So, you have a group with a history and want to republish it. There it is, hundreds of diaries, all tagged and ready. Garrett wrote a PERL script and offered instructions for Mac and Linux users in his diary: A Program to Import Tagged Diaries Into a Group. All blockquotes in this diary are from Garrett's diary.
I have Windows 7 and have used the script in the past but did not write down the blow by blow as I should have. Recently I got a new SSD and as a consequence reloaded the OS and now find myself needing to run the script again to update gussians and this time you get to watch.
How to Get the Program
You can copy and paste the program from a Google doc. I've found that using their "Download as" mangles it somehow, so you have to select it all, copy it, paste it into a text editor or a word processor, and be sure to save it as plain text.
I travel to the link, Edit/Select All/Copy and:
Minor Fail. Why Firefox 3.6 can't get along with 64 bit Windows 7 is a mystery.
So, Edit/Select All/Ctrl-C and I have it on my clipboard.
Right Click the Desktop/New/Text Document
Rename 'New Text Document' 'tag2group'
Double Click on tag2group.txt to open it
Right click/Paste and save.
Move the file to your Home directory. This is so PERL can find it. In the old days you could put anywhere in your PATH. In my case that's c/USERS/aoeu.
Remember: these instructions are for 64 bitWindows 7. YMMV.
Now to install PERL.
See if anyone else in the group (5+ / 0-)
has a Mac.
I'm somewhat not wanting to say, ActivePerl Community Edition for Windows, because from what I remember, it's a burden to install. Maybe not, anymore.
by Garrett on Thu Feb 24, 2011 at 07:46:40 PM EST
I went to the link and picked the top one on the theory that it is the latest stable version:
I use noscript so I had to choose both orange items:
Open the Installer from Downloads:
Next:
Accept the license:
Pick every option, it's the only way to be sure . . .
Accept the default choices/Next/Install:
Allow User Account Control:
. . . and Finish:
Now to run the script. Garrett's instructions didn't help me all that much. There was no password prompt.
Instructions for Use
Fire up a command line terminal. For a Mac, this is Finder -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal.app. Change to the directory where you put the program. Run the program approximately so:
You must tell the program your Daily Kos user name, your Daily Kos login password, the group you want to republish to, and the tag you want to import. If you don't specify your password on the command line, the program will prompt you for it.
This is how I did it.
Open Command Prompt. Start/All Programs/Accessories/Command Prompt:
I keep the command in a text file. I copy it to my Clipboard and Paste it into the Command Prompt by right clicking on the title bar and then Edit/Paste:
The orange bit is my DKos password. Enter et voila this is what it looks like when it is working:
It takes a while. The first time I let it go overnight as there were a lot of GUS tagged diaries. Rather to my delight the script seems to skip over the previously republished diaries quickly so additional runs go pretty quickly. This is the gussians list view right before running the script. I last ran the script on 06May and manually republished the top item:
Now the script is finished:
and the gussians list view:
Amazingly enough I was able to do this on the very first try this time without any beating of my head on the keyboard and I did not have to edit this diary as I went along to undo mistakes.
Thank you Garrett.