Does anybody know how to write a DU conversion program

[Kelvin Mace]

that would take standard HTML article and convert it to the specialized commands that DU uses for HTML?

I crosspost things from my blog to DU, as do others, and having to reformat the text is a major pain..

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. What sort of commands?

Like & and an amp and whatnot?

That's UTF-8 text encoding commands.

[Kelvin Mace]

9. No,

Stuff like converting <blockquote> to the {div class="excerpt"}{/div} (I used "{} instead of "[" in order to show the command) and http links to the DU convention.

[Matariki]

2. Couldn't you run it through MS Word using find and replace?

i.e. replace <b> with [b] etc

[k8conant]

3. I think you just need to change [ to < and ] to >

The Message options say: "HTML tags can be used in your
message simply by using [ and ] symbols in place of < and
> symbols, respectively."

[Matariki]

4. I think we're saying the same thing -

but i'm not sure ;-)

[k8conant]

5. Yes we are, but I had to switch to plain text to show it correctly...n/t

[Kelvin Mace]

7. Yes, that is how I do it now

but when you have a long post with lots of links and blockquotes it gets tedious. I have to believe someone may have written a script or short prog, or can whip one up with a a small exertion of their hacker fu to address this annoyance. :)

[Kelvin Mace]

10. Also

some of the DU HTML commands don't lend themselves to straight "search & replace". Hyperlinks for example:

{link:www.dcscripts.com|DCScripts}

as opposed to:

<a href="" target="_blank"></a>

[AlCzervik]

6. this might be helpful or then again maybe it's not.

http://www.iterapi.com/dccode.html

[Kelvin Mace]

8. If I am using this right

it doesn't seem to do what I want. Thanks for the link though.

[Kelvin Mace]

11. Kick for the late afternoon shift to read

[seemslikeadream]

12. mogster might have what you're looking for

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/mogster

DU-o-matic codificator (DC-board codewrapper w/text tools)
http://www.iterapi.com/dccode.html

[Kelvin Mace]

14. This has been recommended

but I don't quite see how it works. It seems to be for writing posts and using it to insert the right DU codes. I have already written the post in standard HTML and am looking for something to take my text and convert it to the DU code without having to write to separate posts for two separate places.

[IDemo]

13. I use a utility I created in Visual Basic

Here's a screenshot (with a small character map that has since been expanded):

[Kelvin Mace]

15. Again, I think your tool

is for writing posts that insert the commands as you go. I have already written the posts using regular HTML for my blog. I would like to cross-post to DU without re-typing all the commands. I have been using "Search & Replace" but it is a tedious and imperfect solution.

I need a tool (on or offline) that will take an existing HTML doc and convert the codes to the DU style codes.

[IDemo]

18. I'm kind of limited in my programming abilities to Visual Basic

If you have either VB 6.0 or Microsoft Office, you can create a .exe or a VBA macro and use the "Replace" command. It will replace every instance of all terms you include in a single pass, instead of having to use multiple "search and replace" operations in Word.

Example:

Private Sub HTML_to_DU( )
Dim HTML as string
Dim DU as string

HTML = "blah blah blah <blockquote> blah blah blah </blockquote>" ' or you could paste your html into a textbox and read it from there
DU = Replace( HTML, "<blockquote>", "{div class="excerpt"}")
DU = Replace( DU, "</blockquote>", "{/div}")
DU = Replace( DU, "the next item to replace", "what to replace it with")
' repeat above line as many times as needed
Text1.text = DU

End sub

[Kelvin Mace]

20. The problem gets real tricky with the hyperlink command

since you can't do a straight substitution.

Aaaargh! :(

[ChromeFoundry]

16. what operating system do you use?

[Kelvin Mace]

21. Windows 2000 pro

[Ghost in the Machine]

17. Have you tried Simple Search & Replace?

Simple Search-Replace v1.03
If you need to find and replace text, or just find text, this utility is a must have. It is significantly faster and easier to use than any other search and replace utility out there.


© Copyright 2004, RJL Software, Inc.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Product Description
Simple Search/Replace is like a replacement for the Windows "containing text" option found in their search window. It is extremely fast and allows for the option of replacing that text with different text. There are many features of this free software such as backup support, case sensitivity, multiple file types, subdirectory support and more. After searching or replacing the results tab will allow you to open the matched file(s) and view the contents as well as edit them.

Simple Search/Replace was designed for searching plain-ASCII text files, such as source code, TXT, HTML, RTF, batch files or any other text file you might have. Simple Search/Replace is a FREE software program. If you need to find and replace text, or just find text, this utility is a must have. It is significantly faster and easier to use than any other search and replace utility out there.

Product License
Freeware

How to Close
Click the File menu option and then choose Exit

Command Line Options
None

Requirements
Minimum System:


Pentium III 800MHz
128 MB RAM
327KB free disk space
Windows compatible mouse
Supported Operating System(s):

Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows ME
Windows XP
Windows NT
Windows 2000
Windows 2003

File Specifics
Windows Installer Size:
4451 KB

Compressed ZIP file size:
334 KB

Compressed EXE file size:
346 KB

Fully extracted file size:
327 KB

File Date:
Tuesday, September 14, 2004 at 9:14:04 PM


http://www.rjlsoftware.com/?search

[Kelvin Mace]

22. Discussed in an earlier post

works for simple commands, but not for complex commands like hyperlinks.

[merh]

19. use the site that mogster set up for all of us to use

http://www.iterapi.com/dccode.html

It makes formatting so easy.

Edited to add: I see others have provided you with mogster's link. Maybe you can pmail him and he can give you suggestions. He knows some stuff.

[Kelvin Mace]

23. Thanks!

I will. Mogster's program is great if you are wrint up your post from scratch, but I have already written in in standard HTML for my blog, and wish to cross-post to DU, so I need a converter.

[Make7]

24. Some info that might be useful...

Before I begin, is www.thoughtcrimes.org the blog you are referring to?

Many HTML tags will work just fine at DU - for instance, the [blockquote] tag will work, you really don't have to change it to a [div class="excerpt"] element.

The standard anchor tag will also work here. The following two commands will function identically:

     [link:www.google.com|Google]

     [a href="http://www.google.com"]Google[/a]

I'm not sure if DU will ignore the onclick and target attributes of the anchor tag, but it can't hurt to just try it to see what happens.

A big problem is with how standard HTML will handle line breaks compared to DU. When you enter a carriage return/line feed (i.e. hit the enter key) here, it automatically creates a line break in the page code, but in normal HTML source code line breaks occur when a tag forces one. So copying source code from your blog over here will likely result in extra spacing between lines (of which I'm sure you are aware).

If I were you, I would install the Signature extension in FireFox and define your blog's normal sections and special formatting as "signatures" to automatically insert the code for you and just copy and paste the text from each section of your blog posts. (After a brief glance over there, it looks like most of the formatting is pretty basic.) I would use the standard HTML anchor tag format to make the copy and pasting easier.

Hopefully at least some of that was worth reading and perhaps will save you some time when cross posting.

- Make7

[Kelvin Mace]

25. Thanks!

If this works, they must have changed something on the back end, as it didn't when I tried it a while back.

I'll give it a try today.