Savannah W-ITS

As previously posted if you have a small web site (i.e. fewer than 20 pages) then manually copying your pages and uploading your images/media might be the best & simplest solution to moving to a Wordpress solution.  If you have more than pages & media files than you care to manually upload then you might want to us a strategy like the following to ease the migration.

A little Wordpress background

• Every HTML file or media file imported will become a ‘post’ in the database.
• Each ‘post’ will (or can be) flagged as a ‘page’, a ‘post’ or ‘media.
• Unique names for each media file are best (based on the default storage approach used by Wordpress if a duplicate name is encountered during import then a number will be appended to the name – best to start out with unique names.)
• Unique <title> tags for each HTML page are best (again, you avoid conflicts in the import process.)
• While some HTML markup may be removed it is more likely that it will be retained – when you view the imported page you may encounter formatting issues…

Start with a site structure review of your current web

• Which STATIC web pages (HTML file) will become Wordpress ‘pages’?
• Which STATIC web pages (HTML file) will become Wordpress ‘posts’?
• When importing pages which pages are ‘master’ pages?  (i.e. other pages link back to them OR they are your current ‘index pages’ for areas on your site.)
• Adopt a naming convention and standardize all of your file names (page and media) – **see below for a list of special characters to avoid in file names.
• Remove repeated structure from your pages (remove repeated items like: headers, footers & sidebars) [Wordpress will provide new headers, footers, sidebars via your 'theme'.]
• Remove any ‘excess’ HTML markup OR ‘tweak’ the markup to ‘work’ within Wordpress.

Decide on pure text or limited/custom HTML markup

Edit your static HTML files (i.e. via a stream editor like ’sed’) to remove/replace any troublesome markup.   Look for repeated sections that can be removed, .i.e it was common with older HTML pages to use tables to provide structure – perhaps the top row is your ‘header’ and the bottom row is your ‘footer’ – split the file and remove theses duplicated sections.  You may also want to use a tool like tidy (HTML tidy) to ‘clean’ the HTML markup.

During media import Wordpress will attempt to resolve (remove/replace) the special characters listed below – these characters can cause problems for proper operation of general functions which may not know how to deal with them, hence you should avoid them.  In general you will have fewer file name-related issues if you limit file names to using upper and lower case letters, numbers, dashes, underscores, and periods.  Avoid using special punctuation marks or special symbols (i.e. avoid using any symbol that can only be typed by using the ’shift key’.)

** Special characters to AVOID in file names (this may  vary depending upon your operating system):

• spaces:  ' '

• apostrophe, single or double quotes:  ',  "

• commas:  ,

• parenthesis:  ( or )

• pipes:  |

• exclamation mark:  !

• other special symbols:  @, #, $, %, ^, &, *. [, ] ,{, }, ~, `

After renaming your files and deciding on your structure you are almost ready to import.  I have not found an import utility that will pull in both media and web page (text) content – so you have to decide:

Option A (semi-auto import - needed for large number of files/media)

• import media files and export XML (from Wordpress) to provide a cross-reference (this works relatively well if you can import a few hundred files at a time – if you have thousands of media files then it can be a bit cumbersome but it is still do-able and still better than a manual process, single file at a time process…)
• modify media links in your HTML files (based on the above export – ‘fix’ the links to point to the Wordpress media files) [When you export a Wordpress Site you should have an XML file which contains ‘full paths’ or complete ‘URIs’ to your media resources.  Using this file as a reference you can use a stream editor (like ’sed’) to replace any references in your static HTML files with the new, Wordpress-specific URIs.)

An example – you have a static HTML file with a link to the image file: Some_IMAGE.jpg.  After import into Wordpress, the file is referenced as:

http://YOUR_NEW_DOMAIN/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Some_IMAGE.jpg

So, prior to importing your static HTML file that uses the above image file you would change the HTML code to point to the new location of the image, i.e. if the file that you want to import contains an image link like:

<a href=”/some_path/Some_IMAGE.jpg>

it needs to be changed to:

<a href=”http://YOU_NEW_DOMAIN/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Some_IMAGE.jpg”>

Of course, you can manually edit the new Wordpress page after importing but using a process similar to the above your image(s) should be present in your converted pages/posts.

Option B (manual import - fine for a few pages)

• import media files
• import HTML files
• manually edit new ‘posts’ or ‘pages’ and ‘fix’ the missing links to your media

Need help with a similar HTML to CMS, small or large project?  (hourly or project based rates.)

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Responding to a comment from Bryce:
Thanks for dropping by… When I first reviewed Wordpress (and other, Open Source publishing solutions) I quickly noted the lack of a complete import solution. There is no simple approach for this type of project – my solution involves using tools that are customized (which automate most of the import) for each such project. I am guessing that the 1500+pg site could probably be broken down by page types – you could categorize them and then create an import process for each type. The typical questions for these types of projects include:

• how quickly does it need to be completed?
• do you have adequate budget & resources to meet the timeline?
• is out-sourcing a solution?

My approach starts with an analysis of such a site (HTML based.) I categorize the pages (i.e. auto-import, manual-import) and estimate the hours needed to complete the import to Wordpress (or other DB based solution) process. In some instances the auto-import pages are sub-categorized (require special handling) so I may wind up with similar, small software-data-import-tools to ease the process.   Good luck with your project, and yes, I would be happy to provide a  review & estimate for your project. 

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