Ok, I think I've got it.
Many thanks to Geoserv who did all the hard work by coming up with the basis of this.
Find this line in the ./lib/link.php
PHP Code:
if(preg_match("'<title>([^<]*?)</title>'", $this->html, $matches)) {
$this->url_title=trim($matches[1]);
}
Add his modified code shown below just after that line.
PHP Code:
if ( preg_match ( '~<meta(.+?)name="description"(.+?)>~i', $this->html, $matches ) ){
$description = preg_replace( '~^(.+?)content="([^"]+?)"(.+?)$~i', '$2', $matches[1].$matches[2] );
$description= str_replace("content=\"", " ", trim($description));
$description= str_replace("\"", " ", trim($description));
$this->content=$description;
}
Since my regex is weak, I did a string replace to get rid of the 'content="' and the final quote mark he was having trouble with. I took that and made a smarty variable out of it.
Save your ./lib/link.php
Now open the ./submit.php
find this line (around line #167 / 168 depending on other modifications)
PHP Code:
$main_smarty->assign('submit_url_title', $linkres->url_title);
Under it add...
PHP Code:
$main_smarty->assign('submit_content', $linkres->content);
Save your submit.php
Now if the site being submitted has a meta description tag, it should show by default in the description box on step two of submit. If the user wants to add or change it, the updated description will be saved and not the meta description.
Hope this helps someone out there!