I posted this on the old forum but repeating it here for coverage.
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Sometimes, migrating the site content to a modern platform has seemed "just around the corner" but many times it has seemed like a lost cause that I should cut my losses of lots of money and immeasurable time.
Here's where it stands today:
The staging site is located at https://thebeachcats.tempurl.host/
After the new site launch, the site will simply come up instead of this one at TheBeachcats.com .
Update on where things stand:
I have a satisfactory move of News,
https://thebeachcats.tempurl.host/news/
Forums,
https://thebeachcats.tempurl.host/forums/
and Calendar.
https://thebeachcats.tempurl.host/all-events/
I have also successfully migrated the 6GB photo gallery with it's 25,000 images, in 1500 albums along with all the attached album, and image titles and descriptions to a modern free standing phot archive at
https://archive.thebeachcats.com/pictures/
This quite a feat, if I do says o myself, but I wasn't willing to lose that content contributed by the members over so many years. It required a lot of custom coding and the purchase of a separate hosting server to accommodate, but now those images and PDF's will continue to be available for future beachcat sailors.
The Classifieds has been a huge effort and is very important since they are still very popular and classifieds is the only income generator for the site.
I've just last week been able to do a successful(ish) migration of the existing classifieds (super important since members paid for the ads).
https://thebeachcats.tempurl.host/classifieds/
Sell a boat form
https://thebeachcats.temp…sifieds/sell-a-sailboat/
I believe after some tweaking this is going to work out and be a big improvement over the existing classifieds.
Communications with the members. I have long wanted to send out a newsletter emails to the existing members explaining what is up and inviting them back to the new site. Sending mass emails is a tricky and expensive business with today's spam rules and safeguards. I have a practical solution built using Amazon SES (Simple Email Service) and the FluentSMTP/FluentCRM plugins which I have been testing.
So please hang in there, I want to make the move very much, in January I thought I was a month away and started paying for the second web server.
Nearly every feature on the new site required paid plugins and paid customization in order to recreate the functionality of this site, which was way ahead of it's time in 2002.
An issue I've been dealing with this week. After making a breakthrough on migrating the existing classified ads I started thinking about a time frame for launching the new site. First thing I thought of was that the forums migration was done in January. I paid a specialist database company $600 back then to migrate the forum posts from this extinct software (Zikula/Dizkus) over to the wpForo Wordpress forum. So if I simply launch the new site now, all posts here since January would be lost. I started trying to contact the company who did the migration to see if they could do an update on Sept. 1st and sent them an email every day, they haven't replied at all.
So if I can get the classifieds fully working, what is your opinion on losing those topics and posts and launching as soon as possible?
Very good news. The technical and financial obstacles are much greater than I imagined. Web site development has never been my lane.
So if I simply launch the new site now, all posts here since January would be lost. I started trying to contact the company who did the migration to see if they could do an update on Sept. 1st and sent them an email every day, they haven't replied at all.
So if I can get the classifieds fully working, what is your opinion on losing those topics and posts and launching as soon as possible?
My opinion: Give us a little time to look over (copy if needed) any stuff posted since January so we can repost it later if desired. Then take the path of least resistance, my friend...you've done enough!
I agree with Jerome, great job already! As for the forum posts in the last 10 month, the content is mostly members learning their way around the site. (I'm assuming your reference to January is for January 2025).So if I simply launch the new site now, all posts here since January would be lost. I started trying to contact the company who did the migration to see if they could do an update on Sept. 1st and sent them an email every day, they haven't replied at all.
So if I can get the classifieds fully working, what is your opinion on losing those topics and posts and launching as soon as possible?
My opinion: Give us a little time to look over (copy if needed) any stuff posted since January so we can repost it later if desired. Then take the path of least resistance, my friend...you've done enough!
As for a solution, maybe a keyboard warrior can "cut and paste" to recreate it if it is desired?
I’m in agreement with the others that the posts made during beta testing are a low priority and mostly low value. The sooner we launch and lose the spam infested old forums, the better our chance of retaining remaining members. It been a tough couple years.
I agree with the agreements. 🤣 Especially when the database techs I hired back in January to migrate the forum posts posts and topics wanted another $550 to update and bring in the data since then.
Getting close now I think. I've worked on the Classifieds hard and just sent out an email to 400 members that have used the classifieds in the last few years to ask them to take a look at the classifieds and try them out, give me feedback.
If that works out I'll be real close.
Something else I had been worried about were the photo albums. After a lot of false starts and some paid help I was able to migrate all of the albums and images, with titles and descriptions, over to new software.
They will live at> https://archive.thebeachcats.com/pictures/
I setup that Archive subdomain on a separate server to serve as a repository for things that can't be directly integrated into the new site. The new site has built in image handling. The archive of the photo will remain a great reference and it much more searchable than the old one. I just couldn't give up on it, too much knowledge to let go.
Almost forgot, here is the email I sent about the classifieds, feel free to follow the same instructions and post a free ad or edit ones you already have.
Let me know any questions here.
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TheBeachcats will soon be relaunched as a modern, responsive, site with many new features. Building a new site with all new software is one thing, migrating 23 years of content is another!
Classified ads are a very popular part of the site, but let’s face it, pretty clunky. Trying to post or edit an ad on a phone or tablet is an ordeal, and image handling is slowwww. Since you have an active ad now, or have placed one in the past, I am asking you to try out the new classifieds on the staging site located at https://thebeachcats.tempurl.host .
Steps to get logged in and try out the new site (Forums, news, and calendar as well as the classifieds).
Log in at https://thebeachcats.tempurl.host/sign-in , use your existing username but create a new password using the "Lost Your Password" link under the form.
Once you are logged in, go to the classifieds and check it out. Under the main menu in Classifieds > Manage My Classifieds
You should see any ads associated with your username and be able to edit them.
If you have the time to help. You can edit your ad(s), or place a new one (real or test) right now for free to test the process. Just start at the
Place an Ad drop-down under the Classifieds menu and follow along.
When it is time to check out and pay, use the sandbox test card number for the credit card.
Number: 4242424242424242
Expiration: Any future date.
CVC: Any three digits.
Zip: Any five digits
Please give me feedback, either in the "Site Talk" forum or by reply to this email.
Thank you for being a member, and hope you are looking forward to "TheBeachcats 2.0" as much as I am.
Damon Linkous
@damonadmin
Just placed an ad using PC...went smoothly and easy as pie...even for a computer knot-head like me!
(Ad was easy to edit after being posted as well.)
Really like the status/confirmation emails, too!
Something else I had been worried about were the photo albums. After a lot of false starts and some paid help I was able to migrate all of the albums and images, with titles and descriptions, over to new software.
They will live at> https://archive.thebeachcats.com/pictures/
I setup that Archive subdomain on a separate server to serve as a repository for things that can't be directly integrated into the new site. The new site has built in image handling. The archive of the photo will remain a great reference and it much more searchable than the old one. I just couldn't give up on it, too much knowledge to let go.
I've notice some issues with the descriptions of an image. Either errors, truncation or duplication.
Look at my sub album here and go through the individual images and read the description.
https://archive.thebeachcats.com/pictures/index.php?/category/325
How do we add a link to a reply?
@pm links are automatic for complete URL's
https://archive.thebeachcats.com/pictures/picture.php?/5280/category/320
For text links there are two icons in the edit tool bar, the one that looks like a chain link lets you set the text and url.
I'll take another look at the photo albums. Like I said it was a struggle and it looks like the photo descriptions were duplicated during attempts, the duplicattion could have caused truncation on the duplivate if it all exceeded the max characters for the field.
@rattlenhum thanks Jerome! Great job. Thanks for trying it out.