Ramblings of a Bald Man

I feel like I just worked a technology miracle.

I’m trying to export my mojoBlog content to Joomla.  I finally found one tool that still exists and works.  I wasn’t able to access the site today at work, but was able to at home.  So if you try the link and it doesn’t work, maybe just try again later.

Bye Wordpress! is a tool available at DayDremer.com.  The exact link is - http://www.daydreymer.com/index.php/Technical/Tools/wordpress-export-to-joomla/All-Pages.html

After downloading an .exe file, all you have to do is tell it where the XML export of your Wordpress blog is, choose where to save the Joomla-friendly exported file to, choose your options and click GENERATE.  The problem with mojoBlog is the export feature does not exist.  This is a stripped down version of Wordpress made available for Joomla users.  I finally got around it, but it’s not pretty.  Here’s what I did.

Step 1: Export mojoBlog to Wordpress

• I exported my mojoBlog database tables to my desktop using the PHPMYADMIN tool for my website.
• I found the installation files for Wordpress 2.7 (I don’t know if the version number matters, but I figured 2.7 was going to be safer than 2.8) and copied them to my server.
• I imported my database tables (see Step 1) using PHPMYADMIN to another database.  This is where they needed to be for the Wordpress 2.7 installation.
• I checked the wp-config.php file for Wordpress and made sure my database settings were correct.
• I followed the standard instructions for a Wordpress upgrade.  I navigated to http://www.mysite.com/wp-admin.  This initiates the upgrade procedure.  Everything seemd to work fine, but the upgrade windows said “mojoblog” on them.  After the upgrade was complete, it was redirecting to my old Joomla site where mojoblog is installed.

Step 2: Modify the database

• Somewhere in the database files there were references to my old site.  I needed to change these to point to this new instance of Wordpress I just installed.  I found a few instances of my old site URL in the wp_options table so I edited those entries to point to the new URL.
• I checked http://www.mysite.com again, but things were still weird.

Step 3: Re-run the upgrade

• I navigated back to http://www.mysite.com/wp-admin again and this time I saw the standard Wordpress upgrade screen saying my database needed to be upgraded.  So I upgraded the database.
• It then took me to the login screen but I was not able to login with my administrator account.  I had forgotten that all user accounts for mojoBlog were handled by Joomla.  So my user table was empty.  I needed to create an admin account.

Step 4: Create an admin account

• I went into the wp_users table and inserted a new entry for the user “admin.”  I wasn’t sure on some of the fields, but I happened to have another Wordpress site setup, so I opened wp_users table there and tried to copy the settings.
• I tried logging in and was able to, but I didn’t have sufficient privileges to access the Control Panel.  Wordpress was seeing my account as just a normal user.
• I checked the wp_usermeta table and had to create an entry for the admin account so it knew this user had administrator privileges.  I now had access to the Control Panel for the blog.

Step 5: Backup Wordpress to an XML file and follow instructions at http://www.daydreymer.com/index.php/Technical/Tools/wordpress-export-to-joomla/All-Pages.html

From here I was able to pick up and start following the instructions for the Bye Wordpress! tool.  I had a slight hiccup where the program wouldn’t open on the computer I was using, but I was able to move the file over to my laptop, along with my Wordpress XML backup, and do everything there.

Next step is to try and import my file to Joomla.