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Thursday, July 7, 2005 |
More testing. Interested in the delay in which rss feeds are upstreamed. Now without my latest mod.
5:17:23 AM 
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Friday, July 1, 2005 |
This is it
This is it
This is it
11:28:47 AM
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Tuesday, June 28, 2005 |
This is a test really. I'm interested into the delay before all archives are upstreamed. Second test.
10:29:58 PM
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Wednesday, June 15, 2005 |
This is a second post, written from Radio Userland and transmitted using the ATOM API.
Worked well the first time, now trying to edit the post.
4:08:06 PM
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Saturday, April 2, 2005 |
Click on the text once to select its paragraph (or node). Click twice, or press space to modify the text ! Click outside the text, or press esc to exit edit mode. Press enter on a selected node to add a new paragraph. Press tab and shift-tab to ident or promote the selected / edited paragraph. Move paragraphs around the outline by clicking on their wedge and draging them to their new location. A small blue arrow will show the target of the drop during draging. To delete a paragraph, select it, press ctrl-shift-delete and confirm deletion when prompted. Additional keyboard moves: Press up, down, left and right arrows to move the selection cursor around paragraphs Press ctl-shift-up, ctl_shift-down, ctl-shift-left, ctl-shift-right to move the selected paragraph in the required direction, if the move is legal.
11:52:57 PM
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Clicking each tab selects a different directory. 'News' lists the RSS feeds you have subscribed to using Radio's aggregator. 'Latest New's at the top of the list is actually an outlined view of your aggregator. It only appears if you have checked the Create or update an aggregator.opml news aggrator image in the preferences. 'World' displays RSS directories from popular online services. 'Search' lets you access Feedster, as well as another bunch of search engines, to locate OPML or RSS documents on the Web by specifying keywords. 'Outlines' lists the OPML documents saved in the 'outlines' folder under Radio's 'www' folder. This folder was created by activeRenderer at startup. All OPML documents stored under 'outlines' are automatically upstreamed as dynamic HTML pages on your public weblog site. When listing local 'news' or 'outlines', you will notice the appearance of 'rename' and 'delete' buttons at the bottom of the selector. When listing local resources, you may select individual entries in the selector by clicking them once. Clicking a selected entry a second time puts you in editing mode, in order to rename the matching news feed or outline file. Selecting an entry then clicking the 'rename' button does the same. Selecting an entry and clicking 'delete' will, after confirmation, either remove the feed from your aggregator's subscriptions list or delete the outline file from the 'www/outlines' folders hierarchy.
11:49:01 PM
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From this page, you can read the content of Radio's aggregator ('Latest news'), as well as any RSS news feed or OPML document outliner style. Click on the wedge at the left of paragraphs to expand or collapse their content. In the left pane, a tabbed selector lets you choose between different document sources, either available on your local computer or published on remote web sites. Clicking each tab selects a different directory. 'News' lists the RSS feeds you have subscribed to using Radio's aggregator. 'Latest New's at the top of the list is actually an outlined view of your aggregator. It only appears if you have checked the Create or update an aggregator.opml news aggrator image in the preferences. 'World' displays RSS directories from popular online services. 'Search' lets you access Feedster, as well as another bunch of search engines, to locate OPML or RSS documents on the Web by specifying keywords. 'Outlines' lists the OPML documents saved in the 'outlines' folder under Radio's 'www' folder. This folder was created by activeRenderer at startup. All OPML documents stored under 'outlines' are automatically upstreamed as dynamic HTML pages on your public weblog site. When listing local 'news' or 'outlines', you will notice the appearance of 'rename' and 'delete' buttons at the bottom of the selector. When listing local resources, you may select individual entries in the selector by clicking them once. Clicking a selected entry a second time puts you in editing mode, in order to rename the matching news feed or outline file. Selecting an entry then clicking the 'rename' button does the same. Selecting an entry and clicking 'delete' will, after confirmation, either remove the feed from your aggregator's subscriptions list or delete the outline file from the 'www/outlines' folders hierarchy. Click on the 'up-arrow' wedge at the left of each directory entry to open its content in the center pane. You may also type in or paste the URL for a known OPML or RSS document in the input field at the top of the center pane, then click the browse button. When reading a remote news feed you haven't subscribed to, you may click on the 'subscribe' button that appears next to the 'settings' button at the top of the right pane in order to add that feed to your aggregator's subscriptions list. With the webOutliner tool installed, or if you're reading this from the demo site, this page becomes a real outliner. Click on the text once to select its paragraph (or node). Click twice, or press space to modify the text ! Click outside the text, or press esc to exit edit mode. Press enter on a selected node to add a new paragraph. Press tab and shift-tab to ident or promote the selected / edited paragraph. Move paragraphs around the outline by clicking on their wedge and draging them to their new location. A small blue arrow will show the target of the drop during draging. To delete a paragraph, select it, press ctrl-shift-delete and confirm deletion when prompted. Additional keyboard moves: Press up, down, left and right arrows to move the selection cursor around paragraphs Press ctl-shift-up, ctl_shift-down, ctl-shift-left, ctl-shift-right to move the selected paragraph in the required direction, if the move is legal. The webOutliner toolbox, in the right pane, offers a number of additional functions: From top left to bottom right, save the current outline; post the selected node and its children as a weblog entry; send the selected node and its children over email; copy the selected node to the webOutliner clipboard; paste the content of the clipboard after the selected node; transclusion: attach a link to a picture or media object to the selected node; transclusion: attach a link to an html page, opml outline or rss feed to the selected node; style the selected node as bold; style the selected node as italic; zoom display in (enlarge font size); zoom display out (reduce font size); display preview of collapse nodes when hovering the mouse cursor over their wedge; do not display the node preview; Last updated: 1/6/05; 10:59:00 PM EST by MB
11:43:09 PM
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Last updated: 2/2/04; 2:31:11 PM by MB
General
Can I use activeRenderer without Radio ?
I'm not sure 'using' is the proper term yet, but if you are a programmer, there are now activeRenderer APIs available, both REST and XML-RPC, so that you may render OPML outlines and RSS feeds from other languages such as Perl, PHP, Python, Java or Javascript.
I hope I'll soon be able to publish tutorials on how to use activeRenderer from other publishing environment, depending on the feedback I get from web developers.
How much does activeRenderer cost ?
The good news is activeRenderer is free, as in $0.00.
Upcoming versions may have subscription based modules, the usage of which will be restricted to subscribers, paying a modest yearly fee.
How do I register activeRenderer ?
First, if you don't have one already, you need to obtain a serial number from aR's registration service.
Registration is free and fast. I just want to have an idea of how many people are using this tool.
Correction, I'm very sorry to admit that registration these days is sometimes a hassle :-/ We're moving the service from its current residence in Northern Italy to Precision IT Management server room in NYC, where I hope I will be able to provide a simpler and more reliable service.
I apologize to the victims of the serial invalid serial number problem.
The registration service emails you aR's serial number, so please provide a valid email address.
Then, enter (or paste) the serial number in aR's registration form, and click Save.
The registration form is displayed in a 'pop-under' window each time you start Radio, until you have registered your copy of activeRenderer.
You can also access the registration page from aR's browser page, or by selecting the Tools / activeRenderer / Register... menu in Radio.
When your copy of aR is registered, the Registration page simply displays your serial number.
How do I check activeRenderer's current version ?
In your browser, aR's currently installed version is displayed on Radio's desktop website page, in the status center.
You may also see it displayed in the activeRenderer paragraph of Radio's Tools page
Within the Radio application, you can select the Tools / activeRenderer / About menu.
Last, hovering the mouse cursor on any site displaying the activeRenderer tile logo or 'how this works' mention will display the version of activeRenderer used to publish that site.
What is the latest version and where can I get it ?
Latest available version is 2.0.3.
Download it by following these instructions.
Operation
How do I access activeRenderer's Browser ?
With the Radio application in the foreground, select the Tools / activeRenderer / Browser... menu.
Or, from your weblog's local home page, locate the StatusCenter section in the right sidebar, and click the activeRenderer Tool link.
How do I access activeRenderer's Preferences ?
With the Radio application in the foreground, select the Tools / activeRenderer / Preferences... menu.
There is also a link to preferences in activeRenderer's browser top menu.
How do I disable auto-update ?
In activeRenderer's Preferences page, clear the "Update activeRenderer automatically at startup." checkbox, then click Save.
auto-update won't work anyway if your copy of aR is not registered.
How do I get rid of activeRenderer ?
Had enough? activeRenderer tries to disappear gracefully which is easier said than done :-)
Basically, all you have to do is quit Radio, then pull the activeRenderer.root file out of Radio's Tools folder.
That's it. It's that easy.
And the result should be :
Locally customized activeRenderer templates are archived in the activeRender subfolder of the Radio application folder.
activeRenderer.root is gone from Radio's Tools folder.
The non outlined templates, which were archived at the time of aR's installation if you selected either outline styles for your weblog, are restored.
The Browser option disappears from the top menu in Radio's desktop website page.
The www/activeRenderer folder is removed.
The www/outlines and www/opml folder stay, to avoid any broken links on the public site.
What is auto-upstream ?
When you start Radio with activeRenderer in your Tools directory, aR tries to locate your 'instant outline' opml file in www/instantOutliner and duplicates it in www/outlines for upstreaming as dynamic HTML.
You can disable auto-upstreaming by unchecking the 'Upstream instant outline at startup' preference in aR's Preferences page.
What is outline mirroring ?
When auto-mirror is checked in aR's preferences, any outline saved from Radio's outliner into the outlines folder or one of its subfolders is automatically copied in the opml folder hierarchy, and vice versa.
Any file saved under the outlines folder hierarchy is upstreamed to the public site as a dynamic HTML page.
Where as files saved under opml are upstreamed to the public site in their native OPML format.
Checking the mirroring preference is a convenient way to keep outlines on the public site in both formats.
The storyBox macro creates a link to the OPML version from the HTML rendered page.
Can I publish outlines to separate public sites ?
...Needless to say from the same Radio installation ?
The answer is yes, and probably requires a dedicated tutorial.
Here are the main steps :
You need to create a Radio category for each public site you want to publish outlines to.
In each category's folder, create a #upstream.xml file with the parameters for your upstream method.
The trick is to figure out how to store the password :-)
Post an item to each of these new categories and check Radio's events log to make sure that upstreaming works as planned.
Quit and restart Radio: activeRenderer will create activeRenderer, outlines and opml subfolders for each category folder upstreamed to a site different from the main weblog site.
All you need now is save outlines to those folders.
Outlining weblogs
Can I use activeRenderer without the outlined weblog style ?
You sure can.
In its default setting, aR works as a simple OPML outline renderer.
You need to actually check the outlined weblog style preferences in aR's Preferences page to activate any of the two outlined styles.
I've selected the 'Outline publication dates' rendering mode, can I get rid of the 'Latest' widget ?
Sure, just uncheck the 'Display Latest widget' option in aR's preferences.
You may also move the daySwitch macro call somewhere else in the home template file #homeTemplate.txt.
How do I make liveTopics work with activeRenderer's outlined weblog style ?
liveTopics packs a number of post level macros which must be manually inserted in the #itemTemplate.txt file in www.
As of early July, these macros were liveTopics, liveTopicsGoogleBug and liveTopicsGoogleJazz, but Matt has kept improving liveTopics since.
Refer to liveTopics's documentation macros reference for more details, in the Installation / Configuration section.
If your main item template already has any of these macros, and you then select aR's extreme outline style presentation, you will temporarily loose the liveTopics macros.
aR replaces your main item template in www with its own outlined style #itemTemplate.txt.
This new template does not include any of liveTopics macros as a default.
All is not lost though, since aR thoughtfully backed up your original #itemTemplate.txt file in www/activeRenderer/local/backup.
What you should do is copy the liveTopics macro calls from your original template, and paste them back into the new outlined template.
When modifying the new outline template in this simple way, remember to increment the version number at the top of the template to some high value (typically over 100). This has 3 benefits :
Your custom template will not be automatically overwritten if a newer version of the template is delivered as part of aR's auto-update feature.
If you go back to a non outlined style, your custom #itemTemplate.txt file will be saved in www/activeRenderer/local/backup/custom, and it will be used again instead of aR's default if you decide to activate the extreme outline style later.
If you decide to uninstal aR completely, your custom #itemTemplate.txt file will be archived to the newly created activeRenderer folder in Radio's application folder.
Troubleshooting
My home page displays [Macro error: Can't evaluate the expression because the name "wedgeTitle" hasn't been defined.] everywhere - Help !
You're a victim of the no longer mysterious #prefs.txt update bug, that I now have eradicated.
The cure is simple :
Open the #prefs.txt file you will find in Radio's www folder with a text editor.
Remove any blank line you find between the first line and the next non blank one.
Save the result, then republish your home page (Radio / Publish / Weblog Home Page menu in Radio).
Just in case, manually update aR to the latest available version (Tools / activeRenderer / Update menu).
The problem came from activeRendererSuite.utils.checkPrefs.
Versions of this code modified on July 31st or later are safe.
I'm running MacOS 9, and aR won't update (or any other odd behaviour). What did I do wrong ?
The only wrong thing you are doing is running MacOS 9.
Do yourself (and Apple Computers) a favor and upgrade to OS X.
Allocate more memory (all you can afford) to the Radio application.
aR's installation and update code is multi-threaded.
MacOS 9 is notoriously lame at handling multithreaded code (among other debilities). Such code requires tons of free memory in this environment.
Besides, versions of activeRenderer prior to 1.3.4 were using a recursive algorithm for rendering, coupled with handling 'outline' Frontier objects.
As my experience of Usertalk grew, I realised this was the worst possible scenario as far as memory usage (or waste rather) and performance were concerned.
Newer versions of aR use a much faster and sparer string based non recursive algorithm.
Yet, do update your system to MacOS X a.s.a.p.
How come accented letters, such as à or ü are not rendered properly on my Macintosh ?
Ok, I cheated, so that the previous line renders fine.
My knowledge of XML character coding conventions is still a little thin, so foreign characters are sometimes rendered in a bizarre way.
It doesn't help that Radio encodes its OPML files in ISO-8859-1, which is not even XML compliant.
But I'm working on accents rendering (I no longer depend on Radio's apparently flawed translations), and will eventually come up with something that works correctly.
In the meantime, I'm entering all accented letters I include into outlines in HTML entity encoded form: à for à, ü for ü. This is not valid XML btw.
12:53:15 AM
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Press up, down, left and right arrows to move the selection cursor around paragraphs
Press ctl-shift-up, ctl_shift-down, ctl-shift-left, ctl-shift-right to move the selected paragraph in the required direction, if the move is legal.
12:35:55 AM
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Click on the text once to select its paragraph (or node). Click twice, or press space to modify the text ! Click outside the text, or press esc to exit edit mode.
Press enter on a selected node to add a new paragraph. Press tab and shift-tab to ident or promote the selected / edited paragraph.
Move paragraphs around the outline by clicking on their wedge and draging them to their new location. A small blue arrow will show the target of the drop during draging.
To delete a paragraph, select it, press ctrl-shift-delete and confirm deletion when prompted.
Additional keyboard moves:
Press up, down, left and right arrows to move the selection cursor around paragraphs
Press ctl-shift-up, ctl_shift-down, ctl-shift-left, ctl-shift-right to move the selected paragraph in the required direction, if the move is legal.
Second try
12:08:01 AM
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Monday, December 13, 2004 |
This is a test. Modified several months later.
9:15:09 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Marc Barrot.
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