1) I give you a single line that you can post under the title or wherever:

<div class="bSmallHead">
<?php
echo('Written by ');
$Item->author( '<strong>', '</strong)' );
echo(' on ');
$Item->issue_date();
echo(' ');
$Item->issue_time();
?>
</div>

Try this, see how it looks an then dissect the code and you'll grasp the idea quiclly.

2) Can't you just copy / paste the 'old' post?
I use a txt file that has a specific table (I need this for my own blog). I write the post in a texteditor (notepad++) and then bring the post to the blog. For my specific needs this works fine. The txt file has only the bare table in it.

Good luck

1. Most skins do this by default. The easiest way to achieve this is to find a skin that displays it the way you want and copy the code from there. For example, the 'custom' skin does it like this:

		<div class="bSmallHead">
		<?php
			$Item->permanent_link( '#icon#', '#', '' );
			echo ' ';
			$Item->issue_time( '' );
			echo ', '.T_('by').' ';
			$Item->author( '<strong>', '</strong>' );
			$Item->msgform_link( $Blog->get('msgformurl'), ' ', ' ', '#', '#', '' );
			echo ', ';
			$Item->wordcount();
			echo ' '.T_('words');
			echo ', ';
			$Item->views( '#', '#', '#' );
			echo ' &nbsp; ';
			locale_flag( $Item->locale, 'h10px', 'flag', '' );
			echo '<br /> ', T_('Categories'), ': ';
			$Item->categories( '#', '<strong>', '</strong>', '', '', '<em>', '</em>', ', ' );
		?>
		</div>

2. Depending on how intricate a layout you're looking to design, you might try to create a custom button for it in the /plugins/_quicktags.plugin.php file. Then in your post editor you would just hit the custom-built button and it would drop a post layout template into your post editor which you could fill in...

Maybe something like this:

		b2evoButtons[b2evoButtons.length] = new b2evoButton(
				'b2evo_UNIQUE_BUTTON_ID'
				,'BUTTON TITLE', ''
				,'ALL THE HTML CODE FOR THE TEMPLATE'D POST LAYOUT GOES IN THIS SECTION',''
				,'z'
				,'<?php echo T_('MY_CUSTOM_BUTTON_TEXT') ?>'
			);

The easiest way to do this is to copy an existing button from your quicktags file and use it as a template. Basically, you need to edit the 4 sections I wrote in all-caps, but each of the existing buttons in your quicktags file will use a similar structure...

[EDIT: Oh, and before you go editing the quicktags file, [u]make a backup of it[/u].]

jj.