blog archive format
blog archive format is a data format proposed by Manton Reece for the export of a blog, based on a zip file and top level HTML h-feed inside, that is supported by micro.blog. Posts are saved as both h-feed and JSON Feed so that importers can choose which format they prefer to parse.
Original proposal: https://www.manton.org/2017/11/24/blog-archive-format.html
More details: https://www.manton.org/2021/12/27/importing-blog-archive.html
Yet more details: https://book.micro.blog/blog-archive-format/
Advantages
Blog Archive Format was designed to solve a few problems compared to other export formats:
- An open format that is not tied to implementations details of any single platform.
- Wrapped in a ZIP file so can contain images and other media.
- Includes both JSON Feed and Microformats for options when reading archives.
- Includes an HTML file of posts with relative image links so that it can be previewed directly in a web browser without any conversion.
Implementations
micro.blog
Micro.blog can export and import as blog archive format since 2019
- On the web, click on Posts β "β¦" β Export. Micro.blog will create a .bar file on S3 and make it available for download.
- In the macOS app, choose File β Export β Blog Archive. Micro.blog will download all your photos locally and save a .bar file to your Mac.
- For importing, in the macOS app choose File β Import β Blog Archive. You can also double-click on .bar files to open them.
Ruby script
Mastodon to Blog Archive script by Manton Reece, written in Ruby, can convert Mastodon's export (essentially ActivityStreams 2.0 JSON) to Blog Archive Format, and runs as a command-line tool.
- GitHub Gist here: https://gist.github.com/manton/946ddbb74b5d0948053d7e23793ead77 since 2023-04-24
Brainstorming
Brainstorming for and about the Blog Archive Format, and plans or intentions to implement & support.
Koype
Koype has a plan to implement the:
- exporting of
.bar
files (tracked at https://git.jacky.wtf/indieweb/koype-next/issues/29) and, - importing (tracked at https://git.jacky.wtf/indieweb/koype-next/issues/31)