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Move iWeb MobileMe Blog to Wordpress

I had to migrate my private Blog about my 2 years old little daughter from Apples mobileme servers to a wordpress account.

I wanted to keep all the comments too (Marlas birth..). So i wrote a perl script to do the job. It is far from beeing perfect, but it works for me. So it may work for you too. You have to adjust some things, that‘s for sure.


Features:

-Keep Comments

-Keep Images (hmm mostly)

-Sets email-adresses for comments by Name

-Sets Tags by text strings occured in title or body

-Free, but my daughter will get every euro you donate! THX!


Note: The script works only while the apple servers are up. After 30. June all your comments are gone!



http://iweb2wordpress.weinschenks.com/Website/iweb2wordpress.html

Posted on Apr 21, 2012 1:13 PM

Reply
43 replies

May 9, 2012 10:34 PM in response to MirkoW

This is so tempting - I downloaded your script and can see some of the things I would need to customize for my information, but I don't have any idea how to run the script. Maybe I'm too inexperienced to attempt this! Do I customize for my information, and then what - copy and paste into Terminal? Or should I just admit defeat now?

May 10, 2012 7:40 AM in response to Roddy

Unfortunately, it appears that they have (smartly) decided to only offer this software if you sign up for their web hosting, unless I misread their information. The download link is no longer active. I already have hosting, so need to find another way to get my blog content uploaded to Wordpress. Currently trying to figure out if I can use a plugin to import my posts as html, but it's going to take a lot more reading of "how to" information to get there.

May 10, 2012 10:50 AM in response to moopie

moopie wrote:


This is so tempting - I downloaded your script and can see some of the things I would need to customize for my information, but I don't have any idea how to run the script. Maybe I'm too inexperienced to attempt this! Do I customize for my information, and then what - copy and paste into Terminal? Or should I just admit defeat now?


oh sorry, your're right that's missing!

.pl is the extension for perl scripts


open "terminal" go to the directory where your extracted zip is

for example

cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/moopie/Downloads/


and run it by typing

perl iweb2wordpress.pl

it produces the wordpress.xml in the same directory

it's simple


When you have any problems feel free to write me, i can even make the definitions in the file if you tell me what url your blog is. Sometimes you have to adjust some regular expression depending on your design. i will try just let me know.


Cheers!

May 10, 2012 4:45 PM in response to MirkoW

@ot, ragesw app does not work in preserve mme blog comments, that's why. the clue is in their vid, once you publish to local folder you loose all tie to mme.


@MirkoW, would you like to wrap your pl script in an applescript app?

i can help you with that, so people like moopie can just double click and run your app without launching terminal.app.

May 10, 2012 5:15 PM in response to MirkoW

Cyclosaurus, what an excellent idea! MirkoW, I gave it a try and got it to generate a file, but wasn't successful yet. I originally published my blog to a folder on my computer. The way my blog is set up, I have three separate sections, each with its own archive and RSS feed. Don't ask me why - it was the only way I could think to separate several different years of posts on my blog.


Does the perl script need to be in the same folder as the posts I want to export?


Thanks for your patience - I do appreciate your help on this and I see the potential for your script. It's the closest thing to a solution I've seen so far. Worst case scenario, I'll get an engineer at work to help me figure out what to do!

May 11, 2012 10:14 AM in response to moopie

Cyclosauruswrote:

@MirkoW, would you like to wrap your pl script in an applescript app?

i can help you with that, so people like moopie can just double click and run your app without launching terminal.app.



sorry, i'm just can code some little perl. Applescript is completly new to me. I don't think it's worth the time since the mobileme servers are shut down in june.


moopie wrote:


Cyclosaurus, what an excellent idea! MirkoW, I gave it a try and got it to generate a file, but wasn't successful yet. I originally published my blog to a folder on my computer. The way my blog is set up, I have three separate sections, each with its own archive and RSS feed. Don't ask me why - it was the only way I could think to separate several different years of posts on my blog.


Hmm, we have to see if we can get the images right. The main problem is that iweb uses the same shapeimageXYZ.png shema for every post and wordpress need to have unique filenames. So my script is guessing the filenames wordpress makes out of them by importing. sorry my english is not as good it should for explaining in detail. Example


iWeb hat 2 posts both with

shapeimage_1.png


So the first post get's the filename shapeimage_1.png but the second post get's the filename shapeimage_11.png.

But what if you have later an image which has already the name shapeimage_11.png?


You got the problem?

For me it works with some tricks. so don't be afraid, i can look into it if you want.

moopie wrote:


Does the perl script need to be in the same folder as the posts I want to export?


No, the script does not use any local file, it get's all information directly from the mobileme servers.



Thanks for your patience - I do appreciate your help on this and I see the potential for your script. It's the closest thing to a solution I've seen so far. Worst case scenario, I'll get an engineer at work to help me figure out what to do!

can you give me the link to your blog? so i can look into the html code. I think that would be the fastest way to help you.

May 12, 2012 1:18 PM in response to moopie

moopie, I just want you to let know, that I adjusted the code a litte.

so far i can export your postings from the actual blog (year1, year2 i actually not tried), but it's not perfect.


works:

-text

-comments


problems

-images

-top image

-text above the top image



http://testiblogitnow.wordpress.com/ imported 5 posts


give me some time, i will look into it the next days...

May 13, 2012 10:42 AM in response to MirkoW

MirkoW, thank you for all the time you're putting in on this - it's great! I found that I had no trouble importing the RSS feed using widgets, but that's only 5 out of hundreds of posts. Getting those XML posts is the hard part. I don't care about the images that much - I can go in and add them manually, if necessary. Many are missing from my Year 1 and Year 2 archives, as I may have thrown some away in iPhoto by mistake, doing cleanup over the past few years.


If you don't mind continuing to trouble shoot with me, you can contact me directly on email using the email address on my blog. Take as much time as you like - I can't say enough thanks for how helpful you are being.

Jun 5, 2012 1:51 PM in response to MirkoW

Hi MirkoW - thank you for the effort in developing this tool and for sharing. You have done something Apple should have offered to all Mobile Me customers with iWeb sites. However after running your script and importing file into wordpress I endded up with all YOUR blog posts and comments on my wordpress website... this is because your script is still configured with your details... I would like to change this to apply to MY website but not sure what fields I need to adjust and how... any help would be super appreciated! Thank you.

Jun 6, 2012 9:09 AM in response to MirkoW

Hi, Like everyone else I have just discovered that it is not possible to migrate an iWeb/MMe blog and keep the comments. I'm staggered by Apple's attitude to this; they are basically throwing away our content. So I've seen your script but have no clue what to do with it or where to begin the process. I do know how Wordpress works but scripting is new to me. Is there an idiots guide somehwhere you can point me at. Thanks.

Jun 6, 2012 12:41 PM in response to Treffynnon

@JMMB and @Treffynnon


I've set up some instructions on the website (link in starting post). I also included a much improved script.

btw. the default blogs are not written by me i googled them for testing!


feel free to aks. The best way to look into problems is by posting your url, so i can run it by myself.


Cheers,

mirko

Move iWeb MobileMe Blog to Wordpress

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