And in an email to Dave and a post to Rogers, I made them aware of what I’ve been doing and of my documenting the steps thereof. Oh, and for that matter, I told Anil Dash, too, thanks to that Intertwingly thread at Sam Ruby’s. (heck, for grins, and the interim step, I may plop my 5MB export file at TypePad to see how it works in MT, but I don’t think that’ll be the final step) I gather that they (Dave, Rogers, Anil) thought it all under control, and that for Dave W and Rogers C, getting a new post-weblogs.com server on line is more important than dealing with my needs. Were I in their position, I’d prolly do the same (a shattering blow to my delusions that I am, indeed the Verie Centre of the Universe! Who Knew?).

I have received help (for TheXmlFiles tool) from Jeff Cheney, who does have an official capacity with UserLand in special implementations and installations. Of course, I contacted him as one on the Frontier Developers list, having read and forgotten the Official UserLand connection.

That being said, it’s very telling that…. (a) it’s taken 20 days for me, from start to finish, to export my site from Manila to a format that some other blog software can use; (b) in addition to Jeff Cheney, mentioned already, the solutions came from either those-who’ve-moved-on (like you, Al, and Jason) or else from former UserLand staff (BIG hat tip to Andre Radke) who’ve helped me understand what to do next/cobble a solution together; (c) the export tool that UserLand provides so that its users are not “locked in the trunk” (witness this DaveNet then-CEO of UserLand doctrine declaration so helpfully pointed out by Wes Felter as linked from Dave W during TGWCOSSoY2K+4) did not work as advertised and that using the official channels of help on the UserLand site did not work for me…. all speaks for itself. In a statement that so sums things up (I’d like to give credit to original coiner of this phrase, but for now the fact that it’s not me will have to suffice), “So is it really not lock-in if they provide a key but it doesn’t work?”

As for me, I’m preoccupied on Buzzword.Com keeping the new server online, establishing nightly backups, and helping users download their site backups. But I’ve corresponded with Susan and Jason Levine about their efforts and will be publicizing them on the server soon.

What I’d like is a UserTalk script that runs on Manila servers and spits out a site’s .root file as XML.

Of the task of writing docs/scripts to convert XML to another format/interchange format, I have no abilities in script-writing; the best I can provide to all of this is a clearly-documented account of my experiences/steps I took/lessons learned. I hope it may benefit someone else in his/her struggle to do the same, or to more clearly demonstrate the need for such a conversion tool.

For a planned move that began in early June, Susan Kitchens has been working with Jason Levine and others to convert her Manila-hosted weblog to Movable Type.