Upgrading my blog from Wordpress to Orchard 0.5

#wordpress #orchard

Posted by admin on September 01, 2019

Well, I have done it!! Nick Mayne is no longer a word press member, instead I have bought in to this new CMS system called Orchard. The Orchard system however is not that new to me as I have been working with it since December of 2009.

So what exactly needed to be done in order for me to move my blog over to Orchard?

  • Download the latest Build which in this case is Orchard 0.5
  • Next create a theme directory called themayneissue underneath Orchard.Web\Themes\
  • Create my theme, in this instance I copied the Contoso theme and used this as a basis.
  • I then build my solution using the instruction found here: http://orchardproject.net/docs/Building-and-deploying-Orchard-from-a-source-code-drop.ashx
  • Using FileZilla I then upload to my new shiny site to my new host Discountasp.net (Don't forget to repoint your domain if you have one)
  • Next thing to do is fire up the site, My site is running on SqlCe and so far works fantastic.
  • Head to your Admin Area and select your new theme.

Okay, So now my site is empty but looking quite sexy… next is to create my blog…. wait I already have a blog don’t I? Okay so time to get that blog and move it across.. I decided to use a BlogML module that I have written and published to the Orchard Gallery Feed so anyone can use it.

Getting my blog out of wordpress was easy, but getting it in to an acceptable format was a nightmare, but I refused to write a wordpress plugin for Orchard, instead I asked my self Is there a wordpress to BlogML converter?? YES!!! found one here.. http://www.visualsoftware.net/Blog/post/2009/10/27/WordPress-eXtended-RSS-to-BlogMl-converter-WXR-2-BlogML.aspx So lets continue,

  • Export your wordpress blog out in to a xml format.
  • Fire up WXR2BlogML and you will end up with a file with the same name except you have *_BlogML attached to the end.

So now I have my blog in a BlogML format, lets import it.

Note: If you haven't already installed the NGM.BlogML module please do that before continuing

  • Open up the admin area and click ‘import’ under the Blogs Section. (Remember: that all details of your blog can be changed later, the main this in that you get your data in!) Choose your blog and click upload.
  • Hey presto.. after modifying some setting on my blog – mainly a rename, I have my website.