The awaited full release of the Wordpress to Joomla converter is now here.

A simple GUI has been wrapped around each of the steps to make it a little more user friendly. However there is no GUI for the configuration of the converter, however this will be added in future versions of the converter, when further feedback is received, and bug fixes, enhancements and further conversion points are requested.

Simply as the requirements of the converter grow, so till will it’s features and user friendliness.

Please send in any feedback, bugs or enhancements and consider donating if you found the converter useful.

I wont go into too much detail here as to how we went about it, I simply do not have time today, and I know that people are awaiting this script.

I decided at the last minute to add comments to the import process, for the comment systems I chose both the Jom Comment module (Commercial and is integrated with the My Blog component http://azrul.com), and the Joomla! Comments module.

If you have other comment modules that you would like added to this list, please let me know and I will do my best to also write conversion for them. Personally if you can afford it I advise going with Jom Comments, it has a lot more to offer in general and is a lot cleaner all around.

With the content and comments import, there have also been some changes added to the config file. I have added settings for the batch import, the comment system you wish to import into and if you want comments added at all. The config file is first, then the content file.
I have not completed the database table clean-up at this stage, but I will be writing a GUI and clean system before actually releasing this as a full package, and at that stage will add the database clean-up.
Continue Reading ->

In the first part of this series we looked at setting up the basics of the conversions script, config files, user imports and discussed the importance of planning each stage out and how to go about it.

In this section we will be looking at importing the categories from Wordpress into Joomla. You will be glad to know this part of the series should be a bit shorter to read. Though no less complicated, it is also the 3rd step of the conversion, and we only need to run the article import and the clean up after this.

One of the problems with the conversion is that Wordpress and Joomla, as you would expect do things differently, this is comes to light in the categories import and presents us with the first big decision of the entire import process. The problem is, that whilst in Wordpress all Categories can be a parent without a child, Joomla requires that you have both a section and a category.
This leads us to make the choice whether to create a single “placeholder” parent section, and then make all of our categories from Wordpress into Joomla categories, or whether to create all our Wordpress categories as Joomla sections and those without children, create a placeholder category under the section.
Finally, Joomla only allows for 2 levels, Section >> Category, whereas Wordpress allows, for children to be parent categories themselves giving a never ending hierarchy so we aren’t going to be able to have say “technology” >> “Apple” >> “iPhone” so we have yet another decision to make, we will either have to cut out the middle man, make the middle category section, or make them all sections with a generic “general” category beneath them.
In this case I have decided to include a function that will check the following:

• If the category is a parent
• If the category has children
• How many children and levels it has
• Restructures the categories, to either have child, to be child and brings them into a singular line

As such you will likely need to manage and change these through the Joomla Administrator UI after the conversion, as you may wish to get rid of some of the parents, (i.e. Technology >> Apple >> iPhone becomes Technology >> iPhone therefore either eliminating the need of the Apple category or making it obsolete in this example.

This scheme should work, it also means that each singular parent category is going to need a child, so lets say you had a category called “Foo”, we will then create a category under it called “bar” we will in this example however, name the category the same as the section, this will be somewhat confusing when you first look at it, however it at least maintains some sanity and continuance from your Wordpress set up.

If you want to make life easier it may be worth editing your category structure in Wordpress before the conversion this, will make life easier at the end of the day. We will no matter what repeat the section as a category, so it works in the same way as Wordpress.

I hope that wasn’t too confusing, it’s really quite simple, it’s just a matter of coming up with the correct or best worked solution for you. This is how I have decided is the cleanest way to operate and gives us a closer 1 to 1 relationship for Wordpress vs Joomla.

Finally I should mention that we will be making another “map” table which will give us a map of the categories again, so we can reference, the old category id and get the new category id, we will also record the section id, so we can drop all of the content into the content tables correctly.

So without further ado, her is the code.

<?php
error_reporting(E_ALL);
//
// Include The configuration file
//
include('config.php');
 
//
// Create a new connection to the Wordpress Database
//
$db = new  ezSQL_mysql($wp_db_user, $wp_db_pass, $wp_db, $wp_db_host);
echo "Initialised WP DB<br/>";
 
//
// Create a connection to the Joomla Database
//
$jb = new  ezSQL_mysql($j_db_user, $j_db_pass, $j_db, $j_db_host);
echo "Initialised JOS DB<br/>";
 
//
// Create a new table in your Joomla database to store the new 
// category and section ID's so that we can map posts and articles to them. We will destroy this table as one of the final steps
//
 
$jb->query( "CREATE TABLE `jos_wp_category_map` (`wp_cat_id` INT NOT NULL ,`jos_cat_id` INT NOT NULL ,`jos_sec_id` INT NOT NULL) ENGINE = MYISAM ");
echo "Created Category Map table<br>";
 
//
// This function iterates through the categories and children and updates the ID's
//
function updateCategory($category, $newParentID)
{
	global $db, $jb, $wp_prefix, $j_prefix;
	$children = $db->get_results("SELECT t.term_id as term_id, t.name as tname, t.slug as tslug, tt.description as description, tt.parent as parent FROM ".$wp_prefix."terms AS t INNER JOIN ".$wp_prefix."term_taxonomy AS tt ON t.term_id = tt.term_id WHERE tt.taxonomy IN ('category') and parent=".$category."  ORDER BY t.name");
 
	foreach($children as $child) {
		updateCategory($child->term_id, $newParentID);
		//Check if we are insterting into 1.5 or 1.0.x
		if($j_version=='1.5') {
			//Insert the latest category 
			$jb->query("insert into ".$j_prefix."categories (title, alias, section, description, published) Values('".$child->tname."', '".$child->tslug."', '".$newParentID."', '".$child->description."', 1)");
		}
		else
		{
			//Insert a matching Category for this top level category (now exists as Joomla Section and Category)
			$jb->query("insert into ".$j_prefix."categories (title, name, section, description, published) Values('".$child->tname."', '".$child->tslug."', '".$newParentID."', '".$child->description."', 1)");
 
		}
 
		// Insert into our temp storage/reference table
		$jb->query("insert into jos_wp_category_map (wp_cat_id, jos_cat_id, jos_sec_id) values(".$child->term_id.", ".$jb->insert_id.", ".$newParentID.")");
 
	}
 
}
 
//
// This query grabs all of the categories from the wp tables, wp stores categories in a taxonomy format, which essentially means that there
// is a multipurpose table which holds everything from categories, to tags, this consists of 3 tables in total, but we just want to grab information
// from 2 of them, term_taxonomy and terms. We could limit this query to grab only what we want, but I use the full query for anyone interested
// in seeing exactly what information is stored for category in Wordpress, more an FYI query than being specific and to the point, and does not harm
// since we will in 99% of cases be grabbing less than 1000 rows.
$categories = $db->get_results("SELECT t.term_id as term_id, t.name as tname, t.slug as tslug, tt.description as description, tt.parent as parent FROM ".$wp_prefix."terms AS t INNER JOIN ".$wp_prefix."term_taxonomy AS tt ON t.term_id = tt.term_id WHERE tt.taxonomy IN ('category')  and parent=0 ORDER BY t.name");
 
echo "<br/>Categories Selected from WP";
 
//
// Loop through the results array and work our magic
//
foreach($categories as $category) {
 
	//Check if we are insterting into 1.5 or 1.0.x
	if($j_version=='1.5') {
		// Insert the Parent Category into Joomla as a "Section"
		$jb->query("insert into ".$j_prefix."sections (title, alias, scope, description, published) values ('".$category->tname."', '".$category->tslug."', 'content', '".$category->description."', 1)");
		$newParentID = $jb->insert_id;
		//Insert the section as a category of itself
		$jb->query("insert into ".$j_prefix."categories (title, alias, section, description, published) Values ('".$category->tname."', '".$category->tslug."', '".$newParentID."', '".$category->description."', 1)");
	}
	else
	{
		// Insert the Parent Category into Joomla as a "Section"
		$jb->query("insert into ".$j_prefix."sections (title, name, scope, description, published) values ('".$category->tname."', '".$category->tslug."', 'content', '".$category->description."', 1)");
 
		$newParentID = $jb->insert_id;
		//Insert as a category to it's own section
		$jb->query("insert into ".$j_prefix."categories (title, name, section, description, published) Values ('".$category->tname."', '".$category->tname."', '".$newParentID."', '".$category->description."', 1)");
 
	}
 
	// Insert into our temp storage/reference table
	$jb->query("insert into jos_wp_category_map (wp_cat_id, jos_cat_id, jos_sec_id) values(".$category->term_id.", ".$jb->insert_id.", ".$newParentID.")");
 
	//Jump into the recursive function and update all of the subcategories and align them in a Joomla! style of section vs Category
	updateCategory($category->term_id, $newParentID);
 
}
 
echo "Category Import completed";
?>

The code above is not perfectly tuned but I ran out of time because work became exceedingly busy and I didn’t have the time to put in to refine the code to my usual standards. However it is functional and does the job we intended.

It inserts the category, grabs the first sub-category and inserts that, and then enters a recursive function in order to find each of the sub-categories of the first sub-category until it runs out of records to go through. This could be simplified to make the recursion hit immediately which i will do once I wrap this into a downloadable script, otherwise enjoy. The content will be following close on the heels.

I noticed during some routine coding today that I had made an oversight with the user import script, I apologise for this mistake but have provided the below update to the script.

<?php
error_reporting(E_ALL);
//
// Include The configuration file
//
include('config.php');
 
//
// Create a new connection to the Wordpress Database
//
$db = new  ezSQL_mysql($wp_db_user, $wp_db_pass, $wp_db, $wp_db_host);
echo "Initialised WP DB<br/>";
 
//
// Create a connection to the Joomla Database
//
$jb = new  ezSQL_mysql($j_db_user, $j_db_pass, $j_db, $j_db_host);
echo "Initialised JOS DB<br />";
//
// This function simply checks user permissions and then returns the correct one to the Joomla
// At some point we are going to need to get the ARO group id's as well but we can do that with another function
//
function check_user_perms($perm_string)
{
	//I am using an strpos search, which isn't ideal, we should use a regular expression but that is for another tutorial
	if(strpos($perm_string, "subscriber")!==false)
	{
		//we have a subscriber
		$perm = "Registered";
	}
	else if(strpos($perm_string, "author")!==false)
	{
		//we have an author
		$perm = "Author";
	}
	else if(strpos($perm_string, "administrator")!==false)
	{
		$perm = "Super Administrator";
	}
	else if(strpos($perm_string, "editor")!==false)
	{
		$perm = "Editor";
	}
	else if(strpos($perm_string, "contributor")!==false)
	{
		$perm = "Publisher";
	}
 
	return $perm;
}
 
//
// This function just maps the group the user is in with the ARO group ID
//
function aro_acl_group_id($group)
{
	switch ($group) {
	case "Registered":
		$g_id = "18";
		break;
	case "Author":
		$g_id = "19";
		break;
	case "Super Administrator":
		$g_id = "25";
		break;
	case "Editor":
		$g_id = "20";
		break;
	case "Publisher";
		$g_id = "21";
	}
 
	return $g_id;
}
 
//
// Create a new table in your Joomla database to store the new 
// User ID's so that we can map posts and articles to them. We will destroy this table as one of the final steps
//
 
$jb->query( "CREATE TABLE `jos_user_map` (`wp_id` INT NOT NULL ,`jos_id` INT NOT NULL) ENGINE = MYISAM ");
echo "Created User Map table<br />";
 
 
//
// Select the users and their related meta details from Wordpress
// The query looks complicated, but all it does is applies some easy names to each column selected for handling later, it also join the usermeta table and grabs the "capabilities" field
// which tells us what permissions the user has
$users = $db->get_results("select u.ID as wpID, u.user_login as username, u.user_pass as pwd, u.user_email as email, u.user_registered as reg_date, u.display_name as display_name, um.meta_key as mkey, um.meta_value as u_perm
from ".$wp_prefix."users u
join ".$wp_prefix."usermeta um on um.user_id = u.ID
Where um.meta_key='wp_capabilities' order by u.ID");
 
echo "Selected WP Users and beginning insert loop";
//
// Declare the $i integer simple for a count later
//
$i=0;
//
// Loop through the results array and work our magic
//
foreach($users as $user)
{
	//
	// It's sometimes a good idea when throwing in usernames to run some checks and remove any invalid characters, or at least invalid for the new system
	// Luckily Joomla and Wordpress were both written with a great deal fo security in mind and as such, we don't need to write any RegExp to check
	// and remove anything, but if you were coming from a system like e107 it is VITAL that you remove characters like ' from usernames as not only
	// will this cause problems in Joomla, such characters can open you up to SQL injections. But once again we don't need it here.
	//
 
	//
	// First things first, lets see what user they are and then do the mapping.
	//
	$user_perms = check_user_perms($user->u_perm);
 
	//
	// Get ARO Group ID for Joomla
	//
	$aro_group = aro_acl_group_id($user_perms);
 
	//
	// we are ready to start importing users
 
	// Insert the basic user Profile information into the Joomla User table (you may want to change the "display name" to "wp: nice_name" both in the qp query and here
	$jb->query("Insert into ".$j_prefix."users (name, username, email, password, usertype, sendemail, gid) VALUES ('".$user->display_name."', '".$user->username."', '".$user->email."', '".$user->pwd."', '".$user_perms."', 0, ".$aro_group.")");
 
	// Get the ID and store it
	$new_user_id = $jb->insert_id; 
 
	// Use the new User ID to insert into our conversion table so that we can match ID's for the articles
	$jb->query("insert into jos_user_map (wp_id, jos_id) VALUES (".$user->wpID.", ".$new_user_id.")");
	// Insert into the first ACL table, Core ACL
	$jb->query("Insert into ".$j_prefix."core_acl_aro (section_value, value, name) VALUES ('users', ".$new_user_id.", '".$user->username."')");
	// get the aro_id
	$aro_id = $jb->insert_id;
	// Insert into the ACL Groups table
	$jb->query("insert into ".$j_prefix."core_acl_groups_aro_map (group_id, aro_id) VALUES (".$aro_group.", ".$aro_id.")");
	$i++;
}
 
echo $i." records inserted<br /><br /><br />";
 
echo "User Import Complete";
 
//
// TO DO: Add the link to import the next step, categories
//
 
?>

The issue was that during the final insert query, I inserted the user ID into the group_aro_map when I should have inserted the newly created aro_id.

It is a quick fix, we simply grab the newly inserted id via the insert_id; call, place it in a variable and use it for the insert, all the action is seen below

	// get the aro_id
	$aro_id = $jb->insert_id;
	// Insert into the ACL Groups table
	$jb->query("insert into ".$j_prefix."core_acl_groups_aro_map (group_id, aro_id) VALUES (".$aro_group.", ".$aro_id.")");

Sorry again, this should now work fine and the category import script is coming up next.

I wanted to just reach out to let you know the second part of the script and tutorial on converting from Wordpress to Joomla is in the works, I am only managing about 5 minutes a day working on it but am at the stage where I am writing the major parts of the code.

Whilst it seems fairly simple to write a category importer, Joomla and Wordpress manage categories in very different ways. Wordpress also allows for an infinite level of categories, whilst Joomla restricts you to Section and dingle category hierarchy. This presents a fairly complex set of problems and it means a lot of work in order to sort out and create a new structure that still makes some sense and holds true when we move to Joomla.

On the surface it isn’t a complex problem but as the developer we have made some pretty harsh decisions on behalf of the people that will be using the script to convert their systems, it also means that we have to do some lateral thinking about how we are going to progrematically take something that may be a hierarchy of “foo >> Bar >> doe >> Ray” into something like “Foo >> Ray” or “doe >> Ray” essentially we cant make everyone happy and we are going to have to make some people happy and others unhappy. I plan on writing a switch into the converter also, that allows a site administrator to say they want it to work so that any parent, no matter it’s place in the hierarchy becomes a section as well as staying a child, this allowing for everyone brings drama of it’s own though!

Stay tuned
Dan

The first thing when creating the converter was to decide on whether or not I would use any part of my current libraries to help expedite the process of writing the converter. Generally there is one class that I will ALWAYS use when writing code, applications or database work. The class I use is ezSQL I wont dive into how to use the class in full here as this is best saved for another tutorial. In general it simplifies the process of connecting to and interacting with your databases and also offers connections across multiple different database platforms, it’s a great class and you really should check it out.

Since this script will largely be a backend script requiring very little to no front-end GUI then we don’t really need to worry about any template classes and can just stick with some basic PHP and HTML.

We are now ready to start the planning stage for the script itself, ideally this is the first thing you do, but I tend to gather the tools I know I will need first of all and then begin planning and mapping the work itself, this is just a personal habit I should probably break, but it saves time in the long run, when you can just dive straight into a project.

Continue Reading ->

As always there are far more than one way to skin a cat, you will notice this when you come to set up a development environment for PHP on your local machine or server.

Once again I will be focusing this tutorial on Windows environments, because to a large extent if you already have Linux on one of your boxes, setting up a local PHP test environment is just a small series of steps built into the environment.

If you plan to start learning PHP the setting up a local environment is essential, it will save you time uploading to a host and provides you an environment to test everything without harming anything you have in production.

If you already have IIS installed on your system then installing PHP is a fairly simple process of downloading the PHP installation from http://www.php.net. However if you don’t have IIS running, don’t know how or don’t want to set it up then the best option and the one I use personally is to download and install a LAMP (WAMP for us since we are running on Windows) bundle and install that. The benefit of doing so, means that you have MYSQL, PHP and usually a stack of other useful server apps installe dall in one go, and you can manage it through the applications control panel.

Continue Reading ->

When you start to learn PHP programming you will need to first start with an editor to write your code with and there are plenty of them out there for you to choose from and use. There is no editor that is right for everyone and it comes down to a matter of preference and in most cases what you first started learning withm is what you tend to stick with, it just becomes familiar and easy, but I always encourage expanding on what you have and trying new things.

In this tutorial/Review I am going to list some of the most commondly used PHP editor tools and some information about them. Hopefully any new coders can then try out some of them and decide on what is best for them.

Edit Plus

http://www.editplus.com/
Personally this is the editor that I use the most, out of a desire for change and a completely freeware application I have tried changing but always find myself relying on this brilliant application.

I first started out coding ASP in Edit Plus, so was more than use to it’s workflows and styles, so that when I transitioned to learning PHP I was able to adapt fairly easily with Edit Plus.

There are a stack of features in the application that I wont go through, I will let the creators of the application do that for you, However some of the things that I found incredibly useful when learning and still use to this day is the “ClipText” feature.

The ClipText allows you to either load a predefined list, add to an existing or create your own, this allows you to simply double click an item from the list which will insert the related code directly into the code you are editing at the current cursor location. When learning this feature is incredible because it lets you essentially set up a list of repetitive snippets of code, to save time and effort.

I used this mostly for database connections and functions that I have created. I can quickly click on “DB Connection” from my list and then fill in the connection details and I am away, saves several lines of typing code and a lot of time across a large project.

The syntax highlighting is again very easy to understand and follow and you can also edit or add your own syntax highlighting or download other people’s set from the Edit Plus website.

The application is free to use for 30-days and then can be bought for a small fee after that, and I advise in purchasing it as it is a fantastic application, and the authors have done a great job.

NotePad++

http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm
First of all NotePad++ is completely freeware which is the first advantage that the application has over EditPlus. I have recently started using NotePad++ more and more, it offers a further flexibility over Edit Plus and shares many of the same features. This means that in general it is a win over Edit Plus.

There are some code quirks to it and it doesn’t always handle spacing in some documents as well as other applications (Think Windows notepad) However this is only on the odd occassion and over all it handles things very well.

The one feature I find myself very attracted to in Notepad++ is the collapsable routines. This feature, if you have indented your code correctly (otherwise sometimes it guesses a little) will automatically create a tree style + next to your IF and other routine statements within you code. This is extremely useful when trying to find end points of these routines and in general for making your work area tidier as you code.

Again it has many other features but I am only touching on the most obvious and useful. If you are just learning to code I would highly reccomend this as your editor, as it will be easier than transitioning at a later date, and it offers a lot for new coders and developers.

Continue Reading ->

When developing sites and creating scripts you quickly learn that there are processes that you do time and time again, and you often end up re-inventing the wheel. Even to this day I tend to rewrite code that I or someone else has written before me.

I am however learning to rely on the work of others more and more. As such I have over the years come across a some great tools and classes which I rely heavily upon to do my work and code my scripts.

I will try to share these with you in a set of tutorials for new users and detail why I use them vs other scripts that are out there and that I have tried. I plan on providing tutorials for new coders to help them build a library to use going forward and am hoping to find alternatives to the classes and tools I use to expand my own libraries through suggestions of you, the readers.

stay tuned as I build and release these over the next few weeks