Possible Re-hosting Of Website - Input Requested

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Re: Possible Re-hosting Of Website - Input Requested

Gary Lewis
Administrator
A little more research on the Dreamhost site says "Proprietary site build and hosting services such Wix, Weebly, or Squarespace cannot be moved to DreamHost."  I don't know if that means the Dreamhost staff don't have the tools with which to do it or if there's something proprietary about Dreamhost that precludes it.  I guess we'll find out if I ask cms2cms to migrate it to Dreamhost.

ctubutis - I understand what you are saying.  And it makes sense.  However, I'm hoping for a better answer.  Or, maybe I should say a better way to present the pdf's.  We shall see.

But in any case having the content on the same "system" as the website will be a plus.
Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

Dad's: '81 F150 Ranger XLT 4x4: Down for restomod: Full-roller "stroked 351M" w/Trick Flow heads & intake, EEC-V SEFI/E4OD/3.50 gears w/Kevlar clutches
Blue: 2015 F150 Platinum 4x4 SuperCrew wearing Blue Jeans & sporting a 3.5L EB & Max Tow
Big Blue: 1985 F250HD 4x4: 460/ZF5/3.55's, D60 w/Ox locker & 10.25 Sterling/Trutrac, Blue Top & Borgeson, & EEC-V MAF/SEFI

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Re: Possible Re-hosting Of Website - Input Requested

ckuske
Administrator
If the Wordpress stuff works like everything else on Dreamhost, it's not a Dreamhost problem where they're locking you into some odd data structures or formatting.  

It's more likely that they either don't have the tools, or just plain don't want to mess with converting proprietary systems over.
Chris

'84 F-150 XL 2WD Flareside, 302 w/ AOD transmission, Motorcraft 2150 feedback carb w/ CA Emissions, EEC-IV w/TFI, factory A/C, speed control - Info about me and my truck - My project thread
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Re: Possible Re-hosting Of Website - Input Requested

81f100custom
Is WordPress better than Weebly?

Weebly is probably the easiest website builder available in the market today, and it is a much easier platform to use than WordPress. ... Basically, even though WordPress is a very powerful & flexible platform, if you want to use it effectively, it's inevitable that you will need to modify codes. Jun 6, 2019

Just something I ran across looks like the one your considering is a more powerful program but it may take a little or lot more learning sounds like to modify the codes and such to get things to do what you want.
Eddie,
81 F100 Custom SWB, 5.0L, 4x2, Single Rail Four-Speed Overdrive, 3.00 Non-Limited Slip Rear Axle, Non A/C truck to complete 85 F150 factory A/C conversion, Nutmeg interior color.
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Re: Possible Re-hosting Of Website - Input Requested

Gary Lewis
Administrator
ckuske - I think you are probably correct.

81f100custom - Yes, Weebly is EASY!  I've taught it to a bunch of high school kids who created their own websites in one session.  

But, I've been told by two Weebly employees that our site has probably grown too large for their site.  I asked because it is becoming very onerous to create new pages and drag/drop them to the proper location.  And backups are running 4 hours to download - when they complete.  And I have hundreds, if not thousands, of additional documents to add.

Plus, with Wordpress 5.0 that came out last December there is a new editor, called the block editor, that provides some of the ease of creation for which Weebly is know.
Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

Dad's: '81 F150 Ranger XLT 4x4: Down for restomod: Full-roller "stroked 351M" w/Trick Flow heads & intake, EEC-V SEFI/E4OD/3.50 gears w/Kevlar clutches
Blue: 2015 F150 Platinum 4x4 SuperCrew wearing Blue Jeans & sporting a 3.5L EB & Max Tow
Big Blue: 1985 F250HD 4x4: 460/ZF5/3.55's, D60 w/Ox locker & 10.25 Sterling/Trutrac, Blue Top & Borgeson, & EEC-V MAF/SEFI

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Re: Possible Re-hosting Of Website - Input Requested

ctubutis
In reply to this post by Gary Lewis
How do I multiquote on this site, Gary?


Gary Lewis wrote
And now Google is finding " CHOKE COVER CLAMP SCREW (3)", which is in the Walker document on the Carter 1bbl page, in the file itself at http://www.garysgaragemahal.com/files/theme/CarterYFandYFA.pdf and not on the Carter 1bbl page.  

Perhaps it'll find it on the page later?  

Looks to me like ou're inserting your files in the wrong place on your site, Gary. What tools are you using to upload things? An sftp client? Maybe an html form?

You currently have it in the ...files/theme in the directory structure, methinks you need to navigate deeper inside of there but I don't know Weebly so can't say anything for certain.
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Re: Possible Re-hosting Of Website - Input Requested

ctubutis
This post was updated on .
Watch the youtube video, Gary:

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Re: Possible Re-hosting Of Website - Input Requested

Gary Lewis
Administrator
ctubutis - I'm not worried about where the files are in Weebly as we are planning to leave there.  And with that video you found that may be much sooner rather than later.  

I recently signed up for WPbeginner, but hadn't found that how-to.  And it is a good one.  Well spotted!  If it is twice as hard as it made it look it'll be duck soup.  (But I doubt it will be.)

And, the pricing is good as well.  That discount gets $2.75/mo instead of $7.99/mo.  But I don't know if that supplies backups, although the video said something about that.  I'll have to check into that.

With that migration tool from WPbeginner we could bring it up on ckeske's Dreamhost site.  But if we don't want to go with Dreamhost then that might not be a smart thing to do.  So I think I need to spend more time checking out hosting options so I can get a good comparison of price, benefits, etc.

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

Dad's: '81 F150 Ranger XLT 4x4: Down for restomod: Full-roller "stroked 351M" w/Trick Flow heads & intake, EEC-V SEFI/E4OD/3.50 gears w/Kevlar clutches
Blue: 2015 F150 Platinum 4x4 SuperCrew wearing Blue Jeans & sporting a 3.5L EB & Max Tow
Big Blue: 1985 F250HD 4x4: 460/ZF5/3.55's, D60 w/Ox locker & 10.25 Sterling/Trutrac, Blue Top & Borgeson, & EEC-V MAF/SEFI

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Re: Possible Re-hosting Of Website - Input Requested

Gary Lewis
Administrator
In reply to this post by ctubutis
ctubutis wrote
How do I multiquote on this site, Gary?
It ain't easy.  If you are doing two quotes, reply to the first, hit Quote, copy the quote, back up to the thread, reply to the 2nd one, hit Quote, and paste the first quote ahead of the 2nd one.
Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

Dad's: '81 F150 Ranger XLT 4x4: Down for restomod: Full-roller "stroked 351M" w/Trick Flow heads & intake, EEC-V SEFI/E4OD/3.50 gears w/Kevlar clutches
Blue: 2015 F150 Platinum 4x4 SuperCrew wearing Blue Jeans & sporting a 3.5L EB & Max Tow
Big Blue: 1985 F250HD 4x4: 460/ZF5/3.55's, D60 w/Ox locker & 10.25 Sterling/Trutrac, Blue Top & Borgeson, & EEC-V MAF/SEFI

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Re: Possible Re-hosting Of Website - Input Requested

Gary Lewis
Administrator
In reply to this post by ctubutis
Mid-day update on the potential migration.  Summary: It ain't gonna be easy!  

Details:

I watched the video, above, closely and tried wpbeginner's weeblytowp free migration tool.  It runs for a few minutes and then fails with a 505 code.  I turned in a trouble ticket to them.  

Then I turned to cms2cms, which does migrations for a living.  They have a test migration tool that will migrate 10 pages for free and put them up on their Wordpress site.  So I ran the test and checked out the results.  I'll let ya'll decide from the side-by-side screenshots below.

But, I'll give you a hint - I contacted Tania on their chat support line and endured the 5 - 8 minute wait between responses.  Sent her a screenshot of a correct page and a link to what they made it look like, and she sent me a link to fill out a trouble form.  But when I got down to questions about my new FTP Host Name, FTP Port, FTP Login, etc, etc, etc I went back to her.  Several minutes later she realized she gave me the wrong trouble form.

So I filled out the form and sent it in and asked her if she could see it.  Minutes later she says "We received them, but it seems that your site is not available - https://www.screencast.com/t/wls3or6gM
Please note, for migration both sites has to be available."  Screencast???  That's not me.    Then she comes back with "We can't reach your site.  Please add white list these 9 IP addresses."

At this point any semblance of comfort that cms2cms can do the job has just vanished.  I explained that I had no clue how to white list those addresses and am not interested in doing so until someone calls me and explains what is going on.  Her response was that she's turned in a ticket.  My response: "Ok. Meanwhile I'll see if anyone else can migrate this site.  You might want to pass my telephone number on to management 'cause I'm not likely to use your services if you don't have time to call me back."





Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

Dad's: '81 F150 Ranger XLT 4x4: Down for restomod: Full-roller "stroked 351M" w/Trick Flow heads & intake, EEC-V SEFI/E4OD/3.50 gears w/Kevlar clutches
Blue: 2015 F150 Platinum 4x4 SuperCrew wearing Blue Jeans & sporting a 3.5L EB & Max Tow
Big Blue: 1985 F250HD 4x4: 460/ZF5/3.55's, D60 w/Ox locker & 10.25 Sterling/Trutrac, Blue Top & Borgeson, & EEC-V MAF/SEFI

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Re: Possible Re-hosting Of Website - Input Requested

Gary Lewis
Administrator
Well folks, I'm bummed.  I just got off the phone with Will Zudok of WPEngine.  Apparently they are a major Wordpress hosting company and when you go to their site you are asked if you'd like to chat.  I said yes and a few minutes later Will called.

Nice guy.  Drives a 2011 F150 w/a 3.5L EB and says it does great pulling his 18' boat.

But, he took a look at the site and said he's 100% sure they cannot migrate it to Wordpress, and he's almost 100% sure no one can.  In fact, he thinks the only way to take it to Wordpress is to rebuild it there, page by page.

Pass the tissues, please.  
Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

Dad's: '81 F150 Ranger XLT 4x4: Down for restomod: Full-roller "stroked 351M" w/Trick Flow heads & intake, EEC-V SEFI/E4OD/3.50 gears w/Kevlar clutches
Blue: 2015 F150 Platinum 4x4 SuperCrew wearing Blue Jeans & sporting a 3.5L EB & Max Tow
Big Blue: 1985 F250HD 4x4: 460/ZF5/3.55's, D60 w/Ox locker & 10.25 Sterling/Trutrac, Blue Top & Borgeson, & EEC-V MAF/SEFI

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Re: Possible Re-hosting Of Website - Input Requested

Gary Lewis
Administrator
Hold the tissues!  I just got an email from wpbeginner with a file which they say contains the whole of the site.  I've emailed it to ckuske to see if he can import it to a Wordpress instance on Dreamhost.

But, I have my doubts as it is only 16.7Mb while the backup I just downloaded is 1.7Gb.  However, the lady from wpbeginner said that's because it only has links to the picture and pdf files, and not the files themselves.

I hope she's right!
Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

Dad's: '81 F150 Ranger XLT 4x4: Down for restomod: Full-roller "stroked 351M" w/Trick Flow heads & intake, EEC-V SEFI/E4OD/3.50 gears w/Kevlar clutches
Blue: 2015 F150 Platinum 4x4 SuperCrew wearing Blue Jeans & sporting a 3.5L EB & Max Tow
Big Blue: 1985 F250HD 4x4: 460/ZF5/3.55's, D60 w/Ox locker & 10.25 Sterling/Trutrac, Blue Top & Borgeson, & EEC-V MAF/SEFI

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Re: Possible Re-hosting Of Website - Input Requested

ctubutis
I migrated a lot of WP sites to newer versions of WP at my newspaper job, and I remember doing one of them that *wasn't* originally WP but was something else - not sure if it was Weebly or something else.

Those migration plugins can really help you! But they may need some tweaking, /paths/to/files (or something else) might need to be adjusted. Working next to the developers can be a good thing. :)

The small archive should just be a SQL dump; all of the pdfs, docs, images, etc. need to already exist on disk, WP theme distributions generally have dedicated places for that kind of stuff.
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Re: Possible Re-hosting Of Website - Input Requested

Gary Lewis
Administrator
ckuske has created a website using the file the lady from wpbeginner sent.  And it has 7 pages instead of 559.  And those 7 pages have a sentence or two on them, but nothing else.  No content like pics or pdf's.

So I've gone back to her to see what can be done.  Perhaps she'll respond in the morning.  But her last email said:

Actually that should be everything. It's an XML file, so it will have links to your attachments and not the actual files. That is where the bulk of your site size comes from. When you use the WordPress importer choose the option to download attachments. WordPress will do that directly from Weebly to your new host so you don't have to download all 1.7 GB to your computer. :-)

So Wordpress is supposed to have downloaded the files w/o us having to do that.

Anyway, here's what one original page looks like vs the wpbeginner page:

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

Dad's: '81 F150 Ranger XLT 4x4: Down for restomod: Full-roller "stroked 351M" w/Trick Flow heads & intake, EEC-V SEFI/E4OD/3.50 gears w/Kevlar clutches
Blue: 2015 F150 Platinum 4x4 SuperCrew wearing Blue Jeans & sporting a 3.5L EB & Max Tow
Big Blue: 1985 F250HD 4x4: 460/ZF5/3.55's, D60 w/Ox locker & 10.25 Sterling/Trutrac, Blue Top & Borgeson, & EEC-V MAF/SEFI

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Re: Possible Re-hosting Of Website - Input Requested

ctubutis
OK, cool! That's a major start! :)

@ckuske: As the wordpress admin, you can investigate & maybe fix the missing images & documents, hopefully it's something easy.

Does Dreamhost allow shell access?
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Re: Possible Re-hosting Of Website - Input Requested

Gary Lewis
Administrator
Well, the website Chris created now probably has all 559 pages.  The nav menu is broken so everything is in a jumble at the top of the page.  But, he caused the system to load all of the files onto/into Wordpress, and they appear.

However, there are things that are broken, like tabs and thumbnails that work as buttons.  He's going to look into it.  But, there is PROGRESS!  
Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

Dad's: '81 F150 Ranger XLT 4x4: Down for restomod: Full-roller "stroked 351M" w/Trick Flow heads & intake, EEC-V SEFI/E4OD/3.50 gears w/Kevlar clutches
Blue: 2015 F150 Platinum 4x4 SuperCrew wearing Blue Jeans & sporting a 3.5L EB & Max Tow
Big Blue: 1985 F250HD 4x4: 460/ZF5/3.55's, D60 w/Ox locker & 10.25 Sterling/Trutrac, Blue Top & Borgeson, & EEC-V MAF/SEFI

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Re: Possible Re-hosting Of Website - Input Requested

ctubutis
I bought a book on WP when I first began that stuff, it's packed away in a plastic tub right now and is unavailable but it sounds like he's making good progress. :) The books won't really teach what he's doing, anyhow.
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Re: Possible Re-hosting Of Website - Input Requested

Gary Lewis
Administrator
The 505 error was because the migration process ran out of time.  But they ran it in batch with more time and it looks like it completed.

So we are going through and noting the issues, like the tabs don't work and buttons don't work - both of which use a Weebly widget.  So that may be an issue.  However, both of us agree that this is proof of the concept, and I'll probably hire pro's to migrate it if they agree that everything will work.  (It'll be well worth it to not have to fix several hundred tabbed pages.)

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

Dad's: '81 F150 Ranger XLT 4x4: Down for restomod: Full-roller "stroked 351M" w/Trick Flow heads & intake, EEC-V SEFI/E4OD/3.50 gears w/Kevlar clutches
Blue: 2015 F150 Platinum 4x4 SuperCrew wearing Blue Jeans & sporting a 3.5L EB & Max Tow
Big Blue: 1985 F250HD 4x4: 460/ZF5/3.55's, D60 w/Ox locker & 10.25 Sterling/Trutrac, Blue Top & Borgeson, & EEC-V MAF/SEFI

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Re: Possible Re-hosting Of Website - Input Requested

ctubutis
He'd hopefully tun a script (to fix the tabs en masse).

There are chitloads of WordPress plugins available, you could maybe find one that does your tabbing.

Paying somebody who does this (and other such dev work) for a living can be worth it sometimes....
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Re: Possible Re-hosting Of Website - Input Requested

Gary Lewis
Administrator
Yes, paying someone is probably the way to go.  And so far all I've found that do it for a living is cms2cms.  Maybe someone else can find someone else?  I ask because the chat line lady there doesn't know what she's doing, so it didn't sit well with me.  Perhaps someone else will get back with me, as I requested, but I'm not confident.
Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

Dad's: '81 F150 Ranger XLT 4x4: Down for restomod: Full-roller "stroked 351M" w/Trick Flow heads & intake, EEC-V SEFI/E4OD/3.50 gears w/Kevlar clutches
Blue: 2015 F150 Platinum 4x4 SuperCrew wearing Blue Jeans & sporting a 3.5L EB & Max Tow
Big Blue: 1985 F250HD 4x4: 460/ZF5/3.55's, D60 w/Ox locker & 10.25 Sterling/Trutrac, Blue Top & Borgeson, & EEC-V MAF/SEFI

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Re: Possible Re-hosting Of Website - Input Requested

Gary Lewis
Administrator
Got an email from the CMS2CMS folks and they are supposed to call me around noon.  We shall see.  But the email responses I got this morning don't bode well for them as they continue to say things that don't make sense.  For instance he said "Unfortunately, images cannot be migrated because API does not allow us to do that."  What?  We appear to have hundreds of images migrated by wpbeginner's free migration tool.

And, speaking of wpbeginner, that lady got back with me.  Let me just say that for free they give awesome support!  Wow!  If CMS2CMS provided that kind of support this would be done.

Anyway, she said that if you run the importer several times it frequently gives duplications in the menu.  Not of the pages themselves, but just in the menu.  And, sure enough that's what I'm seeing.  The menu has a whole bunch of repetition, but not all of the pages.  My guess is that it has a max number of links and it is running into that limit.  But when I go into the editor I see pages that don't appear in the menu.

And, she also said that the Weebly widgets don't migrate well, which is exactly what I'm seeing.  In fact, here are the problems I'm seeing:

Tabs don't work: The tabs themselves are shown on the page, but there's no content in the tabs.

Links: Hyperlinks on pages like the EVTM main pages don't work.  Nor do the links in the Literature pages, which use thumbnails as buttons to click.  Those were originally done from w/in Weebly and point to another Weebly page, so perhaps that's another Weebly "widget" issue.

PDF Links: The new method of placing hyperlinks in blue boxes on PDF's, like the Interior Trim page, works, but it takes you back to the Garagemahal, meaning the Weebly page.  Presumably that will be taken care of with 301 redirects, and it is something that I don't think any migration tool can fix as it is embedded in the PDF itself.

Pic Spacing: The spacing between images is not preserved.  We have hundreds of pages with snippets of the MPC strung together closely to preserve the feeling that this is a continuous catalog.  But the wpbeginner migration puts lots of space between the pics and that sure breaks up the continuity of the catalog.

Non-Clickable Pages: Weebly has the ability to create pages that show in the menu bat cannot be clicked to open.  An example of that is Literature - if you click on it in the menu nothing happens and you then realize you have to click 1980, or 1981, or ....  But wpbeginner brings those pages over as clickable, even though there's nothing on them.  However, we don't have lots of those so fixing that won't be too big of a deal.

I hope CMS2CMS can do a professional job 'cause fixing what we have would take quite a bit of time.  But the fact that we got that far, or rather Chris/ckuske got us that far, for free speaks volumes.
Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

Dad's: '81 F150 Ranger XLT 4x4: Down for restomod: Full-roller "stroked 351M" w/Trick Flow heads & intake, EEC-V SEFI/E4OD/3.50 gears w/Kevlar clutches
Blue: 2015 F150 Platinum 4x4 SuperCrew wearing Blue Jeans & sporting a 3.5L EB & Max Tow
Big Blue: 1985 F250HD 4x4: 460/ZF5/3.55's, D60 w/Ox locker & 10.25 Sterling/Trutrac, Blue Top & Borgeson, & EEC-V MAF/SEFI

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