Movable Type allows you to import your entries from other weblog content management systems. If you are importing from Greymatter, Movable Type also allows you to import all of the comments on your entries into your new weblog. This can be useful when you wish to start using Movable Type but already have much of your content in another system. To do this, you will first need to export your data from the other system; you can do this using the other system's standard templating functionality. Simply use a template that will produce the desired formatting that Movable Type understands for importing new entries. Templates for exporting data from Blogger, Greymatter, and Newspro are provided below.
In addition to exporting your data from another weblog CMS, you can export
your entries from Movable Type itself. This allows you to keep local backups
of your weblog content for safekeeping, as well as to transfer data between
weblogs, by combining the export and import mechanisms. To export the entries
from one of your weblogs, login to Movable Type, then go to the Main Menu for
the weblog you wish to export. Then click Import & Export Entries, and
follow the instructions under Export Entries.
NOTE: be careful when exporting data from Internet Explorer; all versions of Internet Explorer have a bug where data marked as plain text can be intrepreted as HTML. The symptom of this bug is that all of your exported data will run together onto one line. If this is the case, use Netscape when exporting data.
After your content has been exported from the other system, you must move your data files over to the system where Movable Type runs, so that Movable Type can find them. Then you can use the import mechanism to import those entries into Movable Type.
<Blogger> AUTHOR: <$BlogItemAuthor$> DATE: <$BlogItemDateTime$> ----- BODY: <$BlogItemBody$> -------- </Blogger>
NOTE: if you are exporting from Blogger Pro, add this line before the
AUTHOR: line:
TITLE: <PostSubject><$BlogItemSubject$></PostSubject>
Blog Filename to a different filename; this will prevent
you from overwriting your main index file.
Formatting, set your weblog to display all of your posts on the main
index page. There is no explicit setting for this; instead, you should
change the number of days displayed on your front page (Show N days' posts
on main page) higher than the number of days that you have been weblogging.
Date/Time Format to the format MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM:SS AM|PM. (Note:
the format will not look like this in the menu; instead it will be the
current time, formatted.)
Convert Line Breaks to No.
Archive Frequency to No Archive. This will prevent your archives
from being overwritten with the new template.
Publish your weblog. You will end up
with a single file with all of your posts, formatted using the above template,
at the location specified in your Settings. Download this file to your local
hard drive.
Now skip down to Importing Entries, below.
These instructions describe the process of exporting all entries and comments from Greymatter into a format suitable for import into Movable Type.
NOTE: if you have already imported your Greymatter entries into Movable
Type, and now wish to import only your comments, use the Exporting Greymatter
Comments Only instructions, below.
Edit Templates; then click
Edit Main Index-Related Templates.
Main Index Template with the following:
{{logbody}}
Index Entry Template: Standard Entries template with the
following:
TITLE: {{entrysubject}}
DATE: {{monthmonth}}/{{dayday}}/{{yearyear}} {{hour}}:{{minuteminute}}:00 {{ampm}}
AUTHOR: {{author}}
-----
BODY:
{{entrymainbody}}
-----
{{entrycomments}}
--------
Index Entry Template: Extended Entries template with the
following:
TITLE: {{entrysubject}}
DATE: {{monthmonth}}/{{dayday}}/{{yearyear}} {{hour}}:{{minuteminute}}:00 {{ampm}}
AUTHOR: {{author}}
-----
BODY:
{{entrymainbody}}
-----
EXTENDED BODY:
{{entrymorebody}}
-----
{{entrycomments}}
--------
Date Grouping Template, Entry Separator
Template, and Stay At Top Index Entry Template.
Return to the main templates menu, then click Karma & Comments-Related
Templates.
Comment Appearance Template, as in Step 2.
Comment Appearance Template to the following:
COMMENT:
AUTHOR: {{commentauthor}}
EMAIL: {{commentauthoremailabsolute}}
URL: {{commentauthorhomepageabsolute}}
DATE: {{monthmonth}}/{{dayday}}/{{yearyear}} {{hour}}:{{minuteminute}}:00 {{ampm}}
{{commentbody}}
-----
Return to the main templates menu, then click Miscellaneous Templates.
Paragraph Separator and Line Separator templates,
as in Step 2.
Paragraph Separator template to two carriage returns, and do
the same for your Line Separator template.
Return to the main menu, then click Configuration.
Index filename, so as not to overwrite your existing weblog.
Days to keep on main index so that it is higher than the number of
days that you have been weblogging. This will have the effect of placing all
of your entries on your main index.
Return to the main menu, then click Rebuild Files.
Rebuild Files menu, you only want to rebuild your main index page,
so click the Rebuild Main Index File button.
After this is done, you will end up with a single file with all of your posts, formatted using the above templates, at the location specified in your configuration. Download this file to your local hard drive.
Now skip down to Importing Entries, below.
If you have already imported your Greymatter entries into Movable Type, and now wish to import just the comments from those entries, you can do this using the following steps. Note that these instructions will only work if:
Authored on dates) on those entries
after importing them; Movable Type will use the entry timestamps to determine
which comments match up with which entries. Thus, if you have changed the
timestamp on an entry, Movable Type will not be able to match up any comments
on that entry.
Here are the steps for exporting just your Greymatter comments:
Edit Templates; then click
Edit Main Index-Related Templates.
Main Index Template with the following:
{{logbody}}
Index Entry Template: Standard Entries template with the
following:
DATE: {{monthmonth}}/{{dayday}}/{{yearyear}} {{hour}}:{{minuteminute}}:00 {{ampm}}
NO ENTRY: 1
-----
{{entrycomments}}
--------
Index Entry Template: Extended Entries template with the
following:
DATE: {{monthmonth}}/{{dayday}}/{{yearyear}} {{hour}}:{{minuteminute}}:00 {{ampm}}
NO ENTRY: 1
-----
{{entrycomments}}
--------
Date Grouping Template, Entry Separator
Template, and Stay At Top Index Entry Template.
Return to the main templates menu, then click Karma & Comments-Related
Templates.
Comment Appearance Template, as in Step 2.
Comment Appearance Template to the following:
COMMENT:
AUTHOR: {{commentauthor}}
EMAIL: {{commentauthoremailabsolute}}
URL: {{commentauthorhomepageabsolute}}
DATE: {{monthmonth}}/{{dayday}}/{{yearyear}} {{hour}}:{{minuteminute}}:00 {{ampm}}
{{commentbody}}
-----
Return to the main templates menu, then click Miscellaneous Templates.
Paragraph Separator and Line Separator templates,
as in Step 2.
Paragraph Separator template to two carriage returns, and do
the same for your Line Separator template.
Return to the main menu, then click Configuration.
Index filename, so as not to overwrite your existing weblog.
Days to keep on main index so that it is higher than the number of
days that you have been weblogging. This will have the effect of placing all
of your entries on your main index.
Return to the main menu, then click Rebuild Files.
Rebuild Files menu, you only want to rebuild your main index page,
so click the Rebuild Main Index File button.
After this is done, you will end up with a single file with all of your posts, formatted using the above templates, at the location specified in your configuration. Download this file to your local hard drive.
Now skip down to Importing Entries, below.
Change Settings.
News Files Path to point to a different directory, so as not
to overwrite your public files; you may need to create a new directory for
this.
Archive Files Path to point to the same directory as used in
Step 2.
Archive/Hide News setting to Archive.
News Age to a number greater than the number of days you've
been weblogging with NewsPro.
Archive Type to One Archive.
Monthly Archive Links Page to point to a new, unique file, so
as not to overwrite your public links page.
12/24 Hour Clock to the 12 hour system.
Date Format to the following:
<Field: Month_Number>/<Field: Day>/<Field: Year> <Field: Hour>:<Field: Minute>:00 <Field: AMPM>
News Display to the following:
TITLE: <InsertSubject> DATE: <InsertDate> AUTHOR: <InsertName> ----- BODY: <InsertNews> --------
Submit Settings button. Do not rebuild yet.
Advanced Settings link.
Advanced Settings scroll down to about the middle of the page and
find the NumberLimit setting; make sure that it is set to zero (0).
CreateAnchors setting (around the middle of the page), and set
it to No (Off).
Now skip down to Importing Entries, below.
Now that you have exported all of your entries from your other content management system, you are ready to import the entries into Movable Type.
Your existing weblogs list.
Import Entries.
You have the option of either importing the entries as yourself--the author that you are currently logged in as--or creating new authors for each author name found in the original set of entries. For example, if your weblog is/was a team weblog, you would probably want to recreate the original set of authors, rather than import all of the entries as yourself. Otherwise you probably wish to simply import the entries as yourself.
If importing the entries as you, check the Import as me box.
If creating new authors, you will need to set a password which will be
used when creating each of the new authors in the system. You should also
leave the Import as me box unchecked.
NOTE: if the name of an author listed for one of the entries you are importing is already being used by an author in the Movable Type system, the entry will be assigned to the existing author, and a new author will not be created.
If you would like to choose a default category for all of the entries that you import, you can do so here. This might be useful if you already have a batch of entries in your Movable Type weblog, for example, and you wish to mark the newly-imported entries as uncategorized.
If you do not choose a default category, the entries will not be assigned to a
particular category (unless the entries you are importing use the CATEGORY
key to specify their category).
If you choose a default category, and one or more entries use the CATEGORY
key in the list of exported entries, the CATEGORY key will override the
default category, for those entries using the CATEGORY key; all other
entries will be assigned to the default category.
By default, your imported entries will be assigned the post status that you
have selected as the Status default in your weblog configuration. If you
would like to override this, you can select the desired post status
(Draft or Publish) from the Default post status for entries menu.
The Title Start HTML and Title End HTML values are used to identify
a post title within the body of an entry. This is useful when importing
entries from Blogger, for example, because Blogger posts do not have the
concept of a separate title field. If you have named your posts consistently
through the use of HTML tags, however, Movable Type can parse your weblog
entries to find those titles. For example, if all of your entry titles look
like this:
<font class="title">I am a title</font>
Then you could use a value for Title Start HTML of
<font class="title">
and a value for Title End HTML of
</font>
to automatically set the titles of your entries when importing. If found, the title, along with the surrounding HTML, will be removed from the body of your entry.
If you do not fill in these values, or if the relevant HTML cannot be found for a particular entry, the first five (5) words of the entry are used as the title, instead.
IMPORT to import
your entries.
NOTE: You should now remove all of the files that you imported from the import directory, so that if or when you run the import process again at some later date, the entries you just imported will not be re-imported.
You will need to rebuild all of your files in order to generate your archives for the new imported entries.
TIP: after importing your entries, if you imported them from a system without categories, you may wish to assign categories to each of your entries; a fast way to do this is to use Movable Type's Power-Editing Mode, which allows you to edit multiple entries at once.