Importing Article Site Into Pages

[sadams101]

I am importing a large article Web site into the pages app. The site's current software is called Interspire, so there is no existing import tool that exists. I have a few basic questions that I am hoping I can get some help with, which are:

1) I need to create and display a few custom fields, for example a "Subtitle" field, which is something like a mix between a headline and the article. What is the best way to add the 2-3 new fields so that I don't break IPB Pages, the ability to run auto-updates, add new modules, etc.? Should I just add, for example, new fields to the end of ibf_cms_custom_database_1, like custom_subtitle_1, custom_caption_1, etc.?

2) Has anyone heard of a "Related Articles" plugin for Pages? My existing article site has a very good related articles app that allows you to display articles that you can pick in the admin area which are related. If there isn't an existing plugin, what is the best way to develop one without breaking Pages? 

[Nathan Explosion]

7 minutes ago, sadams101 said:

Should I just add, for example, new fields to the end of ibf_cms_custom_database_1, like custom_subtitle_1, custom_caption_1, etc.?

No!!

Use the functionality in the ACP to add new fields to a Pages database:

[opentype]

12 minutes ago, sadams101 said:

2) Has anyone heard of a "Related Articles" plugin for Pages? My existing article site has a very good related articles app that allows you to display articles that you can pick in the admin area which are related. If there isn't an existing plugin, what is the best way to develop one without breaking Pages? 

No plugin needed. Just as with the sub-title, you add that as a field. The field is called “Database Relationship”. 

[sadams101]

Thank you! This is very helpful. I am going to assume that I'll be able to control the formatting of the Related Articles later, as by default it doesn't display as I'd hoped. At this point just getting the data imported is key.

Another question I have is regarding the search index tables. I went to the trouble of mapping out in detail how to import my article data into these tables:

• ibf_core_search_index
• ibf_core_search_index_item_map
• ibf_core_search_index_tags

but it just occurred to me that there may be a script I could run afterwards that would correctly auto-fill these fields. Do you know if this is the case, or I should set up my import script to include these tables?

[opentype]

9 minutes ago, sadams101 said:

 I am going to assume that I'll be able to control the formatting of the Related Articles later, as by default it doesn't display as I'd hoped. At this point just getting the data imported is key.

The database field stores just the IDs of the foreign records. The default output is a list of the record titles linked to the foreign entries. 
Anything else (like adding pictures) would need customization on the template level. 

 

9 minutes ago, sadams101 said:

but it just occurred to me that there may be a script I could run afterwards that would correctly auto-fill these fields. Do you know if this is the case, or I should set up my import script to include these tables?

Yes, I think you can just rebuild the search index after the import. 

[sadams101]

Do you happen to know whether rebuilding the search index is an all or nothing proposition? My forum has nearly a million posts, and I'm importing a few thousand articles. My hope is to not have to re-index everything, as it might be easier to just import this data now. Ideally I could just rebuild the Pages search index.

[bfarber]

Rebuilding the search index clears it out entirely and rebuilds it from scratch for all content areas. There is no way to only rebuild for one or a few specific content types I'm afraid.