XML file import for attachments or featured images

Question

I'm hoping there is a direct tag for bringing in featured images/attachments with XML post imports, using an external url?

Explanation: I am successfully importing a large number of custom posts by way of XML files and the standard WordPress Importer. (The posts are from a non-WordPress proprietary CMS).

The one thing that isn't working is the featured image. I'd like to be able to import the featured image/thumbnail attachment within the XMl file, using the external url for the image. Is this possible without a plugin? Is it possible to do this as a tag for an attachment?

In other words, is there a tag for the post/item that would work, such as:

<tagname> http://www.aabbcc.com/imagename.jpg </tagname> ?

Answer 1

I'm not aware of the way this could be done with a WXR file alone; after all attachments are posts, and if you're importing images from elsewhere you'd need to do all the WordPress processing on them to make them into posts (from WordPress's point of view).

You may get inspired with how this plugin performs the import.

...uses FileReader and to parse the XML file in the browser, then uses ajax to request WordPress perform individual uploads.