Stories and Shortcuts

Stories and Shortcuts are two very powerful interlocking features of Radio Userland that behave a little differently on Manila as opposed to Radio.  This essay, by Al Macintyre, assumes the reader is a bit of a beginner at risk of getting confused, like Al was on the path to learning this stuff, because there is a lot to absorb, the terminology, how things work, and of course there is also evolution in what can be done due to advances in the software and people figuring out new ways to use it.

I generally reccommend that total beginners start with a Manila website, then when they feel they comfortable with most of the features and terminology, that they graduate to Radio, but do not forget their Manila roots because there is another form, that I personally have not yet advanced to, that uses both.

Manila is the name of the capital of the Phillippines, a nation in the Pacific.  Manila is the name of a kind of office file folder.  It is also the name of a type of Weblogging software that was developed by the Radio Userland software company, and which you can purchase from www.weblogger.com

In Manila, we have a web site in which the person who started it is the owner manager with authority to grant permission for other people to join the web site with some degree of privileges up to and including same as the owner manager.  We end up with something that is like a combination of multi-author weblogging, and a traditional Internet based discussion group, where many people can do posts on discussion threads and respond to what other people earlier said.  We can set it up so that when anyone posts anything to the shared site, various other people get e-mail notification.

Radio has several common familiar meanings.  It is also the name of a type of Weblogging software developed by the Radio Userland software company.

In Radio, we have a web site whose text is managed on our PC desk top, then projected to the public site that other people visit.  This makes Radio very different from other Weblogging Blog Software in which the only way you can update your public website is by going there with your browser, and making changes, assuming the security is such that it uniquely identifies you as the authorized person to make the changes.

In the advanced form, that I am not yet ready for, and thus my vision of its reality might be distorted, the public site is a Manila site, and various different people with Radio can be managing THEIR PAGES on THEIR PC desk tops, then sending that info to the shared Manila site, either by direct posts, or via e-mail.  If someone started in Radio, then moves to the advanced form, they could get confused with how Manila does some things a little differently.

Stories and Shortcuts in Radio

Radio has ordinary posts, stories, and shortcuts.  There are some other features, unique to Radio with no parallel in Manila, which I address separately in Understand Radio Categories; Understand Radio News Aggregation; and other essays.

Notice in this sentence there is a hyper link to www.eWeek.com magazine on-line.  Clicking on that link takes you to that web site.

I accomplished this by some time earlier creating a Radio shortcut whose title is eWeek, then in this post, enclosing that shortcut title in double quotes, which means that in this post, the full contents of that shortcut get substituted in the body of this essay.  I could have keyed the full url in this essay, but I did it this way to illustrate the concept, before using more involved examples.  You can do something similar in your Radio.  Use the top command menu to get to Shortcuts, create a new one, think carefully what to call it, then in a later post, refer to it using the double quotes, like I just explained.

In Radio, shortcuts might be used for easy access to Global Links (explained in "Link Types"), spell out some acronyms, or share some phrase we often use.  For example, when I am writing for myself, I often use M$ as short for Microsoft.  Well not everyone uses this shortened form, so I could create a shortcut whose title is M$ and whose text is Microsoft, then get in the habit of writing "M$" so that my readers would see the word Microsoft instead.  My friend Julian refers to countries by 2 letters, CN = CHINA, TW = TAIWAN.  If you are not familar with those shortened forms, his writing can be difficutl to interpret.  Well with shortcuts he could continue to write the way he accustomed to, while his writings are automatically translated into what other people accustomed to reading.

Here is step by step instructions how you can setup a shortcut in your Radio, based on one that I have setup for myself.

• Get to the web site http://radio.userland.com/discuss/ of the Radio Userland Discussion Group and use your browser to copy that url for usage a bit later in these instructions.
• Use your Top Command Menu to get to Shortcuts and start a new one called RU DG
• In the body of the text, key the phrase Radio Userland Discussion Group
• Click on the world icon and in there post the url http://radio.userland.com/discuss/ that you copied earlier
• Save that story
• From now on in your Radio, you can key RU DG in double quotes and what people will see is Radio Userland Discussion Group and if they click on that hyper link, it will take them to http://radio.userland.com/discuss/
• This can be a big help if you often refer to this discussion group in your Radio posts.  You do not have to go to the site and cut paste the url every time, now that you have seen this short cut example.

Notice in this sentence there is a hyper link to my Radio Doc Sources.  Clicking on that link takes you to my Radio story with that name.

I accomplished this by some time earlier creating a Radio story whose title is Radio Doc Sources, then in this post, enclosing that story title in double quotes, which means that in this post, that becomes a hyper-link to that story page.  You can do something similar in your Radio.  Use the top command menu to get to Stories, create a new story, think carefully about what to call it, then in a later post, refer to it using the double quotes, like I just explained. 

In Radio, we can use stories for focused essays that are a bit long to put on our home page, or even in a category.  I use them to collect information about topics of interest to me, in which I will be perpetually adding to them, then periodically providing links to my stories via posts to home and Al Categories, as I make significant progress here.

Warning: Radio Stories do not work correctly in Radio Categories (I expect that in some future version, Radio Userland will fix this.).  The double quote approach looks Ok to you, because the link is on your desk top PC, but if someone is subscribing to your category (explained by Understand Radio News Aggregation), all they will see is the text in double quotes, not the hyperlink, so when doing posts to categories, you need to use the actual url, or local link (explained in "Link Types").  Warning: when doing local links, be careful to link to the url of the public copy, not to the copy that is residing on your PC desk top.

Earlier in this essay I gave step by step instructions for someone creating a shortcut.  I earlier wrote similar instructions for someone creating a story.  First look at my Radio url number system story for the context of instructions in Navigating Your Radio Site.

Stories and Shortcuts in Manila

Stories in Manila work almost the same way as Stories in Radio. 

Shortcuts do not work the same way in Manila and Radio.

Manila has ordinary posts, stories, and shortcuts.  There are some other features, unique to Manila, with no parallel in Radio.  See my story Manila Password Change How for an example of something of Manila relevance.  Any time I create a Manila web site, one of the things I do in setup is to add a copy of that story, then place a link to it on the side of the template so that users of that site will have an easy path to where you change your password in Manila. 

When we do an ordinary post in Manila, there is a button to make that post into a story.  At this point, it is both an ordinary post, like to the discussion group, and it is also a story, in that in some other post we can put the title of the story in double quotes, which means that it becomes a hyper link to the story.

Where Radio stories and shortcuts both have large spaces to key in whatever volume of stuff we want, Manila shortcuts are relatively short places where we typically key a url, like I did with www.eWeek.com earlier.

When we enclose a title in double quotes in Manila, if that is the title of either a story or a shortcut, that same text remains as we keyed it, except instead of the double quotes, it is a hyperlink.  If a story, the hyperlink is to the page for that story.  If a shortcut, the hyperlink is to the url that we keyed in for that shortcut, such as the url of some other website.

Manila has nothing comparable to the Radio shortcut where a body of text gets substituted.  Manila stories and shortcuts are both the conversion of a highlighted string of text into a hyperlink to either the Manila story by that name, or the Manila shortcut, typically the actual url.

Last update: 10/16/2002; 3:35:05 PM.