Bringing in Old Blogs from the Cold

This is why you really need to keep up with updates.

Going all the way back to WP1.0? That’s like trying to make modern automobile parts fit on a Model T.

That said, there may be a plugin or two that could help with this. Have you tried searching the plugin repository for one?

Yes, I have looked in the plugin directory. No joy.

I didn’t ask for your moralizing.

I was making a suggestion for how WP.org could bring a lot of bloggers up to the current version. There are a great number that are still using old WP software that does not have export.

I’m not moralizing. You need to keep up with updates both for compatibility reasons and especially for security reasons.

Yes, I realize that there are always issues with upgrading. There is a good way and a bad way to upgrade. But it must be done, which is why backup and upgrade procedures are well-documented in the WP Codex.

As was pointed out to you here and here (and this is your third post with what is basically the same topic), there are major database compatibility issues involved in spanning such a large upgrade gap.

That said, you probably wouldn’t have to upgrade through every version of WordPress. You could try installing WP 1.0 in a localhost environment and upgrading directly to 2.0 and from there to 3.0, or try 1.0 > 1.5 > 2.0 > 2.5 > 3.0. I believe that Apache is already installed on the Mac you are using, so it is just a matter of installing PHP and MySQL, or just installing a MAMP server. Once you figure out what works in a localhost environment, you could try it on a live server.

You probably are never going to see this feature, however. Partly because of the database compatibility issues, partly because most people upgrade on a fairly regular basis and thus wouldn’t require it, and partly because of the tremendous amount of work (and we are talking in the range of hundreds of hours) to make something like this for only a handful of people.

Actually, you are lecturing and moralizing. I didn’t say I had a version 1.0 WP blog. Mine is actually up to date. I know of quite a few people that have 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.2, etc blogs. I’ve helped some go through the torturous path of the multi-upgrade. It is not worth it for many of them. So they don’t bother upgrading. If WP had an import function that would bring all of the old versions to the present there would be many more present version users.

Now get off your high horse and focus on the real problem at hand. Nothing you have said has been useful. You’re just distracting.

The real issue is that people are not upgrading.

You are welcome to write the plugin that will accomplish that, then.

That is exactly my point. This would help get people to upgrade, to bring them up to the current version where it is easy to keep up to date. You may be too young to remember but upgrades were not always so painless…

Kjodle,
Wouldn’t developing a plugin to accomplish that just demotivate people not to upgrade? To just leave it to whenever suits them, then upgrade via the plugin.

Developing a plugin or making it part of the WP import would motivate people to upgrade who are not upgrading because currently it is too difficult. I know a lot of people that if they had an easy upgrade path to the current WP would do so. They want the benefits of the current WP but can’t deal with the torturous and risky upgrade path that involves going through so many intermediate steps.

Sorry, I was referring to the effect this plugin may have on those who are currently up-to-date. As the necessity to keep up-to-date would diminish.

There are a lot of active old blogs where it is too hard for the owners to update them to the latest WP. Sure, you can do it with all sorts of intermediate installs but that is just too difficult so it doesn’t happen.

You don’t need to go through intermediate steps. WordPress will upgrade directly from any version, all the way back from the beginning. One step, no fuss. Works even from version 0.7 directly to 3.5.

Sure, with older versions the upgrade has to be manually done with FTP of files or the like, but you don’t have to upgrade to intermediate versions at all.

If you examine the wp-admin/includes/upgrade.php file, you’ll find a bunch of functions with names like upgrade_100() and upgrade_101() and so on. These do the “layering” of upgrades for you. It will detect what version you’re coming from and run the necessary steps to take that all the way to the version you are going to.

Obviously, backup the database first, just in case, but it works fine.

If WP had an import function that would bring all of the old versions to the present there would be many more present version users.

It does. It’s always had exactly that, built into the upgrader. ??

People who are close to up to date can skip updates already. This would not change their behavior.

People who are back beyond, what is it, 2.5?, are the ones who currently can’t update without a great deal of effort and risk. Those people are not highly skilled and are not likely to do a difficult update sequence. This is who would be helped. They would be able to update with one jump all the way from 1.0, 2.0, etc to the current version of WP. Once there they can easily do the updates.

The problem is that in the past WP did not have a good update mechanism. Updating was very dangerous if you aren’t skilled and very difficult. People using WP 3.5 may forget that there was a dark ages when WP updates involved mucking around with a lot of things, not just pressing a button. Not only that, but the older WP versions didn’t even allow you to export. Horrors! We’ve come a long ways. Now lets bring forward the people who are stuck in the past unwillingly because they can’t make the upgrade to the autoupdating WP.

I would argue that rather than doing this as a plugin it should be built right into WP. The goal is to make it as easy and painless as possible for the non-skilled people to bring their WP up to date.

pubwvj: I don’t understand your concerns here.

I have tested this. Really. WordPress can update itself, continuously, all the way from the very beginning.

Yes, okay, you still need to do a manual update from versions previous to the automatic updater. There is no possible way around that, because it clearly can’t update itself when you’re running code from before it had the ability to do just that.

But you don’t need any sort of intermediate versions. Really. It will work with a normal manual update just fine.

You don’t need to “export” and “import”. Obviously, use your favorite database admin tool to make a backup, but the upgrade itself works yea, even back unto WordPress version 1.0 to 3.5.

So, I really don’t understand what exactly you are asking for here. The upgrader is perfectly capable of doing the job in one shot. What is the exact issue?