A welcome present from Unbound Spiral.

RSS Feed Full Posts.

A couple of reminders recently to provide readers with what they really want.  RSS Feeds that contain the full post.  It's now done - isn't choice wonderful?  You can choose.  If you desire a full post rather than the excerpt, please change your subscription to:

Full Posts (XML) http://www.henshall.com/blog/index2.rdf 

Why is it that MT's default setting is excerpts?

Makes me think about my own newreader.  I wish I could toggle between full and excerpts.  Even better scan quickly on excepts and then toggle to full posts.  Early on I tried AmphetaDesk and currently just use the Radio one.  Except I get posts that blow its formating from time to time.  Is there a newreader that can improve my experience?  Is there one I can install on my server? That is also easy to do?How does a group go collective newsreading?  A my, yours, ours subscription file? Are there tools mapping subscriptions in this format? 

[Unbound Spiral]

Of course, I updated my subscription list right away. I've been tracking Stuart's excellent observations on the world of knowledge work for a while now. With full feeds it will be that much easier.

Stuart does raise some important points about some needed evolution in RSS feed readers. One tool that I have added to the mix that helps in my Radio environment is Mikel Maron's MyRadio tool. It lets me do some of the things Stuart asks for. [McGee's Musings 
4:15:36 PM      comment []   trackback []  



Good docs for UserTalk programmers. One of the things I recommend in Radio UserLand Kick Start is for aspiring UserTalk programmers to frequent DocServer, the online documentation for UserTalk verbs.

Although there are some omissions -- for instance, none of the radio verbs have been documented -- most of it appears to be correct as of Radio 8. [Workbench] 
2:50:25 AM      comment []   trackback []  



Radio UserLand loop has my head spinning. I've run into some unexpected behavior in UserTalk while documenting loop loops for Radio UserLand Kick Start.

The following code ends up with a final displayed value of 3.4 in the About Radio UserLand dialog box:

If anyone can explain why the final output isn't 3.5, as I expected, I've begun a discussion on the radio-dev mailing list. [Workbench] 
2:49:33 AM      comment []   trackback []  

Weblog Post Index. Wow! This is super handy. Clean, simple, straightforward. There is now a complete index of all posts to this weblog since it's inception. I can stop manually updating my archives. Woo Hoo!

Creating an index of weblog posts in Radio

Creating an index of weblog posts in Radio. Inspired by Rob Henerey's suggestion, I've written a Radio script that displays an index of weblog posts for the main weblog or a category.

Looking at the output of the scripts, I wish I had started writing post titles earlier than February. [Rogers Cadenhead: Radio Userland Kick Start]

If you use Radio as your blogging tool of choice, run, don't walk to get Rogers' latest goodie here. It took me about 3 minutes to download, install, and test. I can already see how this will help me extract more value from the posts I've been making here over time.

This is also an excellent example of the extensibility built into Radio. Radio may have its warts, and its user interface leaves a bit to be desired, but that's often true for industrial strength power tools.

Thank you Rogers! [via McGee's Musings]

[b.cognosco] 
12:59:35 AM      comment []   trackback []  

Creating an index of weblog posts in Radio. Inspired by Rob Henerey's suggestion, I've written a Radio script that displays an index of weblog posts for the main weblog or a category.

Looking at the output of the scripts, I wish I had started writing post titles earlier than February. [Workbench] 
2:45:54 AM      comment []   trackback []  

Patching Radio to support RSS filtering. Matt Mower offers one line of code that UserLand can add to Radio so that the storyArrived callback can be used for my incoming RSS cleaner and other RSS scripts. I've tried his suggested patch and it works. [Workbench] 
5:29:33 AM      comment []   trackback []  



Implementing Trackback for Radio Userland in 3 easy steps.

Paolo was wondering whether we could setup the standalone Trackback server and use it to implement trackbacks for Radio Userland.  It turns out (as this post proves) that the answer is yes!  All that was required was to install the CGI and then write a macro for Radio Userland and embed it in the #itemTemplate.txt.

The macro is supplying the RDF metadata that Trackback depends upon.  In order to allow the standalone trackback server to serve multiple blogs I have added a unique prefix (in my case @matt.blogs.it) to the unique post ID's supplied to the trackback server.

[Curiouser and curiouser!] [Not So Obvious] 
3:16:14 AM      comment []   trackback []  

Editing OPML link directories with JOE. At first glance, the Java Outline Editor (JOE) looks like a suitable choice for editing OPML link directories and other outlines.

The program supports the addition or deletion of any attributes to each outline item, enabling link directories to be created by adding type and url attributes (screenshot).

It isn't as easy as using Radio, where you can hit CTRL-K or CMD-K to add a link to any title, but there may be a way to extend the functionality that I haven't found yet.

Note: JOE has the same problem with undeclared entity references as my OPML Link Publisher application: They break the document's XML well-formedness. [Workbench] 
1:31:44 AM      comment []   trackback []  

UserLand: The next weblogging buyout?. Roland Tanglao writes in a comment to Workbench, "Too bad UserLand doesn't seem to have the money to hire one developer for each platform (Frontier, Manila and Radio) and the right number of support people, because if they did there's no way MovableType or anybody else could keep up with them."

After Google bought Pyra and Moveable Type's developers secured venture financing, UserLand Software is the last chance for an outside company to buy their way into overnight credibility in weblog publishing.

Lately, I've been expecting to fire up Scripting News and learn that Microsoft, Adobe, or Apple purchased the company as part of an aggressive push to get into the space. Microsoft certainly has at least one employee who knows what UserLand has to offer. [Workbench] 
10:25:01 PM      comment []   trackback []  



Team Tasks Tool. Last year we spent some time working on a Radio UserLand tool which we were calling Team Tasks Tool. The basic idea was leveraging on the power of Radio's embedded object database, outliner and web server to create a p2p task management and tracking tool.

We went pretty far with the development, we were actually using the tool internally, until our company's downsizing forced us to freeze the project (we didn't have the necessary resource to finish it nor enough tasks and people to manage).

I had totally forgot about this tool until a few days ago I received an email from Robert Barksdale asking me about it.

We still have no time to work on it, but maybe somebody out there is willing to work a little on it or simply use it (it already works).

So, just as a test, we are releasing it under a Creative Commons License.

Feel free to contact me () if you have any idea about this cool tool. [Paolo Valdemarin: Paolo's Weblog] 
3:39:44 AM      comment []   trackback []  



Trackback. Looks like we got trackback working on a couple or Radio weblogs. It still needs some work but it looks promising. [Paolo Valdemarin: Paolo's Weblog] 
3:26:34 AM      comment []   trackback []  



Surgical Diversions offers a wide range of nifty Radio scripts and tools. Good value! 
3:20:25 AM      comment []   trackback []  

Restoring a Radio weblog from HTML files. The worst-case scenario for new Radio webloggers is to delete the Radio UserLand installation folder or lose it in a crash without a backup.

Many new users believe that because their weblog is still on the Web, it can be easily restored from backup. Unfortunately, this is only true if the user has turned on nightly backups. Otherwise, there's no automated way to grab the entries from HTML Web pages and save the data in weblogData.root, the database in the Data Files folder where the entries and other weblog data are kept.

To help the publisher of the Patriotically Incorrect weblog, I'm working on a script that downloads all of a Radio weblog's Web pages and builds a new copy of weblogData.root. Though it's not ready for release yet, the script appeared to restore all 35 entries of that weblog correctly. If you know anyone trying to restore their Radio weblog with nothing but Web pages left for backup, tell them to contact me. [Workbench] 
4:09:25 PM      comment []   trackback []  



Radio UserLand: This way lies madness. For Chapter 21 of Radio UserLand Kick Start, I'm working on a gateway tool that posts weblog entries via HTTP POST to any Web CGI script, even if it requires cookie-based authentication.

As a demonstration, the tool is mirroring the last five Workbench posts to my Metafilter user page (login required to view).

Radio gets knocked for being maddeningly complicated when you venture beyond the "five minutes to first post" features, and in some ways working with the software promotes Apocalypse Now-style "oh, the horror" moments. However, the fact you can do stuff like this in a few hours' work with under 50 lines of code is really amazing. [Workbench] 
4:08:29 PM      comment []   trackback []  

Preventing RSS exploits with Radio. I'm working on a Radio script that addresses RSS exploits.

Mark Pilgrim's suggestion of weeding out the unsafe HTML seems futile. Instead, the script removes all HTML tags and attributes other than a small subset that can't be abused: P, B, I, BR, and BLOCKQUOTE (all without attributes), A (with HREF only), and IMG (with SRC, ALT, HEIGHT, and WIDTH only). I'm hoping the script also has the side benefit of making RSS entries easier to read.

The script works on the text of entries, but I can't find a way to make it work with the storyArrived callback. If anyone has tackled this problem before, I've begin a discussion on the radio-dev mailing list. [Workbench] 
12:50:38 AM      comment []   trackback []  

Displaying category links on Radio weblogs. New Radio UserLand macro: viewCategories() displays a list of links to a weblog's categories. The script supports Cascading Style Sheets and the placement of HTML before and after each link. [Workbench] 
11:35:28 PM      comment []   trackback []  



Mark Pilgrim trained the attack platypus.

Well, it sure screwed my feed reading until I managed to kill it in the Radio ODB... FSCK that, it's enough for me to ditch his feed. [thx to Rogers Cadenhead for the info]

It's not that one doesn't appreciate attention being drawn to security issues but, let's face it, posting a detailed alert, possibly with a link to an example of the exploit where the curious could choose to see for themselves, would have been much more commendable. 
1:16:51 AM      comment []   trackback []  

Let's face it - Radio is not your average run-of-the-mill-type blogging tool.

This is where I keep track of Radio on both OS X and W2K

 
3:35:15 PM      comment []   trackback []