Latest Ning Import module released.

@paul
9 years ago
4,326 posts

Ning Import module Version 1.1.14 is now in the Marketplace.

As well as fixing a couple of bugs, this module has two new, and important features.

1) All Ning discussions not allocated to a group that have previously been imported to the Jamroom forum module can now optionally be imported as group discussions allocated to a specified group. Group discussions support threaded comments whereas the forum module does not.

2) The Delete Media tool, which is the final process of the Ning Import, now also moves the remaining Ning archive to the /data/media/0/0 folder. This has the effect of making the referenced files in the archive 'part' of the Jamroom install. This is particularly useful if you are using the jrBackup module to backup your Jamroom to the Amazon S3 cloud as the contents of the Ning archive will now also be included in that backup regime.

Thanks

--
Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist
updated by @paul: 03/11/15 09:19:46AM

Clay Gordon
@claygordon
9 years ago
733 posts

Paul -

1) As I asked in another post - what does this do to comments that have already been added to the site-level forum? There are only a couple ... apart from the fact that I have merged and deleted categories and added a category of my own.

2) I have already run the delete media tool ... can I run it again and it will move everything? I know when I re-ran it after my browser crashed in the middle of a run that it said the equivalent of "nothing left to delete."

@paul
9 years ago
4,326 posts

thechocolatelife:
Paul -

1) As I asked in another post - what does this do to comments that have already been added to the site-level forum? There are only a couple ... apart from the fact that I have merged and deleted categories and added a category of my own.

2) I have already run the delete media tool ... can I run it again and it will move everything? I know when I re-ran it after my browser crashed in the middle of a run that it said the equivalent of "nothing left to delete."

1) There's no need to do anything. You have imported to your forum and its in use. There are no import changes that would add anything else to your forum.

2) Its ok to run the delete tool again. It will check to see if there is anything to delete, which from what you say there isn't, but then it will move the archive and adjust reference links in your imported text strings to suit.

--
Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist

Clay Gordon
@claygordon
9 years ago
733 posts

It would be nice to have threading in the site forum which I think you are saying is not supported.

@paul
9 years ago
4,326 posts

thechocolatelife:
It would be nice to have threading in the site forum which I think you are saying is not supported.

Correct. The forums work differently to the comments system which made it not practical to forums threaded.
You could re-import your group discussions to a 'forum group' and use that as the site forum, but you would then lose posts made since going live.

--
Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist

Clay Gordon
@claygordon
9 years ago
733 posts

I am either going to do this tonight or never. There's only two or three things from members but I have done a lot of work in the Forums area before going live. It means copying every page I created and losing any comments on those pages.

@paul
9 years ago
4,326 posts

Blame your fellow Ningsters coming over here and wanting new features ;-)

Seriously, I think we re going to have to freeze the Ning Import module, feature wise, now, particularly as more Ningsters are now making the move so as not to give them any more issues and decisions like this.

--
Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist

Clay Gordon
@claygordon
9 years ago
733 posts

I was thinking exactly the same thing while replying to @jamesh in another thread.

Clay Gordon
@claygordon
9 years ago
733 posts

That's me. Wanting features. Always on the bleeding edge. Speaking of updating the import module. Did you find the issue with the missing discussions from Victor K I sent you by email? Maybe a re-import will restore them?

@paul
9 years ago
4,326 posts

thechocolatelife:
That's me. Wanting features. Always on the bleeding edge. Speaking of updating the import module. Did you find the issue with the missing discussions from Victor K I sent you by email? Maybe a re-import will restore them?

Have the email. Not looked yet. Sorry. It should make it to the top of the stack sometime soon.

--
Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist

Clay Gordon
@claygordon
9 years ago
733 posts

Okay. I know it's getting late. But if this is an issue that can only be fixed doing a re-import ...

Strumelia
@strumelia
9 years ago
3,603 posts

oy. I don't even know what the heck to do with my forums at this point. Keep them as is, under the "Forums" profile? Or move them to a forums Group...?? I don't know the pros and cons of the two choices, or how they would look to members. Would all my members have to 'join' the Forums group to post? Would my forums categories mover there unaltered?

--
...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015
updated by @strumelia: 01/22/15 01:19:47PM

Clay Gordon
@claygordon
9 years ago
733 posts

Strumelia -

Good question.

Paul - Where would this new forum appear? As its own Group?

Will it keep its sub-categories? I would like to elevate it to appear in the top menu and I know I can do this in the forums config by specifying an explicit URL.

@paul
9 years ago
4,326 posts

Strumelia - As you are still in development, what I suggest you do is set the name of a new 'Forum Group' in Ning Import config then run the Group Discussion import again (set to 'create'). This will import all that previously went to the forum module to that new Forum Group.
Each 'topic' will be a group discussion with all the posts. All existing Jamroom users will automatically be members of the new group.
You can then run both the forum and the Forum Group at the same time to see which you prefer. You can even set the Forum Group's URL in the Ningja skin settings instead of the forum one so that the forum menu link goes to the group.

--
Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist

Strumelia
@strumelia
9 years ago
3,603 posts

Paul- whew thank goodness- I can do a simultaneous comparison. I will do this this weekend!

I think we can all agree that this whole 'forums vs groups vs discussions' subject has been a giant pain in the butt confusion between ning and jamroom... =8-* The good news is that as we struggle and tweak it will make the road a little bit smoother for those who come later.

--
...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

@brian
9 years ago
10,148 posts

Strumelia:
Paul- whew thank goodness- I can do a simultaneous comparison. I will do this this weekend!

I think we can all agree that this whole 'forums vs groups vs discussions' subject has been a giant pain in the butt confusion between ning and jamroom... =8-* The good news is that as we struggle and tweak it will make the road a little bit smoother for those who come later.

A LOT of the confusion on our end was that we thought Ning actually had a "forum", but their idea of a forum is really just "pages with comments on them". I think if we had realized that earlier on then we would have stuck with the Forum "group" idea instead of using Jamroom's Profile Forum module, which is more of a "real" forum.

--
Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

Clay Gordon
@claygordon
9 years ago
733 posts

@Paul - this is good news as it makes the transition a lot less stressful, and I can cut and paste between browser windows rather than having to make local copies before I do the re-import.

I can keep the existing forums copy around for a while (Arvixe will loooove that) until I am happy with the way things work.

I will need to change the Lastest Forum module on the home page to display group discussions, yes? It's now displaying the just "pages with comments on them" style. I would like some advice on the quickest way to make this happen.

Sounds like a perfect resolution to this problem.

@paul
9 years ago
4,326 posts

Quote: I will need to change the Lastest Forum module on the home page to display group discussions, yes? It's now displaying the just "pages with comments on them" style. I would like some advice on the quickest way to make this happen.

Yes, you would. That would make this almost full circle. We started off with group discussions in that panel!!

--
Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist

Strumelia
@strumelia
9 years ago
3,603 posts

brain exploding....

--
...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

Clay Gordon
@claygordon
9 years ago
733 posts

Strumelia:
brain exploding....

Mine too. I will have to look and see if I have a copy of the original file locally to compare against ... no wait! There is a compare tool!

Clay Gordon
@claygordon
9 years ago
733 posts

The discussions within Groups do not have categories that I can see. One of the things about the Ning "Forum" concept I rely on is grouping discussions by category. Is that wrong?

I don't really know if my members really use this ... need to think ... hard ... mind melting

@perrie
9 years ago
435 posts

thechocolatelife:
The discussions within Groups do not have categories that I can see. One of the things about the Ning "Forum" concept I rely on is grouping discussions by category. Is that wrong?

I don't really know if my members really use this ... need to think ... hard ... mind melting

I have the same issues, Mr. C. I need a threaded forum with discussions by categories that have editing capacity.
I think I have more of a brain freeze as in I feel stuck. Trying to see how I can make these work arounds work for my group.

Clay Gordon
@claygordon
9 years ago
733 posts

@perrie

Then go with NOT putting them into a Group and using the Site Forum option (don't enter a name on import). That's the option for you.

Rather than nesting (threading) you can quote, which is often better, actually.

-- edited to add --

I am thinking about using the Group option without categories and recommend that members use tags so that you can find things no matter where they are. I am going to create a page that has some recommended tags on it. It's not a controlled vocabulary and it will be slow to propagate, in the long run it addresses all the issues I have, especially when you can see the entire tag cloud and see how and where a tag is used.
updated by @claygordon: 01/22/15 03:53:41PM

@perrie
9 years ago
435 posts

@claygordon

I really need the threading. It helps to organize the tangents the discussions go. How about if I set up a dummy account and use that account as a forum?

Clay Gordon
@claygordon
9 years ago
733 posts

Perrie -

When you do the Forum import (what Ning called Forums) and DO NOT specify a name, all of the Forum entries - are imported under the name of the owner - user_id:1 - probably you. This preserves any category structure you added to your Ning forums.

If you specify a name, ALL of the Forum entries will be put into a Group with that name and you will lose the category associations. Perhaps most importantly, right now, there is no Search function within Group discussions - and that seals it for me as of this writing.

I don't know what it would take to add Search at the top level across all groups, and within groups. That's a question for Team JR.
updated by @claygordon: 01/22/15 04:14:26PM

Clay Gordon
@claygordon
9 years ago
733 posts

Perrie -

It turns out that Site Search (in the top nav) searches within Group discussions and other areas of the site and it is really, really powerful because it organizes the results by the type of item found. It's not the category structure, but it is SOOOOOOOOOOOO much better than the Ning search and at the same time, supports serendipitous discovery.

I searched for FAQ and it found it in Forum Topics and Tagged Items (i have a tag w/ FAQ in it).

It is WAY WAY WAY cool.

Just click here for an example:
http://www.thechocolatelife.com/search/results/all/1/4?search_string=Pod

--- edited to add ---

The search feature alone is worth so much. I am going to be writing a special FAQ to let my members know about it. I can see using it for many, many, things, especially because I can add my own database fields to search.
updated by @claygordon: 01/22/15 04:51:21PM

@michael
9 years ago
7,715 posts

Just to point out, that if you just wanted to search one location, see the link in the top right of the "Forum Topics (search theses results (43))" that link Clay gave.

If you click the "(search theses results (43)" you'll go to the search for that module only. Most modules have that on their base list page:

The search box in the title bar is module specific:
http://www.thechocolatelife.com/blog
http://www.thechocolatelife.com/video
http://www.thechocolatelife.com/event

Its also worth pointing out that if you add other fields to modules via the Form Designer and you want to make the content of those fields searchable, add the field names to:
ACP -> LISTING -> SEARCH -> GLOBAL CONFIG -> Additional Search Fields

Clay Gordon
@claygordon
9 years ago
733 posts

Yes, searching within a subset of results is also very cool and, as I mentioned, adding search fields. This is something I am going to explore a lot and write an extensive FAQ for my members.

Clay Gordon
@claygordon
9 years ago
733 posts

@Michael and @Paul (who I know is taking a long weekend but is still checking emails):

Is the category structure in the Ning "Forums" that is preserved when imported into the Site Forum (nothing in the import box) preserved when imported as a group (something entered into the import box)?

This is one of the key questions in the above thread that has not been answered, yet.

Strumelia
@strumelia
9 years ago
3,603 posts

Yep, important question.

--
...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

Latest Ning Import module released.

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