This functionality is available to professional users and above.

There is a lot of useful information on the Internet, especially in forums. Unfortunately, other systems make it difficult to organize information topically. QDL does this well. But it also extends this functionality to information imported from other sites, since you can set up a topical folder, and put QDL discussions in it, and you can also import relevant threads from remote forums, to get their information added into your folder on that topic.

 

To import a thread from a remote forum:

• Navigate to the place in the QDL hierarchy where you want the thread to appear.
• Create a new post to contain the imported thread.
  • Click the Add Comment button (if there is one), or
  • Click the Action Menu icon (), and select the New Inside option ().
  • Give the post a title (perhaps something similar to the title of the remote thread).
  • Click the Submit button at the lower right.
• Add a sub-post for the first page of the thread.
  • Click the Action Menu icon (), and next to the Metadata option (), click edit.
  • In the Edit Metadata form, fill in the options to look something like this:

    Title title:   show "under construction" banner hide copyright notice Parents Versions Prototype Data Source protocol username password domain:port/path?parameters http :// : @ service:phpbb3 Data Type Rights

  • Title
    • Enter the range of post numbers on the first page. For phpbb3 forums (e.g., thunderbolts.info), it's "1~15". For vBulletin forums (e.g., CosmoQuest), it's "1~30". (Note that the syntax in the title must be exact — first number, tilde, last number. QDL expects this syntax, and will create new pages for you using this syntax.)
  • Data Source
    • protocol: http
    • domain: Enter the URL of the first page of the remote thread, such as "thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5613"
    • service: phpbb3 or vBulletin
  • Click Submit.
• Refresh the first page of the thread.
  • Click the Action Menu icon (), and select the Refresh option ().
  • This will import all of the posts on the remote page, convert them to QDL format, and add them to the first page.
  • If the remote page was full, refreshing the QDL page will automatically create the next "page" in the series. For example, you created the "1~15" page and refreshed it. If the remote thread had 15 posts, QDL will automatically create a "16~30" page, so you don't have to go through the steps above — you just have to refresh the next page in the series to import its posts as well.
• Keep refreshing the last page in the series, until no new pages are getting created.
• You can always refresh QDL pages with remote data sources, to update the information in them. For example, a remote thread might have new posts. To get these into QDL, you just have to refresh the QDL page, which will re-import all of the posts on the remote page.