Import Wizard - Mashup several import-related modules into one import profile

Synopsis:

No one content import module yet encompasses the vast array of use cases there are for content imports. So we should have a module that essentially allows for the mashing up those modules into multi-module profiles / macros which can all be managed through a common interface.

Problem:

Importing content into drupal is complex and - in the real world - usually requires a fair bit of custom coding to pull off.

There are already a ton of modules made for different use cases. Some very general, others more specific - but none of them provide a working, comprehensive solution (yet...). See http://groups.drupal.org/node/21338

There is also a great unmet need for import profiles and templates/presets for regular scheduled imports, although it's on the roadmap of a couple of the aforementioned modules.

If you have a site which requires alot of different imports from different sources, you are practically sentencing some poor schmuck web developer (ahem...) to spending all his time keeping track of the various imports that are needed and writing little custom scripts to make each one work, as well as maintaining multiple workflows which vary along with the different approaches and UIs of each import module.

Proposed Solution:

I've created an "Import Wizard" API which by itself is just a container made of the common steps for configuring any import process - from the data acquisition (file download, xml feed, upload, etc...) to the field mapping, and so on. It stays out of the "guts" of the import process altogether.

The crux of the implementation is that each step in a given import process can be handled by one of the many different contributed modules which satisfies in that particular step. But it can all be configured and then executed through one pluggable interface (similar to views 2).

Each step, then, has multiple modules made available to the end user by means of a select menu. Changing the select menu in the "file" step, for example, from "Media Mover API" to "Feeds" changes the configuration form for that step and reveals whatever options for file/data acquisition the Feeds module makes available. In this case, it would allow the user to specify an XML feed as their data source (an option media mover doesn't have).

Conclusion:

The underlying philosophy behind the module is to provide a singular workflow tailored towards imports - all the while allowing for a great deal of variance among them by allowing an administrator to leverage any of the available import modules as needed.

Dev screenshot attached...