Jix
Version
V0.025 (last update on Jun 6, 2010)
Rating
Compatibility
Votes
Favoured
46
License
GPLv2 or later
Non-Commercial
Type
Views
60044
Date Added
5 February 2009
Export: Output table data in a readable format to a CSV* file which may be read in Excel, OpenOffice or similar.
Import: Imports new data to your site from a CSV* file.
Update: Updates existing data in your site from a CSV* file.
*Alternatively, you may specify any other delimiter to suit your data.
All tasks are easily configurable to extend to the entire Joomla database.
As supplied, Jix can import and export all users, contact details, sections, categories & articles.
Warning: Jix is a powerful tool designed for use only by Joomla Super Administrators with an excellent understanding of the Joomla database.
If used incorrectly, your website could be corrupted or destroyed.
Back up your system before use.
This component is easy to install and use. Up in a minute.The manual (jix_tutorial.doc)is also nicely written and proves to be a great help. For me, I am looking for a component that can export user data and adding fields to users tab. I got the excellent solution. My clients are also very pleased.In general, great component and a must have for a Joomla site.
Many thanks to the developer.
Regards,
Mona Kabir
Many thanks to the developer.
Regards,
Mona Kabir
Owner's reply
Thanks, Mona, for the nice feedback. May I bottle you :-)
While I have just downloaded this extension and I haven't yet used it, I am sure it's going to be an improvement on the PhpMyAdmin mess I have to do every time I need to import/export data from Joomla.
Since there are folks that do not appreciate how hard and time consuming it is to develop these extensions and then offer them to the community for free, I want to at least let the dev know that I appreciate it and I am sure others do too.
If you don;t, please go ahead and continue doing it the hard way. Or, newsflash, why not offer to write the documentation yourself once you have spent the time to learn it? See how good you are.
After all, this is what "Open Source" means.
Thanks.
PS: if I do end up using it, I'll be happy to review it on my screencast.
Since there are folks that do not appreciate how hard and time consuming it is to develop these extensions and then offer them to the community for free, I want to at least let the dev know that I appreciate it and I am sure others do too.
If you don;t, please go ahead and continue doing it the hard way. Or, newsflash, why not offer to write the documentation yourself once you have spent the time to learn it? See how good you are.
After all, this is what "Open Source" means.
Thanks.
PS: if I do end up using it, I'll be happy to review it on my screencast.
The documentation does not describe how to get started. The interface does not have HELP and the tutorials start at a point where configuration has already been done separate from the installation process. If this is a good component to those willing to suffer through a choppy learning curve, the author has done a good job of hiding it.
Owner's reply
Thank you, Mark for your feedback and I apologise for not spotting it earlier.
But for one minor hitch, I would be more than pleased to improve the documentation for Jix. The problem being, of course, that most of us component developers get paid nothing to do what we do.
At a conservative estimate I'd say that I've consumed some $10,000 worth of my time developing Jix to where we are now. Many appreciate that, I'm sorry you don't.
But, please Mark, when you pay nothing for a piece of software, you might care to express some delight in the fact that it works at all.
Thankyou to the author for all his hard work on this and for providing it for free.
i am planning to use this for a mass migration of data from an old incompatible site to joomla.
so far, in testing, this is proving to be an indispensible tool.
the old data is provided in xls format. i am using
openoffice.org Calc to modify and export to CSV then using this program to import to joomla.
manually would take years. this is a BIG timesaver.
keep up the good work. thankyou again.
i am planning to use this for a mass migration of data from an old incompatible site to joomla.
so far, in testing, this is proving to be an indispensible tool.
the old data is provided in xls format. i am using
openoffice.org Calc to modify and export to CSV then using this program to import to joomla.
manually would take years. this is a BIG timesaver.
keep up the good work. thankyou again.
Thank you so much for this component.
It takes me just a 2hours to completely understand what can be done with this excellent component.
I've successully export datas from old simple website's database with completely different database structure and import about 700+ articles to new joomla website.
I've used:
- Notepad++ (with Multiline selection enabled)
- phpMyAdmin (MySQL)
If you need to import something to your website, i suggest you to learn it with perfect explained documentation.
It takes me just a 2hours to completely understand what can be done with this excellent component.
I've successully export datas from old simple website's database with completely different database structure and import about 700+ articles to new joomla website.
I've used:
- Notepad++ (with Multiline selection enabled)
- phpMyAdmin (MySQL)
If you need to import something to your website, i suggest you to learn it with perfect explained documentation.
This might be a very good component for your joomla but if you are a newbie you might not want to use it. It's scary to use just to import categories you have to know more than just follow along and click a few buttons.
Owner's reply
Thanks for your comment. Yes, you're right you certainly need to know what you're doing.
As I say prominently here and on my site:-
"
Warning: Jix is a powerful tool designed for use only by Joomla Super Administrators with an excellent understanding of the Joomla database.
If used incorrectly, your website could be corrupted or destroyed.
"
"Scary" though? All of us have access to great free Joomla backup utilities - I recommend Akeeba. So I say, backup your site, even better copy the site to another location, and give Jix a go.
I have a main database where we store members info, like contact details. The main database is used for billing purposes. Now we are setting up a new website and we needed a way to get the info from the main database up to our website. JIX proved to be of great help as it made it possible to bulk upload 250 existing users.
I have also used it to upload contact info and other stuff into the Community Builder database, as well as updating info whenever there is a change in the main database.
JIX is a very powerful tool that can be extended to import to any database in Joomla. The main drawback is that it is a bit tricky to get started. Anyone using this component should read the posts in the forum on JIX before trying to import. There are quite a few things that could go wrong, since it is essential that the CSV-file is prepared in exactly the right way before an import can take place.
Perhaps in the future it will be possible to import directly from XLS. That, together with a simple tutorial on how to get started would raise my rating all the way up.
Keep up the good work Pete!
I have also used it to upload contact info and other stuff into the Community Builder database, as well as updating info whenever there is a change in the main database.
JIX is a very powerful tool that can be extended to import to any database in Joomla. The main drawback is that it is a bit tricky to get started. Anyone using this component should read the posts in the forum on JIX before trying to import. There are quite a few things that could go wrong, since it is essential that the CSV-file is prepared in exactly the right way before an import can take place.
Perhaps in the future it will be possible to import directly from XLS. That, together with a simple tutorial on how to get started would raise my rating all the way up.
Keep up the good work Pete!
Just got the hang of this component today as I needed to transfer articles from one Joomla site to another without deleting the articles in the new installation.
For those of you who don't need to keep articles in the new installation, just use phpmyadmin to export the com_ table from the old database, drop that com_ table in the new database, and then import the .sql file from the export.
Now for those in my situation who needed to add or merge the two tables, I couldn't insert the exported table in the new database because the table already existed, so I had to use Jix.
Using the downloadable jix .cvs files (had to unzip), I had to export individual tables from my old database in CSV for MS Excel (section, category, and content), then I had to manually edit and delete columns and cells to fit the jix .csv format.
Note that Chinese characters in article titles didn't save to the database, so I had to go back and edit my original .csv file, delete all the imported articles, then import the content .csv file again.
So it took me a while to get it right, but I'm good to go now.
For those of you who don't need to keep articles in the new installation, just use phpmyadmin to export the com_ table from the old database, drop that com_ table in the new database, and then import the .sql file from the export.
Now for those in my situation who needed to add or merge the two tables, I couldn't insert the exported table in the new database because the table already existed, so I had to use Jix.
Using the downloadable jix .cvs files (had to unzip), I had to export individual tables from my old database in CSV for MS Excel (section, category, and content), then I had to manually edit and delete columns and cells to fit the jix .csv format.
Note that Chinese characters in article titles didn't save to the database, so I had to go back and edit my original .csv file, delete all the imported articles, then import the content .csv file again.
So it took me a while to get it right, but I'm good to go now.
I am new to Joomla and have been using it for less than a year. One of the first thing I need to do was to import 1200 staff contact information into our site. This utility was perfect for the job. I was a little confused at first how to make use of the utility but after watching the tutorial video a few times I finally got it. I was also able to customize the import to meet my needs. I expect to use it to import content to in the future. Thank you to Peter for developing a very useful utility.
Owner's reply
Thanks for your comment, Millrene. I'm glad it helped you!
Certainly, I realise that useability is my greatest challenge with Jix - maybe if I get a little time . . .
This is the most powerful extension I ever use, with same help from Peter I was able to load more than 1000 files with different users access and description. All other autopopulate for DOCman don't allow to import date from csv therefore if you need different description for every file and different user permissions you need to do it one by one. With JIX it takes you a few minutes, just prepare your csv file upload your files throw ftp and press import on the DOCman menu in JIX and they are there.
Thanks again, Peter your JIX it's the best.
Thanks again, Peter your JIX it's the best.
Owner's reply
Pleased to help you, Sergio.
Great to see Jix extended to another Joomla component!
Pete
Hallo
This is good extention. Easy to use and do what it says. May be trouble with virtual hosting, because of permissions.
Why 4 stars: -maybe not convinient way of usage(not clear manual about files' extentions)
-published date is fixed
-fields for import are fixed (maybe I can't understand something)
Great thanks to author. It's the only free extention of this kind which I make to work.
This is good extention. Easy to use and do what it says. May be trouble with virtual hosting, because of permissions.
Why 4 stars: -maybe not convinient way of usage(not clear manual about files' extentions)
-published date is fixed
-fields for import are fixed (maybe I can't understand something)
Great thanks to author. It's the only free extention of this kind which I make to work.
Owner's reply
Thanks for you feedback.
In fact the import fields aren't fixed. Import new fields in the Jix Fields table and you'll be able to import those fields as well.
After a little work I successfully managed to import 50+ users from a csv file, here is a tip, don't use Excel. This is a great tool for anyone trying to import data from a CSV file into the Joomla contacts/users db. Great potential to be a must have Joomla dev tools.
Owner's reply
Thanks also for the review.
I cerainly found Excel to be very unrealiable with CSV files and worse with other delimited files. I use the Open Office spreadsheet program very good though quite slow.
Pete Nurse