There is no way to import Blogger entries into Machine,
but you can have them on your site as archives. In your Blogger preferences
you can specify your FTP settings. Blogger can then open a connection to
your server and write the files there. Many people who user Blogger are
hosted elsewhere, so Blogger has the capability of writing files to any
server. What some Machine users have done is just leave their Blogger files
on their site as "old archives". Then Machine is used for the new stuff.
I'm surprised it hasn't been done already either. Moveable Type has this
sort of import system and it is great since all you have to do is figure out
how to get your info into the format required and go from there. I suggested
this when Rick was developing the Moveable Type import script, but I suppose
for some reason he thought it would be better to develop an import system
for each blog software separately? I have no idea. I'm sure the Moveable
Type import script could be easily configured to accept info from any blog
as long as they use the format.
As far as I can gather, it shouldn't be that hard to move posts over. In
theory this should work:
1) Set up a certain standard template, with all posts on it, with Blogger.
Publish blog using it, so all the posts are on one page in a standardized
format.
2) Create/Run a script to parse that HTML file and insert it into the MySQL
database, including original dates/times.
Am I missing anything? If not, I'm surprised it hasn't already been
done...seeing the number of people who've come from Blogger.
From what I understand (stand to be corrected), Moveable Type directly
accesses a database, much like Machine does...so the transformation is just
a matter of moving data from one table to another. (Which Rick's script
seems to do, based on my limited knowledge of PHP).
Blogger is different in the fact that you don't have direct access to the
database. The Blogger system generates your pages for you, with static blog
entries, so if you change your blog entries, you have to republish (iow, get
Blogger to regenerate) your pages. What I've been experimenting with lately
is parsing through the page generated by Blogger to insert the entries into
the Machine database.
If I actually do get it working, I'll certainly let you guys know. The
biggest problem would be getting comments to come along, since everyone uses
different commenting systems.
