NodeBB exporter?
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Hello everyone, new guy here
I'm just researching available forum software options and for various reasons (good-looking, simple stack as I already use Node, etc) I like NodeBB. One thing concerns me, though. There are numerous posts about importing other forums to NBB, people are eager to help, which is cool... but let's say I decide to move away from NBB at some point for any reason. How can I export post and users data in order to use it anywhere else? Google search gave me nothing, my test NBB instance doesn't show any obvious export option. Is it hidden somewhere or should I somehow dump my database in entirety to file and dig through it?
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@Mruk ... but why would you ever want to move away from NodeBB?
In all seriousness, however, no, there are no NodeBB-to-other exporters at the moment, though I can't imagine any forums has them, as each forum has their own database schema...
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There's very few forum softwares I've seen that allow you to export your data. Usually if you want to do that you just back up the database into a file and dig through that, but I'm not sure how that works with Regis.
The forum softwares I know of that do allow you to export only do it in a file compatible with that software.
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Usually the help ends at importing the data into the forum sofware, I've used numerous software in the past, all php based. Most have a dedicated support forum for importing your data! but if you even dare ask how to leave! You might be lucky to get a URL or a lmgtfy link if they're feeling really obtuse. The rest of the time it's ranting about how their forum is superior to the forum you wish to move to for various reasons, which, to me, isn't support.
@julian makes a good point though.
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@Mruk I understand your concern, but the whole point of the community helping out, is to promote people to move to NodeBB, not away, however, NodeBB is open sourced, so you or anyone else, can always get the Redis dump file that has everything you need, along with using the database modules to export the data easily.
I don't think the core NodeBB team and the community is able to support exporting to all other softwares, as @julian mentioned, each have their own schema.
if you ever decide to actually move away, you need to first decide which BB software you are going to use, then either contact the target software company/team and see if they support an "importer" from NodeBB or write your own.
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Thanks for your answers!
To clarify a bit, I didn't mean a feature like 'export to... <dropdown list with every forum software imaginable>', rather some standard way of accessing and backing up the data. In case of blogs (let's take Ghost for example) there is information on where the DB (sqlite file) resides and an export option that results with (probably huge) json file. Having that, you can tinker a bit and come up with script transforming that json into whatever you might need.
Good point, though, is mention about Redis dump file. Probably would be good for me to read more about it (right now Redis is for me some enigmatic cloud of data residing in RAM mostly, though I do understand it has to be backed up periodically).
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@Mruk perhaps I'm bring a little too optimistic/naive in hoping that all forum softwares could be exporting to a common format (and co-exist happily
), but even that comes with its own caveats, namely in that it'd only be able to support the lowest common denominator, so just posts, topics, and categories.The Redis (or MongoDB) dump file would be the best resource for the data, though, yes...
