Setting Up WordPress, Part One
Posted October 21st, 2006 @ 02:38pm by Erik J. Barzeski
I'm in the process (it may take a few weeks) of setting up WordPress for this blog at barzeski.com. I've installed it and will soon attempt to import my content.
The first stumbling block I've encountered appears to be the PermaLinks. I'd like the underscore method to be used, but WordPress seems to prefer to use dashes instead. For example:
http://nslog.com/2006/10/21/sample-post/ versus
http://nslog.com/2006/10/21/sample_post.php
At this point, I have no idea how to change that.
Can WordPress be forced to write out actual files, or is some random caching plugin (there seem to be a few of them) the only real option?
P.S. "Fatal error: Call to undefined function: register_importer() in /sites/barzeski.com/wp-admin/import/mt.php on line 429". How nice. Not to mention there is no "import-mt.php" file as the directions read (even they can't agree on where it is - it differs both here and here). Furthermore, any process that relies on MovableType's export data is one in which I don't place much confidence.
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Posted 21 Oct 2006 at 3:05pm #
WordPress has already failed to impress. The directions specify that I edit the file, but the file doesn't actually exist (or need editing). This web interface will apparently attempt to load my 14 MB mt-export.txt file? Riiiiight. I have the feeling I'll be looking here for help importing a large database.
But at least I was able to find this plugin to underscore my PermaLinks.
Posted 21 Oct 2006 at 3:24pm #
The Codex entry here looks alright to me. Are you looking for the import-mt.php file? I think the Codex is wrong here, it's been moved to /wp-admin/import/mt.php. I'm surprised the Codex wasn't updated, they're usually good about that.
The thing is though, if you get WordPress running, you can click "Import" all the way on the right...in the admin bar. I haven't imported since the WP 1.2 days (when I moved from LiveJournal), but that should work fine.
The link you mentioned hesitantly is old...very old. More out of date than the Codex seems to be. Heck, see if the Import link in the WP admin interface does the trick.
Not sure how to output permalinks to .php files, but you can edit the permalink structure in Options --> Permalinks. It just edits your .htaccess file, so if you understand those, I'm sure you can change it to output .php URL's? Or at least, redirect them?
Posted 21 Oct 2006 at 3:36pm #
Mike, that's the same file the second "here" links to. It indeed has incorrect information (two of them - a filename and the instructions to edit it).
I found the import button. I cannot even get a local installation of WordPress to import the 13.4 MB MT Export. I figured I'd do it locally (to avoid uploading the file via the Import page), then copy the database from my computer to my server.
At any rate, seeing as how I can't even import the damn data, this move isn't going so well. It strikes me that if WordPress really wanted people to move from MovableType, they'd have come up with something a helluva lot better than this hacked-together import script (and the directions for it), both of which are rather broken in several places (logically or otherwise).
Since my experimentation with WordPress necessarily begins with my imported posts… the experiment may not last very long.
Posted 21 Oct 2006 at 3:49pm #
Ah, was just saying that it looked okay to me. Mostly, I guess, since a couple file paths need to be updated.
If it helps, this is how I imported my LJ entries. I had to export it all from LJ to a text file (you mentioned doing this in MT). Then, you put it in the same folder as the import script. Then, you edit the import script to contain the name of your export file.
I had to do this many times, since LJ created only monthly export files...never an entire file full of my blog's entries.
Would be really nice if you could just select your export file and upload via your browser.
Really, once you get past this point...WP really is worth using. Sorry it's giving you such a hard time...maybe someone who's actually moved from MT to WP can help better. :-/
Posted 21 Oct 2006 at 3:50pm #
It seems to me that a far better way to do this would be to export a MySQL dump of appropriate MovableType tables, do some find/replaces on them in the text editor of your choice, then load those dumps into your WordPress database.
I have neither the time nor patience to do that, but one would think the WordPress folks would have come up with that solution by now. Failing that, perhaps even letting me specify a local file (as the "edit your file" instructions seem to suggest was once possible) would at least let me skip trying to upload a massive MT Export file.
7.times(WordPress-=1);
Posted 23 Oct 2006 at 8:20am #
I had to split my file up into smaller blocks, php on the shared host would just keel over.