Serendipity Forums

I have tried to convert a blog from Expression Engine to Serendipity. To do this, I export the blog in Movable Type format and import it into Serendipity.

The result is correct for the text, but all messages appear at the same date, only one category is used for each article, and the authors are ignored.

So either my export is incorrect, or I don't use well the importer. What can I do? Is there a good documentation for this function?

Thanks.

Hi Fabien!

It might be that the ExpressionEngine export to the moveableType format was not properly done and is missing some files.

Can you save your export file somewhere so that I can have a look at it, hwo the format is built?

There's no real documentation, but if you know some PHP you could have a look at the include/admin/importers/mnoveabletype.inc.php file..

HTH,
Garvin

Hi Gavin,

Thanks for your so quick answer.

"It might be that the ExpressionEngine export to the moveableType format was not properly done and is missing some files."
Probably! Here it is.

Cheers, Fabien

Hi!

It seems to me that the date parsing is related to the "’02/24/2003 12:00:00 PM’" format - note the "`" strings there, those might disturb serendipity.

About the Author, that one looks fine - however you need to first create all author names in serendipity with the exact name, so that entries can be mapped to those users.

About the multiple categories...I must admit I don't know if the current importer supported multiple categories. Since parsing the MT-datafiles is a real pain in the back, I can't really tell. :-/

Regards,
Garvin

Hi Garvin,

Thanks, I'll correct that.

"However you need to first create all author names in serendipity with the exact name, so that entries can be mapped to those users."
There are several fields for an author. One for connection, one that is displayed... Which one must have the same value that in the MF file?

"I must admit I don't know if the current importer supported multiple categories."
How to be sure? If I cannot import multiple categories, I'll not swith to serendipity. It's a very important feature for me.

Cheers, Fabien

Hi!

Actually the 'username' field is queried for that. "Username" corresponds to the value of the author you use to login, so not the 'realname'.

I just looked at the code of the importer - it actually should be able to import multiple categories. But the categories also first need to be created in your serendipity installation, just like the authors.

The reason for that categories+authors need to be created first is that the MT format doesn't offer a full listing of all available authors, and it does not contain category hirarchie information.

Actually, if you do not enable the "Force Import" option of the Importer, you should get a bunch of notices that tell you about missing categories/authors!?

Regards,
Garvin

Hi Garvin,

I had created all the categories before!

I'll reinstall Serendipity and have another try with the date and authors correct, and I'll let you know what happens.

Thanks a lot, Fabien

Okay, let me know. Also try to import the file without setting the "Force" option to true!

Regards,
Garvin

Hi,

I have done a fresh reinstall of Serendipity, created all categories and all authors... and imported this file.

Everything is almost ok, except alas for categories. Only one is used for each article, and the capacity to have structured and multiple categories is one of the main reason of my choice of Serendipity.

Heeeeeelp!

Okay, I will look at that. Could you please give me a list of all existing categories? (or even better, a SQL dump of your serendipity_categories table)?

Regards,
Garvin

This file.
Thanks a million, Fabien

Hi!

I think I found the bug in the importer. I've just committed this file:

http://svn.berlios.de/viewcvs/*checkout ... pe.inc.php

Please download it and overwrite your existing file and try the import.

Regards,
Garvin

Hi Garvin!

It's almost good! This time, multiples categories are converted.

There is still a little problem. I use a hierarchy of categories. Let us say, I have these categories:
A
A1 (parent A)
A2 (parent A)
A3 (parent A)
A4 (parent A)
B
C
D

I import an article with these categories: A, A2, A4, C. After the import, the article is attached to these categories: A2, A4, C.

So after the import, everything seems to be correct except that category A has 0 article.

Thanks a lot for your efforts.

Fabien: Can you give me a precise example of your import file so that I can try to check it?

Regards,
Garvin

This is this file.
Thanks, Fabien