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Story Importer and File Uploader

Saturday, October 26 2002 @ 10:28 pm EDT
Contributed by: tomw
Views: 7,943

I was bored tonight so I put together a simple one page story importer. Just drop it into your admin directory and call it. It will import either text or html files. It can even import complete web pages, only importing what is between the body tags. You can turn off the regular Geeklog filters to allow any html in your stories. You can get it from my download page or here.

To go along with the story importer I also made a simple file uploader to upload the images to go along with your stories. Drop it in your admin directory -- set the default upload directory -- make sure your webserver can write to the directory and upload away. Available from my my download page or here.

Enjoy

Tom

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Story Importer and File Uploader

Authored by: tomw on Sunday, October 27 2002 @ 02:27 pm EST

I noticed today that the maximum file size I set is way too low for html files generate by MSWord (they are really bloated). If you have problems importing large file set the max file size parameter higher.

On about line 233 you will find:

<input type=\\\"hidden\\\" name=\\\"MAX_FILE_SIZE\\\" value=\\\"10000\\\">

I increased this by 100 so that it reads

<input type=\\\"hidden\\\" name=\\\"MAX_FILE_SIZE\\\" value=\\\"1000000\\\">

It now imports those bloated word files.

Tom

Story Importer and File Uploader

Authored by: Anonymous (Anonymous User) on Wednesday, January 08 2003 @ 01:23 pm EST

Hi - thanks for the importer and uploader. The importer, I think I
understand. The uploader, I don't. What does it really accomplish? You
say it uploads to GL a directory, but GL is all database driven so what
does that mean? Is this what you'd use to upload images to go with
imported stories? Could the story text that's imported have the image
tags in it already?

What I'd like to do is automate the creation of stories a little more, if it
can be done easily. (I think this may require doing a separate plugin with
specialized functions, but I was intrigued by the idea of testing this just
with stories).

Here's the thought: an external program creates a picture and some
text. The text for the story includes an image tag "[imageX]" or such.
Then the story is automatically uploaded, either by a cron task, or some
such, rather than requiring a manual setting of attributes for each story.

Is this WAY off base?

Story Importer and File Uploader

Authored by: Anonymous (Anonymous User) on Wednesday, January 08 2003 @ 01:32 pm EST

The file uploader was designed to do exactly what you are talking about. You can designate a folder on you site to hold the images, place the image tags in your story pointing to this directory. Upload the images and then import the story. Or you can use it to upload the images and create the story by hand in geeklog.

Actually I have found the uploader usefull for anytime I have to upload a file, e.g. a new plugin. Its easier than scp.

TomW

Story Importer and File Uploader

Authored by: muskrat on Wednesday, January 08 2003 @ 03:30 pm EST

I guess I'm a little thick in the head here, I still don't understand.

When I put an image tag in a story that I post manually, I also have to browse to find the image. The image is then referred to as [image_1] or [image_2] or such; it has no relationship to the actual file name of the image before it was uploaded.

So if I upload images, with your upload add in, where do they go, and why do they have to be there? Also, how am I supposed to refer to them in the story? Do I use html img tags? Or do I use the "[image_1]" form? If so, how do I know what the name of the file will be?

I guess for me an example would help a lot.

As I write this, I realize that part of my confusion is that I have no idea what actually happens when an image is put into a geeklog story. It just happens "by magic" (or by netpbm, pun intended). Is there some directory these go into? Is that why I have to upload image files?

Thanks for your patience!

Story Importer and File Uploader

Authored by: Anonymous (Anonymous User) on Wednesday, January 08 2003 @ 04:11 pm EST

The story importer does not translate the [image1] tags like the geeklog story editor. Here is how I would do it:

As an example, create a directory right off the web root lets call it 'images'. This directory would then be web accessible with http://www.yoursite.com/images. I would set the file uploader to point to that directory. (Here it gets tricky because you have to translate back and forth between urls and paths.) So say your web root is found at the following path /var/www/htdocs/ you would set the file uploader to point to /var/www/htdocs/images. Then when you upload your image (say image.jpg) it would be web addressable at http://www.yoursite.com/images/image.jpg.

You would then take this address and put it in an html img tag thus
<img src="http://www.yoursite.com/images/image.jpg"> and place this wherever in your story you want the image.

Clear?

TomW

Note for security you should limit access to the images directory by turning off directory browsing or putting a redirect page in the directory.

Story Importer and File Uploader

Authored by: muskrat on Thursday, January 09 2003 @ 10:35 am EST

That is much clearer, thank you. So the images don't get run though the netpbm or imagemagick resizing, right? This would not be a problem for me; just want to be clear on the implications.

What about a way to automate the import of stories, so that it didn't require the admin to go through a dialog for each one? Is there any way to do that, with current capabilities, in a reasonably safe and elegant way?

I suspect when I get to that point, I'm moving into territory better served by a plugin?

Thanks again.

Story Importer and File Uploader

Authored by: Anonymous (Anonymous User) on Thursday, January 09 2003 @ 04:01 pm EST

You are right that the images do not go through the image resizing, or checking.

You do not want to get me talking about 'automatic' story importing.

TomW

Story Importer and File Uploader

Authored by: Anonymous (Anonymous User) on Friday, January 10 2003 @ 04:26 pm EST

uh, o.k.!
I'll take that as an indication that automatic story importing would a BAD
THING and drop that particular line of inquiry. I can imagine that security
might be an issue.

At the risk of stepping into similar territory: would you see problems with
a static page or external page that was programmatically updated?

Thanks.

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