Easily import static HTML websites on the file system into Plone
Project description
mr.importer
Easily import static websites on the file system into Plone via a command like:
$ bin/plone run bin/import /path/to/files
Introduction
mr.importer is a Buildout recipe that creates a script for you to easily get content from static HTML websites on the file system into Plone.
Warning
This is a Buildout recipe for use with Plone; by itself it does nothing. If you don’t know what Plone is, please see: http://plone.org. If you don’t know what Buildout is, please see: http://www.buildout.org/.
Getting started
First, a couple caveats:
A Plone site object must exist in the Zope2 instance database. By default in mr.importer, that site object is assumed to be named “Plone”.
An admin user must exist in the Zope2 instance database (or Plone site). By default in mr.importer that user is assumed to be named “admin”.
And because it drives the author nuts whenever he has to dig for a recipe’s options, here are this recipe’s options with sample values:
[import] recipe = mr.importer # core features path = /Plone user = admin illegal_chars = _ . + illegal_words = illegal_expressions = html_extensions = html image_extensions = png file_extensions = mp3 target_tags = p # additional features force = false publish = false collapse = false create_spreadsheet = false replacetypes = rename = match = paths =
Installation
You can install mr.importer by editing your buildout.cfg file like so. First add an import section:
[import] recipe = mr.importer
Then add the import section to the list of parts:
[buildout]
...
parts =
...
import
Now run bin/buildout as usual.
Execution
Now you can run mr.importer like this:
$ bin/plone run bin/import /path/to/files
Example
If you have a site in /var/www/html that contains the following:
/var/www/html/index.html /var/www/html/about/index.html
You should run:
$ bin/plone run bin/import /var/www/html
And the following will be created:
Customization
Modifying the default behavior of mr.importer is easy; just use the command line options or add parameters to your buildout.cfg file. Both approaches allow customization of the exact same set of options, but the command line arguments will trump any settings found in your buildout.cfg file.
Buildout options
You can configure the following parameters in your buildout.cfg file in the mr.importer recipe section.
Options
Parameter |
Default value |
Description |
path |
/Plone |
Specify an alternate location in the database for the import to occur. |
user |
admin |
Specify an alternate user to import content with. |
illegal_chars |
_ . |
Specify illegal characters. mr.importer will ignore files that contain these characters. |
html_extensions |
html |
Specify HTML file extensions. mr.importer will import HTML files with these extensions |
image_extensions |
png, gif, jpg, jpeg, |
Specify image file extensions. mr.importer will import image files with these extensions. |
file_extensions |
mp3, xls |
Specify image file extensions. mr.importer will import files with with these extensions as files in Plone (unless you configure create_spreadsheet=true, see below) |
target_tags |
a h1 h2 p |
Specify target tags. mr.importer will parse the contents of HTML tags listed. If any tag is provided as an XPath expression (any expression begining with /) the matching elements will first be extracted from the root document. Selections for the contents of other tags will then be performed only on the document subset. If only XPath expressions are given, then the entire subtree of the matched elements are returned (including HTML) |
force |
false |
Force create folders that do not exist. For example, if you do –path=/Plone/foo and foo does not exist, you will get an error message. Use –force to tell mr.importer to create it. |
publish |
false |
Publish newly created content. |
collapse |
false |
“collapse” content. (see collapse_parts() in mr.importer.py) |
rename |
Rename content. (see rename_parts() in mr.importer.py |
|
replacetypes |
Use custom types. (see replace_types()) |
|
match |
Match files. (see match_files()) |
|
paths |
Specify a series of locations on the filesystem, with corresponding locations in the database for imports, with syntax: –paths=import_dirs:object_paths (–path will be ignored) |
|
create_spreadsheet |
false |
Create “spreadsheets”. (see create_spreadsheet() in mr.importer.py) |
Example
Instead of accepting the default mr.importer behaviour, in your buildout.cfg file you may specify the following:
[import] recipe = mr.importer path = /Plone/foo html_extensions = htm image_extensions = png target_tags = p
This will configure mr.importer to (only) import content from:
Images ending in .png
HTML files ending in .htm
Text within p tags
to:
A folder named /Plone/foo.
Command line options
The following mr.importer command line options are supported.
Options
'--path', '-p'
You can specify an alternate import path (‘/Plone’ by default) with --path or -p:
$ bin/plone run bin/import /path/to/files --path=/Plone/foo
'--html-extensions'
You can specify HTML file extensions with the --html-extensions option:
$ bin/plone run bin/import /path/to/files --html-extensions=htm
'--image-extensions'
You can specify image file extensions with the --image-extensions option:
$ bin/plone run bin/import /path/to/files --image-extensions=png
'--file-extensions'
You can specify generic file extensions with the --file-extensions option:
$ bin/plone run bin/import /path/to/files --file-extensions=pdf
'--force'
Force create folders that do not exist.
'--publish'
Publish newly created content.
'--collapse'
“collapse” content (see collapse_parts() in mr.importer.py).
'--rename'
Rename content (see rename_files()).
'--replacetypes'
Customize types (see replace_types() in mr.importer.py).
'--match'
Match files (see match_files() mr.importer.py).
'--paths'
You can specify a series of import paths and corresponding object paths:
$ bin/plone run bin/import --paths=sample:Plone/sample,sample2:Plone/sample2
'--create-spreadsheet'
You can optionally tell mr.importer to try and import the contents of any spreadsheets it finds, by doing this:
$ bin/plone run bin/import --create-spreadsheet /var/www/html
If /var/www/html/foo.xls exists and has content, then a http://localhost:8080/Plone/foo will be created as a page, with the contents of the spreadsheet in an HTML table.
'--help'
And lastly, you can always ask mr.importer to tell you about its available options with the --help or -h option:
$ bin/plone run bin/import -h
Example
Instead of accepting the default mr.importer behaviour, on the command line you may specify the following:
$ bin/plone run bin/import /path/to/files -p /Plone/foo --html-extensions=html \
--image-extensions=png --target-tags=p
This will configure mr.importer to (only) import content from:
Images ending in .png
HTML files ending in .htm
Text within p tags
to:
A Plone site folder named /Plone/foo.
Troubleshooting
Here are some trouble-shooting comments/tips.
Compiling lxml
mr.importer requires lxml which in turn requires libxml2 and libxslt. If you do not have lxml installed “globally” (i.e. in your system Python’s site-packages directory) then Buildout will try to install it for you. At this point lxml will look for the libxml2/libxslt2 development libraries to build against, and if you don’t have them installed on your system already your mileage may vary (i.e. Buildout will fail).
Database access
Before running mr.importer, you must either stop your Plone site or use ZEO. Otherwise mr.importer will not be able to access the database.
Contact
Questions, comments, or concerns? Please e-mail: aclark@aclark.net.
Credits
Development sponsored by Radio Free Asia
History
1.0a5 (02/05/2011)
Rename parse2plone to mr.importer
Repackage as needed
Switch to kwargs in main()
Better _SETTINGS handling
Add support for illegal_expressions check
Add “Keep going!” feature (to ignore errors)
Add all HTML4 tags to target_tags
1.0a4 (01/12/2011)
Remove Plone dep
1.0a3 (11/17/2010)
Bug fix: TypeError: join() takes exactly one argument (2 given) related to specifying import dir on on command line (as args[0]) fixed
Fix tests
1.0a2 (11/17/2010)
Add spreadsheet import feature
Fix docs
1.0a1 (11/17/2010)
Moved development to the (experimental) collective on Github
0.9.9 (11/16/2010)
Added a large number of tests; performed associated refactoring; 50% test coverage
0.9.8 (11/12/2010)
Add “paths” feature to allow multi-import dirs (on the file system), and corresponding object paths (in Plone) to be specified.
0.9.7 (11/08/2010)
Fix import error
Add file handler to logger; saves output to a file called “parse2plone.log”
0.9.6 (11/08/2010)
Fixes to “match” feature
Combine all modules into one
Remove a stray pdb (!)
Add tests (we’re at 20% test coverage people!)
Update docs
0.9.5 (11/08/2010)
Add match feature
Add more project justifications to the docs
0.9.4 (11/06/2010)
Remove bin/import script whenever recipe is uninstalled [aclark4life]
Add support for XPath syntax in target_tags [derek]
Add “typeswap” feature [aclark4life]
Update docs [aclark4life]
0.9.3 (11/04/2010)
Add Plone 2.5 compat
Bug fixes
Better handling of file system path; better base dir calculation
0.9.2 (11/03/2010)
More doc fixes
0.9.1 (11/03/2010)
Doc fixes
0.9.0 (11/03/2010)
Fix regressions introduced (or unresolved as of) 0.8.2. Thanks Derek Broughton for the bug report(s)
Many fixes to convert_parameter_values() method which converts recipe parameters to arguments passed to main()
Fix “slugify” feature
0.8.2 (11/02/2010)
Add rename feature
Fix regressions introduced in 0.8.1
0.8.1 (10/29/2010)
Refactor options/parameters functionality to universally support _SETTINGS dict
Add “slugify” feature
Doc fixes
Add support to optionally publish content after creation
Add support for generic file import
0.8 (10/27/2010)
Support the importing of content to folders within the Plone site object
0.7 (10/25/2010)
Documentation fixes
0.6 (10/25/2010)
Support customization via recipe parameters and command line arguments
0.5 (10/22/2010)
Revert ‘Add Plone to install_requires’
0.4 (10/22/2010)
Add ‘Plone’ to install_requires
0.3 (10/22/2010)
Another setuptools fix
0.2 (10/22/2010)
Setuptools fix
0.1 (10/21/2010)
Initial release
Release history Release notifications | RSS feed
Download files
Download the file for your platform. If you're not sure which to choose, learn more about installing packages.
