Joomla Programmer: Clone Sobi Using Windows

Sobi2 business index is a powerful database program for Joomla programmers and hobbyists. Recently I used Sobi2 to create a Pet Lost and Found database.  This worked well but got confusing when I wanted to add an Adoptable Pets database. The tool provides one form with customizable fields, but some fields are not the same across Lost Pets and Adoptable Pets. I needed two forms. The only way to get that is to clone Sobi2.

Sigsiu wrote a Sobi2 cloning tool for Unix. Short of downloading cygwin, this tool doesn’t help Windows people.

Following, then, are instructions for how to clone the Sobi2 component for multiple installations using a Windows machine. The original forum post on Windows Cloning is here.

Unzip the com_sobi2 installation into a fresh directory com_sobi2. Copy that to the target directory, com_sobi2lost.

Using a bulk file renamer like File and MP3 renamer, rename all files in com_sobi2lost so that any instance of “sobi” is replaced with “sobilost.” You are editing file names in this step, not the contents of the files.

Using a grep search and replace tool like Actual Search & Replace:

Find all instances of “sobi” lowercase in com_sobi2lost contents. Change those instances to “sobilost”

Find all instances of “SOBI” uppercase in com_sobi2lost contents. Change those instances to “SOBILOST”

Edit the installation xml file sobilost2.xml

Find the administration/menu node.

Change the node’s value to a unique value such as Lost Animals

ZIP the com_sobi2lost directory to com_sobi2lost.zip

Install the com_sobi2lost.zip

The new description shows up as your menu item under components.

Tagged as: clone, Joomla Programmer, sobi