Importing Individual Entries From Other Journalling Sites Using URLs

[samueljames]

Title:
Importing Individual Entries From Other Journalling Sites Using URLs

Area:
Importing

Summary:
The idea would be that in the import function you would have the ability to choose specific entries to import.

Description:
The only site I import from is LiveJournal. The reason for my suggestion is that I keep only my fanfic on Dreamwidth. If I do an import I then need to manually delete lots of non-fic entries. I'm not technically minded so I don't have any idea of whether this would be doable and if it were whether it would get enough use to warrant the change.

I was thinking something along the lines of the import function that they have on Archive Of Our Own. I don't often use it because it doesn't format everything exactly the way I want but am thinking that it could work between Dreamwidth and other journalling systems as the entries look alike in terms of title, icons, tags and the actual entry text itself.

On their system you can list several URLs at once but I would be happy with one at a time. In an ideal world the import function would have the option to import all journal content or import by URL and the user would be able to put the URL from their posted entry in LiveJournal, InsaneJournal etc into Dreamwidth and just have that specific entry appear on their Dreamwidth Journal.

Poll #6503 Importing Individual Entries From Other Journalling Sites Using URLs

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 53

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
24 (45.3%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
5 (9.4%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
3 (5.7%)

(I have no opinion)
21 (39.6%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[elf]

I'd love this; I imported my old entries from LJ but not from IJ, because I'd already imported them to IJ didn't want a huge collection of identical entries--but I'd love to be able to import some entries from the time when I crossposted.

I would like an option to do so by date or date range as well as individual URLs, and that might be the easiest for most people to work with.

[samueljames]

I originally made this suggestion after a ticket asking about this was closed with a link to dw suggestions. In that ticket I was told

"There are plans to make it possible to only import entries with a certain tag or made between certain dates but these features haven't been implemented yet."

I also like the date range idea for those who might want to import once a month for example.

[aedifica]

I was going to say I'd like something for importing by tag... but if it's already in the works, I don't need to!

[tephra]

I'd like to be able to import only entries with certain tags. For instance, I recently split a tag on my LJ into multiple, more specific, tags. While I was able to import the tags themselves, I didn't want to import all my entries again and therefore had to manually retag all the entries here as well. If I could have specified to import only entries with the original tag (which I left on the entries), or with any of the new tags that I could have entered as a list, it would have been much, much more pleasant.

[samueljames]

I agree, if we weren't able to import specific entries, the ability to only import my LJ entries with a fan fiction tag would be great.

[feathertail]

+1

[silverflight8]

That would be a really, really awesome feature. I have no idea how feasible it is to code, though.

[briar_pipe]

I don't know if this makes any sense, but I would like to be able to use a feature like this to import entries I made in a community on LJ. Currently, there's no way for me to import my community entries at all, even if it's a private community with only one poster. It would be nice to be able to pull those entries into a personal journal here.

This may be a bit off topic, but I thought a URL importer could be useful for this purpose.

[slyfox]

Was going to suggest importing-by-certain-criteria (tags/date range/security level), but it seems that is already on everyone's minds, so. :) Would definitely like to see this.