Thanks for the very helpful feedback. I now have a good sense of how to proceed.
On a related note: with the increasing success of rails, and with Radiant as the leading rails cms, I think you're going to find more and more people like me (non-programmer tinkerers) using Radiant to build sites. Many of us will be migrating from Drupal and WordPress (which are very good systems, of course, just a bit different and perhaps a bit less fun...). So, there is definitely an opportunity to grow the Radiant community. Thanks again for the help. Ross On Mar 13, 6:25 pm, Jim Gay <[email protected]> wrote: > Ross, > > That's a fine way to learn something. Doing is a better teacher than > anything else. > But i'd just make 2 projects to test out the different extensions. If > they do the same thing and use the same or similar tables then you're > asking for trouble. > It would be like using page_attachments and paperclipped together, > which both use the page_attachments table: you're bound to find > problems with both of them turned on. > And you would never do this in a real site, so it would be better to > compare 2 different projects locally and decide. > > If you want to use 1 project, you can turn them on or off by setting > "config.extensions -= [:tags]" (or taggable) to turn one off at a time > (in config/environment.rb) > Or just move one out of the vendor/extensions directory and restart, > then move it back and move the other out. > > Radiant (or any rails project) will run fine if there are extra and > unused tables in the database. So if one uses tags and the other uses > meta_tags, the presence of one table should not affect the other when > you disable either extension. > > I hope that helps. > > > > > > On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 8:47 PM, rosslaird <[email protected]> wrote: > > Oops, hang on a sec: meta_tags and taggings are both from tags (as > > indicated above). > > I'm getting mixed up with all the name similarity here. > > So, it's just a matter of that one tags table and what to do with it. > > > Ross > > > On Mar 13, 5:39 pm, rosslaird <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Jim, it's not so much that I have a problem I'm trying to solve but > >> rather that I'm just trying to learn Radiant. I like to try out > >> various things, see how they work, and figure out what's best for my > >> setup. I am not a programmer, so I find it very helpful to do things > >> like install an extension, set it up, and see what's possible. I find > >> this much easier than trying to figure out the code from behind the > >> scenes. Over the past few months I've learned most of what I need to > >> know to use and administer Radiant by installing, using, and sometimes > >> breaking various extensions. I find that this learning method -- while > >> far from efficient -- works quite well for me. > > >> Will, with this current situation, it sounds like the "tags" table may > >> not be from the tags extension at all but rather from another > >> extension that I have previously installed (like twitter tags, for > >> example). Thanks to your snippet above, I now know how to find the > >> names of the tables used by extensions. And this brings up the > >> question of whether I should just remove the tags table. I have > >> probably removed the extension that uses the tags table (I have > >> installed and removed various extensions), but it seems that the table > >> is still there (and taggable won't migrate for this reason). > > >> I am no mysql expert, but I can see that I have three tables: > > >> meta_tags > >> taggings > >> tags > > >> When I browse the meta_tags table, I see all the tags that show up on > >> my site with the tags extension. So, that seems to confirm what has > >> previously been said (the tags extension uses the meta_tags table). > >> When I browse the taggings table I see the structure but seemingly no > >> data added by me. Same with the tags table. So, the question is what > >> to do next. > > >> Taggable seems to have been partially installed. The migration seems > >> to have created one table (taggings) but has halted at the tags table > >> (which already exists). Should I remove the taggable extension (I > >> usually use the VERSION=0 method), or should I try to remove the tags > >> table, re-run the migration for taggable, then uninstall it (since I > >> should not be using both extensions at once)? Or does the order of > >> things matter here? > > >> Ross > > >> On Mar 13, 3:15 pm, William Ross <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> > On 13 Mar 2011, at 20:40, rosslaird wrote: > > >> > > It seems that tags uses a 'tags' table. I am using the tags extension > >> > > (version 1.5), created by Benny Degezelle and Jim Gay. The version of > >> > > taggable that I am trying to run alongside tags is version 1.2.1, > >> > > created by you (Will). Both of these versions are the most recent > >> > > available from github. > > >> > > Maybe the tags extension that I am running is the incorrect one? It's > >> > > this one: > > >> > >https://github.com/jomz/radiant-tags-extension > > >> > Hm. I don't really know, since I use taggable for this kind of thing, > >> > but all I'm seeing here: > > >> > > >> > https://github.com/jomz/radiant-tags-extension/blob/master/db/migrate... > > >> > is the meta_tags and taggings tables. > > >> > > There are various other tags extensions listed on github (though all > >> > > the others seem to be qualified for a special application, such as > >> > > navigation). > > >> > > Before I go messing around with the tags extension (which I will > >> > > surely mess up even more), maybe this is simply a matter of getting > >> > > the correct tags extension. (Maybe?) > > >> > I guess that depends what you're aiming to do. Both will do the job of > >> > tagging pages and then getting at them through tag clouds and other > >> > lists. Taggable is more general purpose but not so well-prepared out of > >> > the box. > > >> > best, > > >> > will > > >> > > Ross > > >> > > On Mar 13, 6:51 am, William Ross <[email protected]> wrote: > >> > >> On 12 Mar 2011, at 22:18, rosslaird wrote: > > >> > >>> I have the tags extension installed, and I want to try out taggable. > >> > >>> But it seems that both use a table called "tags," and this causes the > >> > >>> migration of taggable to halt. I suppose I will have to remove the > >> > >>> tags extension to install taggable, but if there is another way to do > >> > >>> this (so that I preserve both extensions) that would be preferable. > >> > >>> Ideas and suggestions most welcome. > > >> > >> I thought the tags extension used a 'meta_tags' table and MetaTag > >> > >> object? They ought to be compatible in the sense that you can install > >> > >> one and then the other without destructive side effects. > > >> > >> You might even be able to run them side by side: taggable takes over > >> > >> the keywords field where tags adds its own text-to-tags process. I > >> > >> wouldn't recommend it, though: there are likely to be odd method-name > >> > >> clashes and some admin UI collisions are likely. It will be hard to > >> > >> evaluate them, even if they work. > > >> > >> best, > > >> > >> will > > -- > Jim Gay > Saturn Flyer LLChttp://www.saturnflyer.com > 571-403-0338
