Salon Blogs

Using PHP to redirect Radio URLs

Several people have asked how I'm hosting Radio UserLand comments and trackback with PHP. Although I plan to do this eventually, at this time I'm only pretending to offer this feature locally. Instead, I'm using PHP scripts to redirect requests to my real comment/trackback host, the excellent Python Community Server. I've written a short article on how to use PHP to redirect Radio UserLand URLs. ... (read more)

2003/12/03

Self-promotion begins at home

Self-promotion: Stephen Ibaraki has published the transcript of an interview with me regarding Radio UserLand Kick Start, weblogging, and Java. One question will be of particular interest to Radio users: "Could you provide five tips from the book?" Tip number 1 is one that I make often when talking about the software: Turn on nightly backups. ... (read more)

2003/12/02

Saving hoisted outlines in Radio UserLand

One of the more important gotchas in the Radio UserLand outliner occurs when you save an outline that has been hoisted. As I discuss in the Radio UserLand Kick Start chapter on outliners, hoisting causes a group of subheads to be displayed as they were the top level of the outline. Their parent and all other parts of the outline disappear from view. If you save a hoisted outline, it only saves the parts of the outline that are visible, discarding everything else. You can ensure that everything ... (read more)

2003/11/15

Weblog census finds 27,000 UserLand sites

A weblog census prepared by the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education finds more than 27,000 weblogs published with Radio UserLand or Manila software. The two categories of weblog software -- "standalone tools" and "hosted sites" -- don't provide a place for Radio, which provides both functions. ... (read more)

2003/11/11

Changing file extensions with Radio

Radio UserLand tip: If your Web server does not recognize index.html as a valid name for a folder's home page, you can use the #renderedFileExtension directive to replace html with another extension such as php or cfm. ... (read more)

2003/11/05

Now available: Radio UserLand Kick Start

Radio UserLand Kick Start arrived in stores this week and had the highest first-day Amazon rank of any book that I've written -- it was at around 2,300 when I decided that three hours was enough time to spend reloading the page like a crazed day trader. I've sold around 30 copies on Amazon this week to Workbench visitors. I mention all of this because I'm eager to prove that UserLand Software's products are a viable topic for book publishers. This is only the second book on a UserLand product ... (read more)

2003/10/23

Pycs offers weblog search engine

Phillip Pearson has added a search engine to the Python Community Server, an open-source clone of Radio's hosting server written in Python. To support searching weblog entries, he's implementing a new XmlStorageSystem method, mirrorPosts, which Radio and other tools could use to add an entry to the search engine. If you're a Radio user who is outgrowing the Radio Community Server or Salon Blogs, changing to the Python Community Server is pretty simple. I'm using Pycs for comments and trackback ... (read more)

2003/10/14

Radio UserLand Kick Start out this week

I've received a few e-mails from readers wondering when they'll be getting Radio UserLand Kick Start, which comes out this month. I checked with my publisher, and it appears they'll be shipped from the Sams Publishing warehouse to Amazon.Com this week. ... (read more)

2003/10/13

Commercial server supports four weblog APIs

While doing research on Java implementations of the XMLStorageSystem API, the backbone of Radio UserLand web hosting, I found something unusual: Full support for the API in a commercial server product. As shown in the documentation, the OpenLink Virtuoso "universal server" supports the XML Storage System, MetaWeblog, Blogger, and Moveable Type APIs, which enables it to host weblogs created with Radio and other weblogging tools. This is my first exposure to Virtuoso, but in an article for ... (read more)

2003/10/09

Add blank lines to Radio navigator links

Some people are having trouble using my tip on adding a blank line to navigator links in Radio. To include a blank line, add an element with a space as its name: <item name=" "/>. I'm using this on Workbench. As long as you include a space or an &nbsp; entity in between the quote marks, it will render as a blank line when the links are displayed. ... (read more)

2003/09/24

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