Import Window

This tab allows the user to specify an existing file whose contents are to be added to the current collection.

Visit our list of Known Wisdom Sources for a list of wisdom collections available to be imported.

Note that, on a Mac, a file to be imported may be simply dragged and dropped onto the iWisdom icon.

Controls

The following controls are provided on this screen.

Import from File...: This button opens a file browser that lets you select a file to be imported.
Favorites: Select a Web site from the drop down menu. The appropriate URL will be entered for you in the field below. Clicking on the Import button will then cause the selected collection to be imported.
URL: A Web URL may be typed or pasted into this field.
Import from URL...: The URL specified above will be accessed and wisdom contained therein will be added to the current collection.

Import Logic

Each wisdom item in the import file will be compared to each item in the current wisdom collection. If an existing item with the same wisdom body is found, then the new item will not be added, to avoid duplication. Instead, the contents of the new item will be compared to the existing item, and any information present on the new item that is missing from the current item will be added to it. In other words, the two items will be merged, and their fields combined.

If a new item has the same title as an existing item, but not the same body, then the new item will be added, with a digit appended to the end of the title in order to uniquely identify that particular item.

Import File Formats

iWisdom can import quotation data from any of the following formats. Please note that not all of these formats contain all of the data elements stored in iWisdom, so not all iWisdom fields will be fully populated when importing. Required file extensions are included after the format name, in parentheses.

tab-delimited (.tab)

The file extension should be "tab". When importing from a tab-delimited file, the columns may be in any order. The allowable columns are defined below. Where multiple column headings are recognized, the primary heading is given first, followed by acceptable alternates (delimited by slashes). Column headings will be recognized irrespective of capitalization, spacing, or punctuation. In other words, "assignedTo" will work just as well as "ASSIGNED TO".

Category: You may leave this blank, or assign a single category, or a primary category and one or more sub-categories. Sub-categories may be separated from other category levels with a forward slash ("/") or a period (".") when being entered by the user, although they will subsequently be converted to a standard format that uses periods as separators.
Category 1 through Category 5: The first five category levels may be input and will be output as separate fields. Note that outputting these category levels as separate fields allows them to be used as group variables within Web templates, so that you can recreate the Tree view in a Web template.
author: The name(s) of the authors. These should be first-name first. If two authors, the names should be in the form "Herb Bowie and Mark Twain". If three or more authors, they should be in the form "Herb Bowie, Mark Twain and William James".
Source: The title of the book or other work from which the wisdom is taken.
Rating: Your rating of this item, on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 being the highest rating. New items default to a rating of 3.
Source Type: The type of work from which the wisdom is taken, such as "Book".
Rights: The type of rights held on this wisdom item, such as "Copyright".
Year: The year of initial publication for the wisdom item.
Source ID: The identifier for the source (such as an ISBN for a book).
Title: The title of the wisdom item
Body: The actual wisdom.
Rights Owner: The owner of the rights to this wisdom item.
Webpage: A URL for a link for this item.
Minor Title: Such as a title of an article within a magazine.
Source Link: A URL providing information about the Source of the wisdom item.
Author Link: A URL providing information about the author.

Excel (.xls)

Excel files may be imported, using the same field specified for the tab-delimited format.

Text (.txt)

Text files may be imported. Word documents can be imported by first saving them in plain text format. Only quotations and authors will be expected.

xmlquotes (.xml)

An XML format used by xml-quotes.el.

QML (.xml)

An XML file used by the program QuotEdit.

QEL -- Quotation Exchange Language (.xml)

An XML format for exchanging collections of quotations.

wisdom (.xml)

The native XML format used by iWisdom.

http://www.powersurgepub.com/ | import.html | Revised: 11/15/08