Implementation Strategy

[cfish]

I have a busy site with lots of static content that currently includes a vB forum in a sub-folder. My long-term aim is to convert the entire site over to Invision Community, using Pages for the homepage and much of the non-forum content. However, this is a massive job and needs to be phased. There is an imperative to migrate the forum first and the only sensible option seems to be to install Invision Community at mydomain/forum. My question is, how easy will it be to subsequently move Invision Community to site root when the time comes to port content to Pages and make that the primary application? Are there any considerations I should be taking into account now, before I migrate the forum that will make life easier later?

[Joel R]

What kind of static content and on what platform? 

To move Invision to the site root is very easy when the time comes.  You just need to update config file.  To make Pages the primary app is a click of the button (you just make Pages the primary app in the list of apps).  

The only other thing that I can think of would be your file storage settings (if you have a lot of attachments), so you want to make sure those are properly set up first.  

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Some general tips for converting:

1. You're allowed a non-public  test install of IPS.  You can use this test your migration beforehand.  

2.  Take a backup

3. I'm sure IPS has a conversion guide in their Help Guide.  

[cfish]

Thanks Joel R for the advice. I have already made a dry run of the migration from vB 4 and it has worked a treat. The static content is plain HTML/CSS so I'm guessing that's a manual conversion to Pages when the time comes. Good to know the switch to web root is that easy!

[CavySpirit]

I'm in the exact same place. I've done my test conversion of a 1M post vb4.x forum and 20K images from a Photopost gallery. That migration is fine.

I rather assumed it would be pretty easy to setup my static articles in Pages. I'm converting from an ancient html-only site for my article content. So, putting it all on a CMS is all new from that point of view with this site for me. I had gone done a path with WP for year on re-writing things, but still never went live with it. I was honestly waiting to decide between IPS or XF and waiting for either platform to catch up to what I needed for the forum for the long haul. My current site has been around for 15+ years and is the authority site in my niche.

But in testing Pages, I'm finding it to be a really huge challenge on deciding how to approach things. Categories, tags, databases, pages and urls simply don't work the way one would assume they work coming into IPS as a newbie.

I think there are a lot of considerations to figure out besides taking the approach of figuring it out later. I've got a busy site, too. I'm still struggling with HOW to organize 'articles' in such a way that you can have a MENU structure beyond a top-level only: ARTICLES | FORUM | GALLERY etc. One database (articles, for example) gets ONE page to display ALL of your article content. Forget submenus of "topic area 1, topic area 2" or categories if you will. Articles are fundamentally displayed like a big forum. And if you divide your articles into separate databases, they simply don't talk to each other. For example, maybe using a food site example, you can't have a category on "Veganism" for your vegan-related articles and then also tie in related posts from a 'vegan' forum category or tag or a recipe database of just "vegan" recipes. Nor can you add custom content for just that category to your "Article" page because that page is the same page served across all of your categories. I'm coming to understand Databases and Apps as Silos of information that do not talk to each other and cannot be cross-referenced. At least, I've found nothing yet that lets that happen. I'm on a mission right now to try to figure that out before I lock and load my forum migration. :) 

[cfish]

Thanks for the heads-up on that. That's the very reason I'm phasing the move over to Invision Community, starting with the forum. I've never used Pages before and I know it's going to take a while to get it straight in my head. I have to say I'm pretty impressed with IPS forum, it's a big step up from vB4 that we've been using since it launched. Do let me know how you get on with your migration.

[opentype]

21 hours ago, CavySpirit said:

One database (articles, for example) gets ONE page to display ALL of your article content. Forget submenus of "topic area 1, topic area 2" or categories if you will. 

Why forget categories? That’s how you structure articles (or any other content database). In fact, it is super powerful in 4.x, since you even have full control of the fields that are used per category and also the database templates that are used per category. So you have a lot of freedom to display different content in different categories, if you so choose. There is no need to split articles across several databases. Several database are for DIFFERENT content types, e.g. a “book database” (with ISBN, publisher name …) and a “author database” (with first and last name, profile image …). 

If you want a category “menu”, then there is a widget for that. Just drag it onto your site. 

[Jennifer M]

I'm going to break this down and see if I understand and maybe you can provide more clarification. I'm a person that actually uses Pages heavily on my own site and it's important to be able to do a lot of what you're describing.

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I'm still struggling with HOW to organize 'articles' in such a way that you can have a MENU structure beyond a top-level only: ARTICLES | FORUM | GALLERY etc. One database (articles, for example) gets ONE page to display ALL of your article content.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding but there are multiple ways to organize your database from categories to filters. I personally use both and each for different reasons. The best part about them is that they can be used together for even more ease of use.

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Forget submenus of "topic area 1, topic area 2" or categories if you will. Articles are fundamentally displayed like a big forum. And if you divide your articles into separate databases, they simply don't talk to each other.

As I stated above. There are menus for the categories as well as for database filters each with their particular use. If you would like more information on that I can explain further. Additionally if you are looking to use two different databases (a recipe database versus an article database) there is the ability to add fields to cross-link them which will actually show the database item in the other item. This is extremely helpful if you have articles that have a few different steps and you want to provide your users to the next step.

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For example, maybe using a food site example, you can't have a category on "Veganism" for your vegan-related articles and then also tie in related posts from a 'vegan' forum category or tag or a recipe database of just "vegan" recipes.

What sort of solution are you looking for this? There are Topic feed blocks that you can create in pages and using some logic:

Topic feeds (as well as any other feeds) can also be pulled based on tags to share content across the suite of the same value where you need them.

 

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Nor can you add custom content for just that category to your "Article" page because that page is the same page served across all of your categories.

Actually, yes you can as long as you use categories. In fact you can even create a custom template per category if you want each category within your database to look a little different. When editing a category there is a location called "Form Fields" that you can pic and choose what shows. The only "mandatory" fields that will always be there for all categories are the title and Content fields and any of the permanent fields that you cannot remove at the bottom of the fields list.