V2 migration from other systems

[Artiom-M]

I have 2 existing sites on different CMS that I want to migrate to Automad2. I can extract text blocks and images so it will be structurally similar to Automad's blocks:

• paragraph
• image
• gallery
  What kind of process would allow me to create Automad2 data file from it? I think about leveraging existing Migrate command but with more options like source dir and target dir. Also I am not sure if it will override any global settings. I want just add pages to the existing fully configured site and don't touch anything else. Also migrating galleries is a must have feature for me, because my sites have a lot of images.
  Could you guide me on the best way to write a migration script for it? I can do it in PHP and it can be part of the product, or externally in python. Would like to understand which way will be easier.

[marcantondahmen]

Hi, I think to take the migrate command is a good starting point. You basically only need to create directories with JSON files for each page.

The language doesn't really matter much. It can be an external tool written in Python in case you feel more familiar that way.

[Artiom-M]

I already have directories, a lot of them. The full idea is to make "in place" migration, where tool just generates the JSON files. Here I have some questions:

1. What is the JSON file format? I had a look at an existing one, there are a lot of empty properties. Is there a minimalistic JSON template that I can use as a starting point?
2. If I go the PHP way, then I see that I can simply create a JSON file like this $DataStore->setState(PublicationState::DRAFT, $data)->publish(); but what is expected $data format? Will it handle Galleries as well?

[Artiom-M]

I've almost finished my migration tool. I have successfully migrated my grav site into Automad2. Now I am testing a migration from Gallery2. Would you like to included into your automad distribution? It is written in Python.

[marcantondahmen]

Great to see it is working for you! However, it is not possible to include it into the distribution. Check out the main readme of the source repository for more info about contributing.

But publishing it as a separate tool would be nice!

[Artiom-M]

Here it is https://gitlab.com/av.m/automad2-migration-tool
Feel free to add it to the documentation

[Artiom-M]

As of today I have successfully migrated all my Grav posts and around 500 pages generated from G2.
I have added the code to generate pages from Instagram data export file.
So the tool is feature complete for me.