We've (nearly) completed a tool for converting old Manila sites to new Conversant sites.

Conversant and Manila are very different pieces of software, written for different reasons, but they do have some overlap. It's that overlap that allows the conversion tool to set up a Conversant site based on the contents of a Manila site.

It doesn't (yet) convert the template(s) over, but it does:

• Convert shortcuts to type-specific resources (images, links, text, etc)
• Import all messages
• Duplicate the site structure by publishing messages and creating directories
• Import all images as attachments, and set up the image-messages to display the images just like in the Manila site
• Set up a *new* Weblog page with all of the contents of the Manila weblog.

The Manila site can be local (running in the local copy of Frontier) or on a remote server if you have xml-rpc access. The Conversant site can also be local or on a remote server. Obviously, it runs fastest if they're both local.

This tool was originally written for our own use as we occasionally have to convert a site over for someone, but we might release it (for free). It runs on both Frontier and Radio.

If you'd find a tool like this useful, please let us know.