Migration and Enhancement of Plone®-based Multilingual Website to TYPO3® Platform
Luomala, Teemu (2011)
Metropolia Ammattikorkeakoulu
2011
All rights reserved
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2011120217021
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2011120217021
Tiivistelmä
The Fryske Akademy hosts the Mercator Research Centre, the Network of Schools, and the Mercator Network websites. They were originally developed on Plone® ‘content management system’ (CMS) platform which had been decided to be replaced by TYPO3® CMS. Additionally, the accessibility features were inadequate.
Little knowledge was available regarding the methodology of converting a Plone-based website to TYPO3 platform. Building up knowledge on this matter as well as clearly documenting the migration were the essential goals of this assignment.
All three Mercator websites were successfully migrated during the project. Achieving this positive outcome resulted from a comprehensive analysis of the initial circumstances, and from a determination to design a verified migration method.
The templates of all three websites were recreated by committing to W3C’s Markup Validation, and accessibility was improved by following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Additionally, the flexible template design allowed straight-forward implementation of “neat features” in the end. The Fryske Akademy went live on the new platform as of finishing the writing of this document.
This study teaches that while the actual content migration is merely a mechanical task, recreating existing website’s template design under another CMS architecture and/or ideology can be challenging. Nonetheless, redesigning and upgrading an outdated CMS software is an opportunity for an organization to refresh their web presence, and furthermore, renew web editors’ toolbox for content management.
Little knowledge was available regarding the methodology of converting a Plone-based website to TYPO3 platform. Building up knowledge on this matter as well as clearly documenting the migration were the essential goals of this assignment.
All three Mercator websites were successfully migrated during the project. Achieving this positive outcome resulted from a comprehensive analysis of the initial circumstances, and from a determination to design a verified migration method.
The templates of all three websites were recreated by committing to W3C’s Markup Validation, and accessibility was improved by following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Additionally, the flexible template design allowed straight-forward implementation of “neat features” in the end. The Fryske Akademy went live on the new platform as of finishing the writing of this document.
This study teaches that while the actual content migration is merely a mechanical task, recreating existing website’s template design under another CMS architecture and/or ideology can be challenging. Nonetheless, redesigning and upgrading an outdated CMS software is an opportunity for an organization to refresh their web presence, and furthermore, renew web editors’ toolbox for content management.