Over the last 2 months I’ve been reaching out and talking to folks in the community about the Data Liberation project. I want to say thank you to all those who provided feedback and input in survey responses, Slack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/., emails, Zoom meetings, and in person.
From that feedback here are a few trends and insights I would like to share:
- One of the biggest challenges when migrating to WordPress is the handling of content as it is transformed to Blocks. Validating Block Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. markup is tricky (as it happens on the client side) particularly when third party platforms may have malformed or custom HTML HyperText Markup Language. The semantic scripting language primarily used for outputting content in web browsers..
- Although there is always room for improvement, the WordPress -> WordPress migration Moving the code, database and media files for a website site from one server to another. Most typically done when changing hosting companies. space is well served by plugins and tools like WPCLI.
- There is lots of interest in how to handle the importing of custom fields and post meta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress..
- Folks agree philosophically with better, more usable exports from WordPress.
Key Principles
Based on the feedback and discussion so far – I wanted to highlight some key principles for the project as we move forward.
Data Liberation starts as a plugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party
In terms of the initial delivery method – a plugin is where we will start. This existing proposal includes prototype plugin that detects the platform of a site and utilizes existing user guides to prompt the user through the migration process (using the ‘Tour’ functionality found on other Make P2s).
This plugin can provide a great base for us to guide users through the steps, and to the tools they need to migrate.
Playground plays a vital role
Leaning into the power and flexibility of WordPress Playground is a fantastic opportunity. It brings the potential of previewing a migration without impacting your existing site,or even if you don’t have a WordPress site at all yet!
Transforming HTML to Blocks is the path forward
Improving the way HTML is converted into blocks and validates brings advantages across all kinds of migrations. Whether provided in an import file, or scraped from platforms that don’t provide an export – transforming HTML into core Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. blocks is what will help us free user’s content.
Content Portability is the primary goal
The aim of any Data Liberation solution is to allow users to do what they want with their own content. Whilst any efforts to include appearance and styling, in order to achieve visual parity, are a bonus – the key goal is portability of the content itself.
Better export is important (but comes next)
Philosophically, any effort of Data Liberation needs to consider exporting content from WordPress as well as importing. There are definite improvements we will work towards here – but this will be something that we work on in the future after first improving importing.
With these principles to guide us – our next step (stay tuned) is a defined plan for the project.