Author Topic: "Migrating" previous site non-WP manually-managed podcast XML/RSS  (Read 1383 times)

AlanOfTheBerg

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I've done a lot of searching here and googling, but haven't found the info, maybe due to bad keyword usage. I have a large (almost 8 years) XML file which is still my primary podcast file. I'd like to at least not have to work too hard at migrating over just this year's (2013) worth of podcast data/info. The current file is managed manually. Yes, by text editor. Is there an easy or easy-ish way to get these info PowerPress? (My gut is telling me "no, because PP uses categorized posts to build the XML feed.")

Thanks for any hints or tips you can offer.
-Alan

angelo

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Re: "Migrating" previous site non-WP manually-managed podcast XML/RSS
« Reply #1 on: August 09, 2013, 01:51:31 pm »
Import the feed using normal WordPress RSS import. You want a link to the media URL in your description. Without seeing your current hand written feed I could tell you if you're going to have problems or not. The link in the description though is how all other blogging systems podcast, including blogger, moviable type, etc... and that's how WordPress will detect the podcast when it imports your feed.

AlanOfTheBerg

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Re: "Migrating" previous site non-WP manually-managed podcast XML/RSS
« Reply #2 on: August 09, 2013, 08:41:46 pm »
Thanks angelo. The URL of this "standlone" feed is http://newbergfriends.org/nfcmedia/nfc_podcast_itunes.xml

I've never imported a feed, so I'll have to look into this process so I can understand what it will "look like" once imported.

angelo

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Re: "Migrating" previous site non-WP manually-managed podcast XML/RSS
« Reply #3 on: August 10, 2013, 11:59:34 am »
This is what I recommend. For every item, there's a <description>. You will want to add a media link to the enclosure URL into the description of each item.

e.g. before: <description>Sunday July 3, 2005 Worship Service</description>
after: <description>Sunday July 3, 2005 Worship Service &lt;a href=&quot;http://newbergfriends.org/nfcmedia/2005/NFC_July_3_2005.mp3&quot;&gt;Download&lt;/a&gt;</description>

I created the content within the description using this resource: http://www.tools4noobs.com/online_php_functions/htmlspecialchars/

I pasted in pasted in: Sunday July 3, 2005 Worship Service <a href="http://newbergfriends.org/nfcmedia/2005/NFC_July_3_2005.mp3">Download</a>

It gave me: Sunday July 3, 2005 Worship Service &lt;a href=&quot;http://newbergfriends.org/nfcmedia/2005/NFC_July_3_2005.mp3&quot;&gt;Download&lt;/a&gt;

Once you have all your media linked in some form in your <descriptions> of each item, then you can use the RSS2 feed import tool built into WordPress (it's a plugin you install when you navigate into the import section of WordPress, it's part of WordPress.org).

Then, once your posts are imported, go to PowerPress Tools > Import from other blogging platform (like Blogger, Movable Type, etc...), it will show all your media files with options to import them as podcast episodes, detect the file size and duration, etc... Once you do this migration, you're done.

We do this stuff quite often for clients, we have scripts that automate the process of putting the links into the description. So if you get frustrated or want to hand this off to someone else, feel free to contact us about our consulting. Something like this can be done within an hour. Consulting details: http://create.blubrry.com/support/podcast-consulting-services/

AlanOfTheBerg

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Re: "Migrating" previous site non-WP manually-managed podcast XML/RSS
« Reply #4 on: August 10, 2013, 08:18:05 pm »
Wow, thanks for that information Angelo! If the church wants all the previous audio in the same XML, I will do this process.