More a report than an article today. I am beginning to think about working with some real content at last. To that end, I have been experimenting with various tools and techniques for migration – one or two of which may well find their way into this series.
In particular, I looked at the plugin All-in-One WP Migration, which packages up a WordPress site at the source and installs it – themes, plugins, database and all – at the other end. It allows you to alter links and other strings and, in doing this work, it’s smart enough to alter serialized data without breaking it. I ran into the limitation that the free plugin supports only relatively light uploads. I have used this tool before with good results, however. In the long term, it probably won’t work that well for me because it’s a move and not a merge solution.
I’m also in the process of installing Version Press – a bleeding edge plugin which apparently allows you to merge WordPress instances with git. If this does everything it claims, it’s going to be amazing. I ran into some issues with permissions (which was one motivation that prompted yesterday’s post). It also does not like the version of git my development server is running and it looks as if I might have to compile a binary exclusively for the plugin’s use – precious flower that it is. The plugin doesn’t love the non-standard layout I’m experimenting with, either – though apparently there are workarounds.
Finally, for a work client, I’ve been writing a script to move data over to WordPress from another CMS. I may use this experience as the foundation for a quick and dirty merge script – just for the purposes of illustration.
photo credit: Daniel Kulinski 12, 1, 2 via photopin (license)
