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Import / Export

H

HippyCraig

Well-known member
So now that Realm Works has been updated to support HTML formatting, is there going to be Import Export feature sooner than later. I have a lot of data in an XML format that I can easily transform to any format so that I can import it into RW. I would really not like to keep duplicating all over the place.

I was hoping that I could export a blank topic to see the formatting of the XML and then use that as a basis to create a transformed spell list in XML format to match the exported file from within RW, if that was available.

The whole point of having data on the computer is so that information can be transformed and used in different products.

Thoughts?
 
Sorry if that came across rude that wasn't my intent, I was just hoping that there would be an import/export utility so that i can move some of my existing data in.
 
HippyCraig said:
The whole point of having data on the computer is so that information can be transformed and used in different products.
Click to expand...

That may be right as far as other software is used. But definitely not with Realmworks - the only import interface is called "keyboard", and export is "screen".

You are certainly not the first person to be looking for something like that. :confused:
 
I am building a Star Wars Saga Realm and I'd like to import a list of species and a list of planets... I cannot seem to figure out how to do this... any words of wisdom ? Thank you.
 
DarthKurt said:
I am building a Star Wars Saga Realm and I'd like to import a list of species and a list of planets... I cannot seem to figure out how to do this... any words of wisdom ? Thank you.
Click to expand...

Right now, the only supported import method is a piece of wetware called the chair-to-keyboard interface, or the CKI. Fortunately, CKIs have a sufficient level of intelligence to accurately interpret the source data, but they have a rather low efficiency in creating the target data, and their error-checking algorithms are imperfect, to say the least.

CKIs are often referred to as humans. Because of their rudimentary intelligence, CKIs have a certain degree of free will, which means they may sometimes refuse to import your data. Some may require convincing. With newer CKIs (child processes), offering them something they call "pizza" may be effective. With older CKIs (parent processes), "beer" may be added as an incentive, though it may have a further detrimental effect on their already imperfect error-checking algorithms.
 
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I have never heard this one before! Hysterical. I love it. I am copying it off to share with my IT teammates.
 
Asandir said:
I have never heard this one before! Hysterical. I love it. I am copying it off to share with my IT teammates.
Click to expand...

That's because I just wrote it. :-) The "chair-to-keyboard interface" bit isn't originally mine, but the presentation as a whole is.
 
Back to topic: has anybody ever hacked the RW database? That seems to be the only way to extract information for use in other tools.
 
wurzel said:
Back to topic: has anybody ever hacked the RW database? That seems to be the only way to extract information for use in other tools.
Click to expand...

Not to my knowledge, but even if someone had, I wouldn't trust it, especially not long term. There's no guarantee that the database structure will remain static as updates are released and applied. Also, it seems to be a rather complex structure. I'm not sure how much confidence I would have that all the nuances and relationships could be reliably deduced by an outsider's reverse-engineering efforts.
 
Some folks did look into the data formatting and underlying database engine about two years ago. It's not worth the effort to reverse engineer if memory is correct. Especially because RW is constantly under development with some of the major features not yet implemented so the format is a moving target.
 
I've already raised my concerns about "Export", so I will leave that alone this time and talk about "Import".

Import presumes that your data is in a format usable by the program you want to import to. That, in turn, presumes that there is some pre-defined format that you've adhered to 100% of the time.

There is an entire industry making import programs. Database systems like Access and MS SQL Server (and others) include import tools in their client (user). Professional developers can spend days working on each import.. and each source file format is often unique. I don't mean format as in Excel or Word.. I mean that the Excel file that company A creates is different from the file created by company B... even if they're exported from the same program.

Files created by individual users are even more diverse. And files maintained by hand are just about guaranteed to be inconsistent.. meaning that even the same user will not keep all of the files 100% in the same layout every time. Which means that each import attempt is likely to have errors or totally fail.

LoneWolf is unlikely to provide tools for raw manipulation of the database. That just invites numerous additional support requests that LoneWolf is ill-equipped to deal with, as well as encouraging those who already skirt around suggesting breaking the security to think about it even more.

An "import" tool generic enough to be usable by each user separately would be an enormous investment of time and resources. If you think other features are delayed now, wait while LoneWolf creates, debugs, and releases an Import tool like that. 3 years delay on the Content Market might be about the right estimate for that tool.

Or, the alternative would be for LoneWolf to create an importer that accepts only one format... both of file type and content. Then, you would need to edit each of your files to conform to that format.. and fix any errors that come through one by one.

For that to really work, though, LoneWolf would need to be sure of the destination topics in the database. It could not work with any custom topics, or even customized versions of the standard topics. That would require the more flexible importer, instead. This may even be one of the reasons why there *are* globally standard categories... so that LoneWolf can at least import source files from publishers to get the content into the content market (that's a guess on my part, not any kind of real knowledge).

My point is that people asking for "import" don't seem to realize how hard that actually is. In the end, it is probably significantly more effective to just do it by hand than to hope that LoneWolf can solve all of the issues involved in writing an import process for the near-infinite variations of files created by home users.
 
Not to mention that it would be less than honorable.

All could be avoided by LWD making good on their deliverables.... and since we are now at the twilight of "early 2016"... we must still be content with .....
Soon™

:rolleyes::D
 
Silveras, thank you for your thoughtful post. I am tempted to create a short-cut in my text-expander to link to it in a reply post every time someone asks for (or especially complains about the lack of) an import tool. Some people seem to think that they will just feed their PDFs into RW and it will magically convert it into topics.

The closest I've seen to such functionality is with contract-management and applicant-tracking systems that extract information from contracts in the one case and resumes into the other and populate database fields. But those take one document and create one record and can rely on some pretty rigid formats. Even if LWD licensed top-of-the-line document-parsing technology and integrated it into RW, I image that the work of cleaning up the results would be far greater than just cutting and pasting.

So an import would likely be some kind of delimited-text format like CSV. Again, the work need to input that data into a spreadsheet seems like a lot more work than cutting and pasting. Exporting to CSV or XML would be more useful, at least for technical folks worried about vendor lock-in. I can see some utility in such functionality, though I would be content with just being able to print.

I've been converted to the need-to-print camp and give that a high priority, but import/export...these are very low on the list of things I would like to see in RW.
 
EightBitz said:
I actually asked for something like this. Psychically, though, not magically. Rob just laughed at me. :-(
Click to expand...

Next time, say you mean by quantum computing. Had a colleague argue that password complexity was soon to be obsolete because quantum computing so my password requirements were pointless. *sigh*
 
MNBlockHead said:
Next time, say you mean by quantum computing. Had a colleague argue that password complexity was soon to be obsolete because quantum computing so my password requirements were pointless. *sigh*
Click to expand...

That would be awesome! With a quantum version of RW, it can simply extrapolate every possible PDF, then I can simply pick the one I want!

Rob, Liz, are you reading this? Feature Request!
 
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