Writing Online

Ch-ch-changes

modified system.verbs.builtins.radio.weblog.render (called from macros.viewWebLog) to remove some items that should properly be in the #itemTemplate.txt file.

• in itemsText, empty anchor (a) element at start of item
• in the bundle which sets itemTitle, assigning a class to the weblogItemTitle is nice and all, but don't you think that shouldn't be in the script?
• system.verbs.builtins.radio.data.website.["#tools"].listCategoriesForPost, is compiled code, so I can't edit it. However the div enclosing the category list should be removed, allowing that list to be formatted in the #itemTemplate.txt file

also made some changes to the #itemTemplate.txt file

• removed extra &nbsp; and <br /> elements.
• the span enclosing the datestamp should be a paragraph

8:29:01 PM # Google It!
categories: Writing Online

Reminder: Your Subscription Will Expire

Userland provides site hosting and updates for Radio Userland users on a subscription basis. The cost of the first year of this subscription is included in the price of Radio. If the subscription is not renewed, then two things will happen:

1. The Radio Userland program will no longer update itself.
2. Files on radio.weblogs.com will be removed.

If you decide not to renew, and will continue publishing from another location, there are some things you should do to prepare the world at large, to notify your readers of the change. Readers come in all shapes and sizes. Some of them are human, others are machines. Humans, as a rule, are somewhat more flexible than machines, and can be notified in a plethora of ways. Machines like things to be just so. Not only do you have to speak their language, but you have to be grammatically correct.

Since we're speaking of a web site here, the machines in question speak the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and may understand HTML and RSS. This is good, because you won't be able to use an HTTP Redirect on radio.weblogs.com, with all that implies.

For the HTML version of your site, edit your template to include a meta element, then re-publish everything. This will cause some machines to load the new location. This is an example that will cause the browser to load the new location zero (0) seconds after loading the original location.

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;url=http://weblog.bluepenguin.us/0106188/index.html">

Joe Friend passes on a UserTalk macro which will customize the meta element for each page:
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5;url=http://www.newsite.com/<%local (pta = html.getpagetableaddress ()); local (path = pta^.path); return (string.replace (path, ".txt", ".html"))%>">
Some machines, primarily search engines, do not pay attention to this element.

For the RSS version, there was some argument a while back about a method for using RSS to inform feed consumers of a change in the status of an URL. There was no real agreement on what to do about this, but discussion died once Dave Winer wrote something for Radio Userland. Due to the lack of consensus, this has only been implemented in Radio and NetNewsWire. This does not reduce its utility, since at least a subset of your readers will be moved to follow.

The following procedure is not intended to be a comprehensive guide to site migration. While it assumes that you will not use Radio to update your non-Userland-hosted site, the differences between this and simply using another host for your Radio-generated site are minimal.

1. Edit your template to include the meta element mentioned above.
2. Write a farewall post for the Userland-hosted site.
3. Hand edit your rss.xml file to point to the new location.

   
   <?xml version="1.0"?>
   <redirect>
   <newLocation>http://weblog.bluepenguin.us/0106188/index.xml<;/newLocation>
   </redirect>

4. Upstream everything to radio.weblogs.com.
5. Turn off the Radio.

Any questions? This method is not recommended if your readers do not use Radio Userland.

10:11:12 AM # Google It!
categories: Writing Online