[DRAFT] LiveJournal-compatible software for Macintosh and Unix

[atdrake]

Backup Utilities

• export.bml
• jbackup.pl
• ljdump
• ljmigrate

export.bml

The built-in LiveJournal website export tool.

Author: LiveJournal

Compatible with non-LJ servers: Technically, yes.

OS: Any.

Interface: Interactive webpage.

Source: Yes, included in LJ source code.

Requirements: Web browser.

Features

• Choice of CSV and XML formats.
• Metadata fields are custom-selectable for export.
• Export both personal journals and communities.

Advantages

• Usable on every platform.
• Available on every LJ-code-based website by appending /export.bml to the domain name.

Disadvantages

• Tags and userpic keywords are not preserved.
• Comments are not preserved.
• Only one month can be downloaded at a time.

Notes

• 
  The LiveJournal parser tool has been written to parse exported XML entries.
  
  However, it only prints to screen and cannot handle non-ASCII characters in the text.
  

jbackup.pl

LiveJournal's developer backup utility.

Author: LiveJournal

Compatible with non-LJ servers: Yes.

OS: Any with Perl installed.

Interface: Command-line script.

Source: Yes

Requirements: Perl, with the following modules compiled and installed:

• gdbm
• Compress::Raw::Zlib
• Compress::Zlib
• HTML::Parser
• IO::Compress::Base
• IO::Compress::Zlib
• libwwwperl
• SOAP-Lite
• TermReadKey
• URI
• XML::Parser

Features

• Downloads both entries and comments from journals and communities.
• Saves all information to database format for offline access.
• Can export HTML, XML, or raw text dumps.
• Can check for and only download updated entries.
• Option to only output public entries when exporting from database.
• Option to set all public journal entries to friends-only or private.
• Option to skip downloading comments.
• Can set frequently used options in a preferences file.

Advantages

• Only known utility that can preserve community comments.
• Can export multiple times in multiple formats from single data fetch without having to redownload.
• Preserves userpic keyword and tag metadata.

Disadvantages

• Depends on having many Perl modules pre-installed and for some platforms, may require a recompile of Perl itself to get working.

Notes

• 
  --file=YOUREXPORTED.TXT does not work in conjunction with --format=raw.
  
  If you don't want it to spit out to screen, you will have to --format=raw >> YOUREXPORTED.TXT instead.
  
  
• I haven't tested the friends-locking option and have no idea whether it really works or not.

ljdump

Python command-line fetcher for entries and comments

Author: Greg Hewgill/ghewgill

Compatible with non-LJ servers: Yes.

OS: Any with Python installed.

Interface: Command-line script.

Source: Yes.

Requirements: Python.

Features

• Fetches entries and comments from personal journals.
• Fetches userpic data associated with entries.
• Entries and the collected comments for entries each go to their own file, linked by the shared entry number in the file name.
• Settings kept in config files individualized for each journal.

Advantages

• Keeps entries and comments separate.
• Easily parseable XML file format.

Disadvantages

• Can only back up personal journals.

Notes

• 
  The entire script will stall if you have userpic keywords containing non-ASCII characters.
  
  The workaround is to comment out the portions of the script which fetches part of the userpic data, specifically:
  
  # 'getpickws': 1,
  # 'getpickwurls': 1,
  
  at lines 162-163
  
  # userpics = dict(zip(r['pickws'], r['pickwurls']))
  # userpics['*'] = r['defaultpicurl']
  
  at lines 165-166 and
  
  # f = open("%s/userpics.xml" % Username, "w")
  # print >>f, """"""
  # print >>f, ""
  # for p in userpics:
  # print >>f, """""" % (p, userpics[p])
  # print >>f, ""
  # f.close()
  
  from 259-265.
  
  Userpic metadata on the entries will still be preserved. All you'll be missing is the usermap.xml associating the list of keywords to the urls of your icons on the server.
  
  

The following clients can also save journal entries:

• Charm
• DeepestSender
• Phoenix LJ
• Petrus Blogger
• Xjournal

Posting Clients

• Charm
• DeepestSender
• iJournal
• Phoenix LJ
• Petrus Blogger
• Xjournal

Common LiveJournal Annoyances and How to Rid Yourself of Them


The Navigation Strip

The setting for turning the Navigation Strip on or off used to be located at the Viewing Options page.

With the redesign of the Journal Customization Area, it has moved to the Customize Journal Style page, although the Navigation Strip Settings on the Manage Account page still points to the old location.


Switching from Rich Text to Plain Text Editor and back again.

Supposedly the default setting is to remember which you last selected and use it again. If you find that you keep getting stuck with one or the other, simply go to the appropriate hidden settings page and select whichever you prefer.

Also on LiveJournal's unadvertised Change Settings page, several other changes you can make without having to head over to the Manage Accounts area, assuming you can find whatever it is there.


Possibly the most useful one: anti-spambot e-mail address mangling, for users who show their contact info in their profiles. Naturally, this is off by default.

Last updated: 2008-03-19 - added links to entries where I tested stuff. Will rewrite and incorporate in more polished format later. Also new app, Petrus Blogger.


Backup tools

Most backup tools operate from the command-line and do simple data dumps of the entries in your journal, with or without comments. Some have additional options to let you migrate your entries from one journal to another, or choose the formatting of the backed-up entries.


Name: ljdump
Author: Greg Hewgill/ghewgill
OS: any with Python installed
Interface: command-line script


Tested here: fetches comments. Chokes on userpic keywords with non-ASCII characters in them, instructions for workaround.


Name: ljmigrate
Author: antennapedia
OS: any with Python installed
Interface: command-line script, based on ljdump

Tested here: fetches personal journal's comments and userpics, can create html version of journal entries. Migrates from journal to journal or community to community, but cannot convert between them.


Name: jbackup.pl
Author: LiveJournal
OS: any with Perl installed
Interface: command-line script

Only known app that can back up community comments. Very frustrating to install, due to unnoted dependencies. How to get the damn thing working here and here. Stores entries and comments in database, with export in html and xml formats as well as raw text dump.

--file=YOUREXPORTED.TXT does not work with --format=raw, so if dumping from raw format, will have to >> YOUREXPORTED.TXT instead.


Name: ljrb/LiveJournal Ruby Module
Author: Evan Martin/evan_tech
OS: any with Ruby installed
Interface: command-line module for Ruby scripts to use

Untested: haven't found the time to try and install it properly yet.


Name: Charm
OS: any with Python installed
Interface: command-line interactive
Dependencies: Universal Feed Parser python module
Community: ljcharm

Tested here: archive function works well enough, no comments preserved.

Off-site posting clients

An off-site posting client allows you to type up entries while not logged in, or offline, and then post them later. Most clients will allow you to work on or at least save and reload drafts of multiple entries.

Some will also auto-detect the music you are listening to, and make it easy for you to browse through and edit older entries in your journal.

Many, but not all, clients are also compatible with other LiveJournal-based sites.


Name: xJournal
Author: Fraser Speirs et. al.
OS: Mac OS X
Interface: GUI
Source: available
Community: xjournal

Tested here: Browsable and searchable History for main account, which also allows you to edit older entries. How to compile for non-LJ servers.

Can open and save many draft entries at once, in as many windows as you can handle.

Good HTML preview which shows contents of LJ-cut, as well as cut text. Attempting to set a custom date/time on entries seems to require also backdating them.


Name: LJ Phoenix
Author:
OS: Mac OS X, Mac OS Classic
Interface: GUI
Source: available
Community: phoenix_lj

Notes: can crosspost to journals hosted on the same service, access previous entries by date to edit. No HTML post preview. Can only work on one entry at a time.


Name: iJournal
Author:
OS: Mac OS X
Interface: GUI
Source: available
Dependencies: Sparkle, for 1.79
Community: ijournal

Tested Developer version here: instructions on compiling.

Can only access most recently posted entry to edit. Sucky HTML preview which doesn't show contents of LJ-cut in regular 1.79 version, buggy HTML preview which does in newer developer version.

1.79 and lower can only work on one entry at a time, and have an annoying habit of cluttering up the folder you've chosen to save entries in with autosaved revisions.

Newer developer version can open multiple entries in multiple windows, but seems to omit icon selection.


Name: DeepestSender
Author:
OS: any with Firefox
Interface: GUI
Source: available
Dependencies:
Community:

Tested here: was my default for a while, had an IJ Unicode metadata editing incompatibility problem which eventually went away.

Good HTML preview option which shows formatting of contents of cut when clicked. Tiny squinty non-adjustable font in Source view.

Can browse through a listing of past entries in own journal and community, and pull up entries for editing.

Drafts do not preserve metadata, so you'll have to re-enter your tags and music and location and mood if loading up a saved entry.

Can only work on one entry at a time. except when editing an older post which will bring up a new window while the current post window is still open.


Name: Petrus Blogger
Author: Petr Panteleyev
OS: Mac OS X
Interface: GUI
Source: available
Dependencies: Java
Community: Petrus Blogger Forum (Google Group)

Tested: multiple accounts on multiple servers, can crosspost between personal and community journals (but not different accounts), pull up and export history in all journals, including comments (not available on community posts), batch-edit multiple metadata values on selected posts at once (mood, music, filter settings, comment screening). Save and load drafts, work offline.

Can preview post in application or external browser, and shows contents of cut text in preview when clicked.

Which accounts you are working in (several can be opened at once, and several posts at a time, as well) are shown at the top of the posting interface, in ACCOUNTNAME@SERVER format.

Available in English and Russian interface, comes with decent-quality illustrated instruction manual in English. Can cache userpics for faster login time and/or display in offline editing mode.

Drawbacks: Adding support for non-LJ-hosted servers besides LJ.Rossia.org requires tweaking the source code (in MainFrame.java and LJServers.java). Forces a userpic (no “Default”/none setting available), which is annoying for those of us who like not having one automatically or specifically set, but this is probably also tweakable in the code.

Slightly confusing MDI interface insists on throwing up all new windows in the space of the containing one.