bill ([info]notyourbroom) wrote in [info]computer_help,
@ 2004-06-10 01:38:00
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i'm sick of digging up this info every time I need it [e.g. to give to someone else]

so in order to a) make it easy for me to find this info in the future and b) spread the knowledge to possibly-interested parties, i'll write an FAQ-ish thing

</td>








How To Change All Public Entries to Friends-Only Entries




You need to download an older version of the popular Semagic client. THE LATEST VERSION WILL NOT WORK. YOU NEED TO USE THE OLD VERSION.

For Windows 7/VISTA/XP/2000/NT users, download THIS file

For Windows 95/98 users, download THIS file


- Install the program. IF YOU NORMALLY USE SEMAGIC, MAKE SURE TO COMPLETELY EXIT IT BEFORE INSTALLING THIS VERSION. TO EXIT SEMAGIC, RIGHT-CLICK ITS ICON IN YOUR SYSTEM TRAY (by the clock) AND CHOOSE "Exit".

- Open the program and log in under the journal you want to edit.

- Go to View > Options > Advanced

- Check the "Enable advanced history operations" box

- Go to the "history" view ([CTRL]+[H] from the main "type entry here" sort of screen)

- Click on the "Change security" button below the calender

- Close the yellow help window that pops up

- Click "Yes"

- Click "Yes"

- Select the setting that you want all of your entries to END UP AS (you probably want to choose the friends-only setting)

- Click "OK"

- Select the setting that the entries you want to change CURRENTLY have (you probably want to choose the public setting)

- Click "OK"

- Click "Yes"

- Click "No" (unless you think you might later want to change your journal /back/ to the settings it was on... though I'm not sure how you'd do that)

- Click "OK"

- Wait for a few hours while Semagic edits all of your entries for you.


TO MAKE ALL NEW ENTRIES AUTOMATICALLY FRIENDS-ONLY (assuming you don't specify "private" or a custom group when posting them):

- Log in on livejournal.com

- Go here: http://www.livejournal.com/admin/console

- Copy and paste the following line of text into the box: set newpost_minsecurity friends

- Click "execute"

TO UNDO THIS: paste in the line and replace "friends" with "public" before clicking "execute". ("private" also works.)

NOTE THAT YOU CAN MAKE ANY ENTRY PUBLIC BY EDITING IT AND CHANGING ITS SECURITY SETTING AFTER IT HAS BEEN POSTED.


IF YOU USE SEMAGIC AS YOUR NORMAL LJ CLIENT:

Go here to re-download the latest version after your entries have been edited: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=84783

If you are a Windows XP/2000/NT user, click on the highest-up link that looks like this: "SemagicXXXXfor2k.exe" (XXXX is in place of numbers)

If you are a Windows 95/98 user, click on the highest-up link that looks like this: "SemagicXXXXfor9x.exe" (XXXX is in place of numbers)



add this entry to your memories so you can easily point it out to people who need it.


(Post a new comment)


[info]roadkillpuppies
2005-06-02 10:12 am UTC (link)
"set newpost_minsecurity friends" didnt work

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]notyourbroom
2005-06-02 10:22 am UTC (link)
It should have; it's always worked for me. here's the FAQ entry that talks about that aspect of the process:

http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=120

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]pensive1
2006-01-26 06:33 am UTC (link)
I have tried 892374 times to install verious versions of Semagic and it keeps giving me an error message :"Failed to create an empty document." I have scanned my computer so many times for viruses, spyware, and adware... and can find nothing that is causing this to happen. I need to lock over 3 years of entries, and it's very frustrating to do it individually. I tried to delete the reigstry keys for Semagic as well. to no avail.

WTFHELP

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]notyourbroom
2006-01-26 04:16 pm UTC (link)
c.c

I'm not on the development team for semagic
(and have no idea how to address your query)

I assume you've downloaded the correct version for your OS and that you have administrator privileges on the machine (though I don't know whether that's really necessary)

I have to run out the door, but try finding a bug report thing on the sourceforge website, maybe.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]wndrdr
2006-02-25 06:35 pm UTC (link)
You have to individually do all back entries. None of the programs will do the back entries for you (aBOUT 2 years ago I had to make evertything friends only, and emailed with lj pple over it, you can make from now and all future entries friends/private very easily, and not have to 'remember' it anymore, just.. individual entries from yday and back? YOu have to do on your own individual entry each.. I had to go back three years worth of entries, finally just did like every time I logged onlie.. say.. 10 entries each time.. took a month before everything got done (sometimes I did more entries).

you have to go to http://www.livejournal.com/admin/console/

and type in the set newpost_minsecurity friends

I never had to change anything in semagic, I did it all in my 'browser', then after updating in the browser, i did a test post in semagic (didnt open it till after i did the browser stuff)... and viola,.. no problems.. everything was friends only without my having to do anything.. didnt redownload or change any settings at all.

(Thats just me, I dunno, maybe evryone elses semagic is different, *not sure*

Hope I helped in something.

Just remember, all past you have to individually do *winces*

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]notyourbroom
2006-02-25 08:12 pm UTC (link)
What the five fangèd fish do you babble about? The whole point of this post is that a 3rd-party, non-Six-Apart-developed application has the ability to mass-edit permissions on old posts. Did you read the instructions? Did you uninstall your current version of semagic? Did you download and install the back-version that I link to at the top of the instructions? The folk at Six Apart do correctly claim that LJ has no automatic mass-edit capability, but again, there are programs that will send in sequence however multiple thousands of instructions are necessary to effectively automate the doing-it-by-hand process.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]wndrdr
2006-02-25 08:49 pm UTC (link)
bah.. I was told there is no program to do it in sequance (but then again... they could be wrong :P)

So I ended up doing it like.. over a period of weeks :P

No I did not uninstall/reinstall a thing.

I just read the LJ faq on security and settings. changed my settings for lj in a web browser.

And it worked, I could make future posts in semagic and not worry about what setting (friends/public) I had it in.. it always did it in friends only. Nothing new/additional had to be done in semagic. period.

*shrugs*

Maybe *I* missunderstand what you want to do.. I Assumed you wanted to mass edit the back posts to make them all private/friendsonly/ whatever.

And I was told it wont happen, I would have to do it on my own, post by post, editing the security I want it on.

anyways, I tried to help. Sorry if it wasnt good.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]notyourbroom
2006-02-25 09:01 pm UTC (link)
Just so we're on the same page-- this does let someone automatically have all of their past entries private/flocked/whatever.

Again, you're right in saying that livejournal does not have a mass-edit feature built into it-- there's no one command you can send to the server, no one button you can click, to make it happen.

What this program does is loads your first entry, tells LJ to friend-lock it, loads your second entry, tells LJ to friend-lock it, loads your third entry, tells LJ to friend-lock it, etc, etc, etc, until your whole journal has been automatically changed. It's much faster and much less annoying than actually doing it by hand.

The reason Six Apart (the people who run LJ) won't tell you this is that they don't support the program. They didn't make it-- someone else did. and because they can't guarantee that it won't do something crazy like delete your whole journal (I've never heard of this happening, but who knows), they won't tell you that it exists, purely for liability purposes.

(In addition to posting instructions for how to install and run the program, I did also include the instructions for typing in the console command for making all future entries automatically friend-locked or private, a feature which you've also mentioned.)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]dorottyadafiv
2008-07-16 08:26 pm UTC (link)
As they said: they didn't start the fire, but they did make it possible. Were they to go public with their reasons, they would be throwing gasoline on the flames and assume more of the liability for the fire.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
What the five fangèd fish do you babble about
[info]euphonism
2006-07-28 07:43 pm UTC (link)
lol! awesome.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: What the five fangèd fish do you babble about
[info]notyourbroom
2006-07-28 07:53 pm UTC (link)
Maybe.

Actually, words-relatedly, I'm the TA of a creative writing class for 5th and 6th graders right now.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]jademewun
2008-07-16 05:12 pm UTC (link)
LF: it's either doing it by hand, or coding up a process for it, which shoudln't be that hard, seeing as the auctions are mostly automatic now.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]hazykev
2006-06-11 06:21 pm UTC (link)
Absolutely completely amazing - the best post I have ever seen in the entire universe.

Thankyou so so much :)

- k e v -

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]keishacunaq
2008-07-16 03:41 am UTC (link)
Once again, thank you so much for the excellent ceremony. Sincerely, Kevin and Denise Urtubey Good Morning Reverend.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]mirkwood
2007-07-05 04:22 pm UTC (link)
Is there any program for macs that does this?

(Reply to this)


[info]kuni_bob
2008-06-10 06:35 am UTC (link)
Belated, but thank you for posting this! I was fine with having some entries unlocked until I realized that when I Googled my name, the #2 listed site was my LJ...not comfortable with people peering into my life that easily. Time to f-lock all of it.

Luckily, Google also led me to this post. :P So, thanks!

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]notyourbroom
2008-06-10 05:55 pm UTC (link)
Does this method still work correctly? It's been so long... :0

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]kuni_bob
2008-06-10 05:56 pm UTC (link)
Sure does! Thanks so much. :) Oldie but goodie, I suppose!

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]supervictoria64
2008-06-20 10:00 pm UTC (link)
Any idea why it won't let me click "change security"? :( (I get this)

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]notyourbroom
2008-06-21 01:46 am UTC (link)
Did you enable advanced history options?

I googled this up, hopefully it helps:

http://requiem.net.au/LJ_FriendsOnly

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]supervictoria64
2008-06-21 09:49 pm UTC (link)
Thanks for the link! I was just wondering though... I was trying to convert my community to friends-only, but it won't let me change the security. Does this mean that it only works for individual journals?

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]notyourbroom
2008-06-22 12:42 am UTC (link)
To be honest, I have no idea ^_^; no one has asked that before. I think there were changes made to the structuring of community accounts after this old version of Semagic was released (i.e. the old version with the "advanced history options" thing), so maybe that has something to do with it. I really don't know what to tell you, though.

Good luck!

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]amavel_bel
2008-08-06 02:21 pm UTC (link)
Do you know if it works for communities?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]notyourbroom
2008-08-06 07:15 pm UTC (link)
I don't think it does, but I'm not sure.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]elasticblue
2009-03-11 04:20 pm UTC (link)
THANK YOU!

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]notyourbroom
2009-03-11 05:30 pm UTC (link)
glad it helped :)

i have to wonder how people still find this post...

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]elasticblue
2009-03-11 06:37 pm UTC (link)
This post will help ljers for years to come...

haha, a friend showed me when I asked her how to flock easily... worked like a charm.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]babyfood22
2009-07-09 10:17 pm UTC (link)
Hi, sorry to dig this post up from five years or so ago. I just downloaded Semagic version 1.7.3.3U, and it says this is the latest version. This doesn't work on that version, and I can't find out how you do it! Can you help? xx

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]notyourbroom
2009-07-10 12:31 am UTC (link)
No, you have to download the version linked to in this post—the one I linked to is the last version before they removed that functionality. :)

So yeah, uninstall 1.7.3.3U and install the one at the top of the post.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]babyfood22
2009-07-10 09:54 am UTC (link)
Ohh all right thanks! It's just, did they remove it because it was causing problems or something? But I will back up my LJ anyway before I do it, for sure. Thank you! xxxx

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]chibirhm
2009-07-11 05:39 am UTC (link)
I followed instructions but there doesn't exist an "Enable advanced history operations" box. What did I do wrong?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]notyourbroom
2009-07-11 02:40 pm UTC (link)
Did you install the correct OLD version of Semagic (the one linked to at the top of the post) and NOT the latest version of Semagic?

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]chibirhm
2009-07-11 03:26 pm UTC (link)
Yup.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]notyourbroom
2009-07-11 03:29 pm UTC (link)
I can't test anything because I am on a Mac right now (and for the next four weeks). But everyone else who followed the instructions with the correct version of Semagic was able to get the advanced history operations working, as far as I know.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]thornykins
2009-07-18 01:02 am UTC (link)
I had the same problem.
The links probably changed; they now lead you to the new version.

Sourceforge still has them hidden on the site.
Windows XP/2000/NT: http://ftp.heanet.ie/disk1/sourceforge/s/se/semagic/Semagic13281for2k.exe
Windows 98/95: http://ftp.heanet.ie/disk1/sourceforge/s/se/semagic/Semagic13281for9x.exe

It worked wonderfully for me after that.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]notyourbroom
2009-07-18 01:06 am UTC (link)
Great, thanks!

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]notyourbroom
2009-07-18 01:07 am UTC (link)
I updated the instructions.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

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