How funny, I just posted the same thing under the other topic. 
Let me know and I should be able to get you the files from our ning network.
I’m looking for this as well.
I’d like to develop the importer to work with content, but I don’t have the time right now. If anyone can send me a copy of the JSON export from their active network, it would give me something to work with.
Hi Boone,
I have a Ning Archive created with their NingNetworkArchiver Air app. It is complete with images etc. and comes to 4.6mb.
It is available for the time being from here;
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7310459/archive-Learning%20Centre.zip
Let me know when you’ve got it.
Caspar
Got it. Thanks for providing it, Caspar. I will have a look at it when I get a chance, hopefully in the near future.
Thanks for looking at it Boone
Thanks Boone! On August 20th, Ning will shut down our websites. So hopefully we can migrate our data to BuddyPress before then!
OK, gang – I have a version of the plugin that is mostly functional, and needs some testing.
By “mostly functional” I mean that it imports the data from Ning that is relevant to BuddyPress. That means: members, profiles, groups, forums (still to go: blogs and pages). There’s a bunch of other stuff in Ning that doesn’t have an obvious place in BP: events, music, notes, photos, videos. But forums are probably the most important content for many people, so I thought I’d throw it out there for some folks to test.
I should give a bunch of warnings:
- The plugin is not pretty right now. It’s ugly both in the code and in the way it appears to the user.
- The way it currently works: Make sure that the json export is in a subfolder of import-from-ning/ called json. Go to the Import from Ning dashboard panel and click Continue (don’t worry about uploading files). The plugin will immediately create all the users and then lead you through a number of other steps.
- At the moment, it’s set up NOT to send out emails to new members. That way, you can test it without worrying too much about pestering your members.
- I have only tested this with the data that Caspar so graciously provided. So there’s a chance that it won’t work at all for you
- Make sure you do this on a *test install* that you feel comfortable wiping out afterwards.
- don’t run it more than twice, as I don’t have good checks in place for duplicate forum items
- When you get to the end of the process, you’ll see a bunch of crap printed on the screen. Don’t be alarmed. Just go to the front end of the site and check stuff out – activity items, forum posts, member profiles, etc
- Avatars aren’t working. Might be one day, but they are more difficult than other content so it’s at the bottom of my list
Download: http://teleogistic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/import-from-ning.zip
Let me know if you manage to make it work (insofar as it does).
Thanks Boone! I’m out of town right now, but will test on Friday and let you know how it goes.
Cool, I will probably have a more complete version by then. Make sure to post a message here before testing so I remember to upload it.
Here is my list in order of priority:
1. Forums
2. Groups
3. Group Discussions
4. Blogs
5. Photos
6. Videos
It would be a shame for the members of our Arcade collectors community to lose all of the photos and videos they took the time to upload, organize, and tag. Pages and Events can be recreated, Music isn’t important to our network, and I don’t believe we use Notes.
Thank you for saving our bacon Boone. Our network is intended for the growth of arcade and coin-op machine collecting, and we put all of our personal spare funds into buying and restoring classic games. But I intend try to find some money to donate to you.
Hi Brian – Yeah, I hope that I can figure out a way to import photos and videos, but it’s going to be hard, given that support for those items isn’t actually included in BuddyPress itself.
BTW the plugin is almost release-ready. It still is broken with respect to a couple things (avatars and forum images in particular are difficult to deal with) but import of members, forums, groups, group discussions, blogs, and pages are all working quite smoothly. I’ll be posting an update soon.
@boonebgorges this is great news. I have a network of 1300 members that I have been waiting to import to buddypress. Another thing is that WPMUdev ning importer plugin does a great job importing avatars. I wonder if this would be of any help.
http://ningtobuddypress.com/
Great Job!
Hi Leo – Just this afternoon I wrote the code necessary to import avatars. Seems to be working quite well.
I’m amazed that you have 1300 members in your Ning network! Any chance you’d be interested in being a guinea pig for the new plugin before I release it? Drop me an email at [my buddypress.org username]@gmail.com if you’re interested, and I’ll send you the plugin files.
@boonebgorges I have sent you the email
@boonebgorges thanks so much for working on this! You may already considered this, but I was wondering – would it be possible to use the Post Videos and Photo Galleries plugin in conjunction with the importer to add video and image galleries from Ning?
http://buddypress.org/community/groups/post-rich-videos-and-photos-galleries/
@grandeped – I’ve never seen that plugin before. It might be possible to make the imports work right with that plugin. The one I know better is BuddyPress Album+, which might be my go-to. In any case, I’m trying to get the rest of the content importers to work with huge data sets first, before reaching out to different kinds of content.
@boonebgorges That sounds great – I am not really using that plugin or any others, so whatever works best for you is great with me. Thanks for all of your work!
Dear Boone Gorges, I have a trouble with your plugin: Catchable fatal error: Object of class WP_Error could not be converted to string in /home/yunt/public_html/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/import-from-ning/bp-functions.php on line 188 could you explain where is this probem coming from?
