Comments on: Why We Migrated Our Zope Blog To WordPress

by: Aaron

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 13:56:43 +0000

We exported the entire Zope-based blog as one gigantic SQL statement, designed to fit WP’s data structure, which took a bit of trial-and-error to get just right. We left the old graphics in the ZODB, new ones are handled by WP.

by: tetsuo

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 00:55:53 +0000

Could you place a bit on how you exported the data out of zodb? Did you export to XML, a flat file, or shove it right into mysql? Were there images that you held in zope that were in the database? if so how did u get those out with the db dump? Your scenario is EXACTLY what i’m facing with our site and want to move to.

many thanks!

by: BJ Gillette

Fri, 28 Jul 2006 14:22:52 +0000

Hi Tom.
Aaron should be the guy to answer this, but he’s off on his 5th Anniversary celebration. At the risk of misrepresenting the facts, I’ll take a stab at the plone/Quill thing.

Our Aaron-built blog depended heavily on some Zope add-ons that were left behind when Zope made the big switch to the current version.

In addition, I have business needs that demand more MySQL, I’ve pushed him into a bunch of PHP apps, and on top of that, the poor guy actually has real work to do.

As if all of that’s not enough, the Chief Yammerer has been mesmerized by all the WordPress chatter, and I have a million things I want the blog to be able to do without requiring an extra minute of his time or mine.

I think Aaron would tell you he just aimed for the path of least resistance.

Was WP the absolute best choice? Probably not.

Was it the easiest? Yes… I think.

by: BJ Gillette

Fri, 28 Jul 2006 13:57:37 +0000

Hi dataguy.
Tag clouds give me a quick feel for a site. For instance, if I’m only interested in spam, I can go directly to features, newsbytes and newswire stories that deal only with spam.

With WordPress, searching has improved dramatically. The prior jerry-rigged search was so bad that, when I wanted to find something on my own site, I used Google with the site criteria.

The recent reduction in my output, is largely due to figuring out how to work juggle the new WordPress system, with the parts that are still in our old Zope system, like article submission by external contributors. It’s a freakin pain.

Even Angie, who does a lot of Newsbytes, must still submit through our Zope setup on the website, instead of WordPress.

My ultimate fantasy is to provide a home for other email, IM, network, operating system, security, etc, specialists to run their own blogs, supplemented by other Email Battles bloggers and NewsWires fitted to their subject areas and taste, to help keep news fresh. (Don’t tell anybody.) I figure a small group contributing together might evolve into yet-another-Internet-oasis. Plus, any one of us wouldn’t have to work so darned hard. (This thing’s killing me. ) That multiple-blogger goal is one of the obstacles making the submission changes so tricky.

Come to think of it, when b complained about my use of the term “migrated” as opposed to “moved”, I should have said, “We are migrating, as opposed to moving.”

That’s progress. It always looks easier than it turns out to be. I think readers, contributors, bloggers and Aaron will all be happier in the end.

by: Steve

Fri, 28 Jul 2006 13:34:46 +0000

Why is it, whenever someone announces that “We’ve switched to product X”, someone always has to chime in with the “You should have gone with product Y”?

Just becauseyou find that a product (bitakora) suits your needs better than another (WP), doesn’t mean it will suit everyone’s needs better. Hell, you don’t even know what this sites needs really are, so how can you possibly claim that some other product meets those needs?

by: Tom Lazar

Fri, 28 Jul 2006 02:36:48 +0000

have you considered Quills[1]? We got a tag cloud[2], too, you know (and WYSIWYG-editing…)

[1] http://plone.org/products/quills
[2] http://tomster.org/

by: BJ Gillette

Thu, 27 Jul 2006 22:21:49 +0000

I dunno. Guess I just liked the word “migrated.” Boy. Tough crowd.

by: b

Thu, 27 Jul 2006 21:19:35 +0000

Migrated? What’s wrong with the word moved? Or am i missing summat?

by: Aaron

Thu, 27 Jul 2006 13:21:11 +0000

Kedai,

Actually, our Zope blogging system was entirely home-grown. When we decided to migrate, we evaluated all of the Zope-based products. There are several nice options out there, including bitakora, if you’re dead-set against leaving Zope.

For us, WP’s maturity won the day.

We still use and love Zope for many other projects.

by: kedai

Thu, 27 Jul 2006 13:10:35 +0000

you never mentioned the blog product you used, but i’d assume it’s coreblog.

you should have tried bitakora before the jump to wp. it’s the later blog product, and caters for the wp crowds, methinks.

has tags, has wysiwyg, and more.

http://www.codesyntax.com/bitakora