Virtual Exhibit Importer

A WordPress admin tool that imports posts from a remote WordPress site's REST API into a local virtual_exhibit custom post type, with excerpts and featured images. It shows a progress bar and offers a downloadable report.

It was built for the Louis Armstrong House Museum. It brings the posts from the museum's separate Virtual Exhibits site (virtualexhibits.louisarmstronghouse.org) into its main site, so the team doesn't have to copy them by hand.

Features

• Admin screen: a top-level Exhibit Importer menu with three buttons: Start Import, Force Reimport and Delete All Exhibits. It shows which source site it imports from.
• Step-by-step AJAX import: the importer reads the total from the source's X-WP-Total header, then imports one remote post per request. The import runs as many short requests instead of one long one, so it doesn't hit PHP time limits.
• Duplicate detection: each imported post stores the source post ID in the original_id meta. Posts that already exist, including trashed ones, are skipped.
• Force reimport: overwrites the title, content and excerpt of posts that already exist.
• Featured images: downloads the source post's featured image into the Media Library and sets it as the thumbnail, if the local post doesn't have one.
• Source link: stores the original permalink in the original_url meta and shows it in a read-only Original URL box on the edit screen.
• Feedback: a progress bar, a live log and a summary (imported, already existed, updated, errors). A failed request is logged and the import moves on. Download Report saves the log as import-report.txt.
• Sanitized content: titles go through sanitize_text_field(), and content and excerpts go through wp_kses_post(). Remote messages are shown as text, not HTML.
• Admins only: the page and both AJAX handlers require manage_options, and every request checks a nonce.
• Clean-up: Delete All Exhibits permanently deletes every virtual_exhibit post, in any status including the trash, after a confirmation prompt.

Requirements

• WordPress 6.0+
• PHP 7.4+
• A virtual_exhibit post type registered by your theme or another plugin. This plugin doesn't register it.
• A user with the manage_options capability (administrators).
• The server must be able to make outbound HTTP requests to the source site.
• The source site must expose the standard WordPress REST API (/wp-json/wp/v2/posts) publicly.

Installation

1. Download this repository as a ZIP (Code > Download ZIP).
2. In WordPress, go to Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin, upload the ZIP and activate Virtual Exhibit Importer.

Or clone it into wp-content/plugins/.

Usage

1. Open Exhibit Importer in the admin menu.
2. Click one of the buttons:
   • Start Import: counts the remote posts and the local exhibits, then imports the remote posts one at a time. Posts that already exist (matched by original_id) are skipped; only their original_url is refreshed.
   • Force Reimport: runs the same process, but overwrites the title, content and excerpt of posts that already exist.
   • Delete All Exhibits: permanently deletes all virtual_exhibit posts. This can't be undone.
3. When the import finishes, review the summary and click Download Report if you need a copy of the log.

New posts are created as published, with the same slug as on the source site.

Using another source site

The default source is the Louis Armstrong House Virtual Exhibits site. To import from another WordPress site, set the base URL in wp-config.php:

define( 'VEI_SOURCE_URL', 'https://example.org' );

Or use the vei_source_url filter:

add_filter( 'vei_source_url', function () {
    return 'https://example.org';
} );

Stored data

Imported featured images are attached to the post they belong to.

Technical notes

• AJAX actions: vei_start_import_step (steps count, compare and import) and vei_delete_all_exhibits. Both check the nonce vei_nonce and the manage_options capability.
• Each import step returns a status (imported, skipped or updated), which the summary counts.
• The admin CSS and JS load only on the importer's own screen.

Limitations

• It imports the source's posts endpoint only, one post per request, which is slow for thousands of posts.
• Taxonomies, authors and images inside the post content aren't imported; content images still point to the source site.
• The admin interface is in English only.

Changelog

7.1.0

• Fixed: Start Import behaved like Force Reimport, because the force flag arrived as the string "false".
• Fixed: the Delete All Exhibits button did nothing (its handler was outside the jQuery ready wrapper).
• Fixed: the Updated count in the summary always showed 0.
• Security: both AJAX handlers now require manage_options, not just a valid nonce.
• The source site is configurable (VEI_SOURCE_URL or the vei_source_url filter).
• New posts keep the source slug. Trashed exhibits are detected and deleted too.
• Buttons are disabled while a job runs, and failed requests are logged instead of stopping the import silently.
• Removed an unused sample API response (import.json).

The main file is still named virtual-exhibit-importer-v7.php, because renaming a plugin's main file deactivates it on sites that already use it.

File structure

virtual-exhibit-importer-v7.php   Main plugin file (admin page, AJAX import/delete, meta box)
js/importer.js                    Import flow, progress bar, summary and report download
css/admin-style.css               Progress bar styles

Author

Rolando Escobar, WordPress developer. rolandowp.com Built at Counterintuity for the Louis Armstrong House Museum.

License

No open-source license is granted. This plugin was built for the Louis Armstrong House Museum and is shared here as a work sample.