Manningtree (and crossoak) run on [update: used to run on] blogger, something that’s worked consistently since sometime in 2005. Now, Google, who acquired Blogger, are phasing out support for the mechanism I use to sync from the blogger platform to aiddy.com. For various reasons, I’m not about to jump on the suggested alternative: custom domains so it’s going to be bye bye to blogger and hello to something else.
First Gotcha: Open services are limited
“Openness” is a good thing, some people think so good that “open systems win”. The trouble is that open is a slippery thing, I can’t just grab the blogger code and run it on a server I control because that code is available to me. The code for blogger isn’t “open”. This is one of the problems of the services world – the service can change, or go away, and you have no control. That’s a contrast to the software that runs on my computer where I decide whether the value of upgrading is worth the cost (in $ or time).
This meant that I couldn’t just move the blog without some surgery, the surgery meaning choosing something else to run the blog. I went with WordPress. Nuff said.
Open data to the rescue
Fortunately, although closed at the code level, blogger is open at the data level. You can export to an XML file (formatted as ATOM file) either directly into another blog platform or manually from the blogger dashboard to party on with your own code. Google provide the details.
Using this capability I was all set to move to an alternative way of hosting, without loosing too much (see the third gotcha). The auto import into WordPress failed (I suspect that was because of the way I FTP publish but I couldn’t be bothered to explore further) but someone wrote some code to convert between formats and helpfully hosted it on appengine.
Second Gotcha: Deep Linking
Deep linking is one of those great things that you miss only when it’s gone. Deep linking lets people link to content within a site. Moving from Blogger to Wordpress meant changing the way pages are referenced (actually it doesn’t, although it’s a real PITA to get the two to mesh) which means that although you can easily import posts, existing links to content from external or internal pages break unless you retain the existing structure.
Third Gotcha: Devil in the detail
It’s all the small things that get you. Importing (or not) comments; finding plug-ins to replicate things like recent posts; figuring out why imports failed (process memory limits on the server) and how to work around; getting the custom root configured; tweaking CSS; and having to do it all twice.
Reflection
It all appears to be up and running now, and it’s better than before since I have more control to tweak and customize, except it was good enough before so the “better” isn’t really better. This little episode highlighted some of the good things about ‘openness’ and also some of the limits, and why it’s an idea to beware of open services that aren’t. I’m sure James will remind me of that.