Trouble Migrating from Theme with Custom Post Formats

  • Hello,

    I have a site built using the X Theme from Theme.co. In it, I’ve created a lot of posts (250+) as the “Video” Custom Post Format… which Theme.co adds a bunch of custom meta fields to. One of those fields is called “_x_video_embed” and it’s where you put the iFrame code for the video embed. It’s then used by the appropriate theme file to display the video at the top of the post, in place of where the Featured Image would go.

    All well and good.

    But now I’m thinking about changing themes. And the theme I want to switch to has NO IDEA about that custom meta field, so the posts just display as standard posts with the Featured Image showing… and no video.

    HELP!

    Without having to manually go into each post using the current theme and extracting the video ID from the iFrame code, switching to the “Standard” post format, and embedding the proper video code INSIDE the post… what can I do?

    Is there a way to automate the extraction of the custom meta field (it’s all been HTML-encoded, so the “<” and “>” and other HTML items have been encoded to “<” and “&gt”, further complicating the mess)?

    I appreciate any direction you can provide… as right now, I’m totally stumped, and looking at having to manually edit 250+ posts (YIKES!).

    Thanks so much

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

  • This is why themes on the WordPress repository are not allowed to do such things.
    You could probably use a plugin to export the data to CSV and then edit it and load it back in. Or find a plugin (I think I used one a few months ago) that converts meta fields to content. Or find a plugin that is almost what you need and modify it to do the rest.

    Thread Starter TheRVgeeks

    (@thervgeeks)

    Thanks @joyously! I now know the wisdom of that policy for themes in the WordPress Repository! And it hurts!!! I definitely feel like I’ve been locked into my theme, since switching from it is going to be a royal PITA! ??

    I’ll take a look for a plugin that can convert the meta fields into content… but if you remember what you used, I’d appreciate a point in the right direction.

    Wish I was better with SQL commands and queries… as this seems like something that could be handled that way (find posts where post-meta includes a meta_key of “_x_video_embed”… yada, yada, yada).

    The SQL would be messy, because the post meta table is separate from the posts table.
    But there is a plugin that exports to a Excel (not sure if it’s really CSV) format so you can more easily update your content, such as products. It updates posts in place I think.

    I was trying to remember what I had to convert, but I’m thinking it might have been meta fields to taxonomies that I did before. Edit: But that plugin might be a candidate to modify if nothing else is found.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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