WebLinks migration - J3 to J5 - What we did

[rolandomontano]

I use WebLinks component to show a list of links to related sites: It is helpfull in order to maintain and update links more easily.

I migrated our J3 site to J5 by installing a clean Joomla 5 and transfering categories, articles and menu items: This was the best solution, but several extensions had to be re-installed and the databases integrated also.

For the WebLinks table it was a bit of a problem:
- Simply exporting and then importing the single database table through SQL did not work.
- Exported the J3 WebLinks table with MySQL.
- Installed a clean WebLinks in J5 and also exported the table with one item.
- Had to replace dates in the original J3 table with the current date and time.
- Made a file with the database creation info from J5 SQL export and the data insert info from the J3 SQL export.
- Imported that.

Finally it worked.

Hope this is of use to anyone with a similar problem.

[Kim22]

Just a comment on your migration. I did the same migration as you. I thought if I followed all of the perscribed steps I would be OK but no. To start with the database architecture is different. The only thing I did was to use a popular transfer addon (I don't think I am allowed to say the name). This helped a lot and is not free but if you get the correct one it is worth it. Also the designer is very helpful. This program even deals with the DB differences. Now I am using Joomla 5, I can see it is slightly better than J3 but you really still need a Page Builder add on although I suspect in the future this will improve. There is also the option to transfer to another CMS that sounds like 'squashed letters' but although there are many more addons for that sytem, I still prefer the compactness and accuracy of Joomla 5. Also J5 scores very well on SEO.

[rolandomontano]

Yes the database import of menu items, categories and articles was done with an import extension from the previous database (J3). This extension deals with the database differences. It worked very well for me.