ve had a chance to read it I’ll report back and let you know my thoughts.
In the mean time why not take a look at a sample chapter.
ExpressionEngine Plug-in: Encode/Decode Jul 22. 080
Every time I come up against something which I once would have resorted to PHP to solve, I end up writing a little plug-in these days instead. It just feels less dirty that way…
Anyhow, this one was developed to help me out when I needed to pass a string of data from one page to another in the URL. The string in question would occasionally include a forward slash and as such the string would become split as Expression Engine interpreted it as two separate URL segments.
The ‘Encode/Decode’ plug-in takes any string of text and encodes or decodes it. Typical usage of the plug-in is as follows:
{exp:np_encodedecode style="base64" direction="encode"}{title}{/exp:np_encodedecode}
The plug-in offers ‘base64’ and ‘url’ encoding and decoding but it would be easy to add more options. For me base64 seems to work best.
Download: pi.np_encodedecode.php.zip
Obviously let me know in the comments if you have any thoughts on how this can be improved. Enjoy!