SDR Website

I've had my website for many years; it has been through Joomla V1.5, 16, 2.5 & 3.x releases over the years. I use it much less now than I used to but it is still a good reference. 

Recently I saw the message about support for Joomla 3.10 ending, and I need to move across to Joomla 4 no problem; I've survived this process several times. I made a conscious decision to simplify the sitre at the same time and reduce the number of extensions used, to just 3:

• Akeeba backup (which has saved me a few times)
• Phoca gallery (my front page has a Phoca gallery slideshow)
• Weblinks

So going through the site I found several extensions that I didn't even know were there, and slowly removed them. I had some templates that wouldn't install, but maybe I could ignore them.

The guide says, go to components -> ~Joomla update. Great; it wasn't there. Search google and try all the usual fixes; none made a difference. And I read somewhere (which I expect isn't actually true) that you can't upgrade without it. 

OK, brave decision. Backup the database; make a copy into my home PC using xampp; and make a second, clean install of 3.10.11.

1. Clean install of joomla 3.10.11 with no data;
   1. Database = j3clean
   2. Table prefix=”j3_” (same as old database
2. Copy over the “media” and “images” folders in htdocs
3. Install com_weblinks v3.9.0 into the clean site
4. Copy over weblinks from old to new database:
   1. Export old database j3_weblinks to a file
   2. Drop new database table j3_weblinks
   3. Import that file to j3test database
5. Copy over article content from old to new database:
   1. Export old database j3_content to a file
   2. Drop new database table j3_content
   3. Import that file to j3test database
6. Copy over article and weblink categories from old to new database:
   1. Export old database j3_categories to a file
   2. Drop new database table j3_categories
   3. Import that file to j3test database
7. Copy over menu types from old to new database:
   1. Export old database j3_menutypes to a file
   2. Drop new database table j3_menutypes
   3. Import that file to j3test database
8. Menus are harder, because j3_menu includes the administrator menus as well as the content menus
   1. Export old database and new database j3_menu tables for safety
   2. In old database, remove all menu table records that are not part of mainmenu, topmenu, g8njjmenu
   3. Go to new (j3clean) database j3_menu table; edit the id fields for any ids that conflict with ids found in the old database table. Change any others that have parent_id set to a changed id. (we only had to edit ids 10, 22)
   4. Go to old database j3_menu table
   5. Select operations
   6. Copy table to j3clean.j3_menu; copy data only and autoincrement
9. Edit the author of all pages and categories to be myself in the "new database:
   1. Find my user id (from user manager) in this case 473
   2. Open the new database "j3clean" using phpmyadmin
   3. in the "j3_content" table: use a sql update query to change "created_by" and "modified_by" fields to 473 for all records
   4. in the "j3_categories" table_ use a sql update query to change "created_user_id" and "modified_user_id" fields to 473 for all records
   5. In the joomla administrator page, open then save& close all categories
10. Assign all pages to "protostar" template"
11. Recreate modules (I didn't have many so the easiest way was just to create new ones)
12. At this point, components -> joomla update was still there. 
13. Install phoca gallery and phoca gallery slide slow plugins
14. go back to phpmyadmin and use "operations" to copy the "phocagallery" and phocagallery categories" table from the old site to the empty ones
15. Then I was able to update to joomla 4.3, and install the new Casseiopia template

Whatever was broken, don't do it again!

Under Joomla 1.5, I had found an excellent way to put together my websites. Once set up, adding new content is easy; no messing around with menus having to be extended every time I added new content. A big range of thirst part extensions were available. And one of the supplied templates "JA Purity" provided a layout I liked.

Upgrade to Joomla 2.5 has been a nightmare. Several extensions I used were not supported; some of those that were I had to re-enter all of the content because the upgrade process didn't work; and my template was no longer available.

Enter "Artisteer": a program that lets you create a Joomla template with no coding or design skills needed. Simply take a starting point, and change the parameters until it looksvlike what you want. Result? My template is now very close to the original that I liked and it took maybe 30 minutes. A truly excellent product!

From Joomla 4 onwards, I wanted to get away from things that needed update as Joomla updated. I've reverted to using the "as supplied" template, and accepting the appearance. With the upgrade to Joomla 5, no change was needed.

For those that are interested, this site has been constructed using Joomla!  Joomla! is an open source, free-to-use Content Management System. Joomla! stores its content in a database at the web host. None of this make a difference to readers of the site, but for content creators it does allow a large site easily to be managed.

Joomla! provides the basic functionality to get started with a content managed website. However, there are some common needs that are not fully addressed by the standard package. But that's not a problem - there is a wide variety of "add ons" available. On top of the "standard" Joomla install we have selected a number of extensions to provide specific functionality: