How I Built and Released Feed Importer for Blogger: A WordPress Plugin for Seamless Migration

#blogger #wordpress #plugin #importer

Hey Dev.to community! 👋 I'm excited to share my latest project: Feed Importer for Blogger, a WordPress plugin that's now live on the official repository. As a developer who loves solving real-world problems, I created this tool to help bloggers migrate from Blogger to WordPress without the hassle. Let's dive into the journey, the code, and how you can use or contribute to it.

The Problem: Migrating Blogs Sucks
Blogger is great for quick starts, but WordPress offers more power for customization and SEO. However, importing content manually? Tedious. Existing tools were either paid, limited, or overcomplicated. I needed something free, open-source, and developer-friendly.

Enter Feed Importer for Blogger v1.0.0. It pulls RSS/Atom feeds from Blogger, imports posts, handles images, and integrates into WordPress seamlessly.

Key Features and Architecture
The plugin is built with modularity in mind. Here's the core structure:

Main Plugin File: blogger-feed-importer.php – Hooks into WordPress, registers the importer.
Admin Page: class-admin-page.php – Provides a UI for feed URL input and import options.
Importer Logic: class-blogger-importer.php – Parses feeds, creates posts, handles metadata.
Image Handler: class-image-handler.php – Downloads and optimizes images.
Assets: CSS/JS for the admin interface.

How to Use It

Install from WordPress.org.
Go to Tools > Import > Blogger Feed Importer.
Paste your Blogger feed URL.
Hit Import—done!
For devs: Fork the GitHub repo (assuming you set one up) to extend it. Add comment import or custom fields easily.

Challenges and Lessons Learned

Feed Parsing: Blogger feeds vary; I used WordPress's fetch_feed for reliability.
Image Handling: Downloading images securely without timeouts was tricky—added retries and size limits.
Testing: Unit tests for classes, manual testing on staging sites.
SVN Upload: WordPress.org uses SVN—painful but necessary. Used TortoiseSVN for the win.
Pro tip: Always validate inputs and sanitize data to avoid security issues.

Why Open-Source?
This plugin is free because migration tools should be accessible. Contribute via issues/PRs—let's make it better!

What's Next?
Future plans: Comment syncing, API integrations, and more. Hit me up if you have ideas.

Check it out, star the repo, and share your feedback. Happy coding! 🚀