Radio UserLand: The Missing Manual - Closing the Book

Before Radio UserLand was called Radio UserLand, it was called Pike. I've been a Radio user since the day it was born and I've enjoyed the power and flexibility it has afforded me over the last four or five years.

It's been my pleasure to create this manual and I've learned much more about Radio than I ever would have had I not determined to create this weblog.

It's been especially gratifying to get feedback from people. Trying to help out where I can, either here or in the Radio forums, is something I enjoy.

However, with Steve Kirk's announcement today that he is no longer UserLand's Radio product manager, I see the writing on the wall. I've seen it for some time actually. UserLand is obviously focused on Manila, not Radio. The day UserLand hired Steve Kirks was the day I started the manual. And today, I am ending the manual. Radio was like the unfortunate child that showed so much promise but was unfortunately abandoned due to it's father's health crisis. The father tried to give Radio to a good home but the new parent's were more interested in Radio's big brother, Manila. Radio stumbled along with a minimum of updates and attempts by Steve Kirks to drum up a developer community to bring Radio in league with many of its weblogging brethren did little to achieve many of the items on the community's wish list.

Steve did a great job! Don't get me wrong. Steve single handedly moved Radio forward at a time when it could have easily remained frozen in time. Rather, Steve led improvement in commenting, trackbacks, code bugs, aggregator functionality, user support, and more. Despite his attempts though, I got the impression that UserLand was content to keep Radio hobbling along just enough. That's fine but I'm interested in platforms that are moving forward, not remaining stagnant or tended to "just enough."

Thanks to all my readers. It's been a wonderful experience. I wish you well with your Radio UserLand weblogging. Radio is still the little desktop publishing engine that could so keep on using it for your blog if you like it! I, however, have moved on and now it's time to officially close the doors here. I will leave the site standing, yet frozen. There will be no more updates to this blog.

If you would like to follow my other endeavors, I invite you read my personal weblog, Donovan's Run, a WordPress powered site. I'm also available for web site development.. see my business site, Getting Sites Built. Become the Media (home of this manual) is going to become more active this year so keep tuned in to that site. And finally, I'm experimenting with thoughtStreams using the OPML Editor, which has been lots of fun. Check it out.

Thanks for reading! - Your Host, Donovan Watts.

Radio UserLand script wanted

Goal: To assure that every weblog post appears on the home page. And to assure that every weblog post belongs to one category only. Namely, the 'iceplant radio daze' category.

Why: Once my goal is achieved, I intend to export the entire site to an RSS Backlog file using Steve Hooker's backLogAllRSS tool. Then, I will import that into WordPress 2.0. I was referring to this Wiki article from one user who recounted the steps he took to convert from Radio to WordPress if you want more background on what I'm trying to accomplish once I cleanup my posts.

How: I've broken it down into the following steps and assumptions. I don't know UserTalk but if you do, and would like to help, please look at the following and let me know if you can help. Thanks.

1. Change all posts in the weblogData.posts table to meet these two requirements:

* post must appear on home page (flNotOnHomePage = false)
* post must get assigned to the 'iceplant radio daze' category. 'iceplant radio daze' should be the only category. any other categories (old ones that have been deleted for instance) that might already exist should be removed.

2. Copy link field to beginning of post.

If the post contains a link in the Item-level Link field, the script should insert that link directly into the post, right at the beginning with the text, "[Original Link]" and that text should be a clickable link.

Example:

[Original Link] This is the text of the post. Notice how the link that used to appear in the Item-level Link field now appears at the beginning of this post as a clickable link?

Thanks if you can help.

Radio turned four on the 11th

Dave Winer: “I missed the four year anniversary of Radio 8 on the 11th. When the software shipped, the home page of scripting.com was briefly replaced by a big number 8. Some people thought it was too commercial. I liked it then; I still do.”

Search Terms for this Site

It's nice to see the top results are exactly what I'd hope for.

Remote Access problem fixed

UserLand: "We released an update which fixed a bug in Radio for OS X that made it unable (sometimes) to get its own IP address, which was the cause of some problems with the remote access feature."

Radio UserLand: trackback spam

UserLand: “There's already a way to remove trackbacks, but it requires that your comment and trackback server be the same.”

This is good to know. I had to turn off Trackback on this site recently due to spammers.

Radio UserLand: Looking for help with the Radio Roadmap

Once again, UserLand is looking for help with the Radio Roadmap. Help develop the future of our favorite blogging app by adding your feedback.

Performancing plugin for Firefox

Steve Kirks: "...download, install and configure the Firefox plugin called Performancing that allows you to easily post weblog content. It's really handy and a much better solution than we currently have for Radio users. Here's the quick "how to" guide."

Tags: radio userland, firefox, performancing

10 Tools Every New Radio UserLand User Should Install

The following is a list of 10 tools every new Radio UserLand user should install. These tools should help new Radio users get off the ground and running with Radio UserLand. I tried my best to narrow the list down to the most essential tools. Of course, this list doesn't include all the great tools available, but then it wouldn't be a top ten if I included any more, now would it?

Before using any Radio tool, you should consider turning on nightly backups and learning how to back up your Radio UserLand data.

activeRenderer

activeRenderer is an outline publishing tool for Radio UserLand. It brings the power of outlining to your blogging and web publishing experience. With activeRenderer, you can publish outlines on your public web site. Style your weblog as an outline. Add active blogrolls to your site's pages. Publish your browser bookmarks as an active blogroll. Enhance your pages with news feed boxes. Browse outlines, RSS news feeds, and the content of Radio's aggregator from activeRenderer's outline browser.

dataFileCleaner

The dataFileCleaner tool will remove certain errant entries from your Data Files that cause problems.

editThisRadioPage

editThisRadioPage adds an Edit this Page link to your live site for easy editing of your weblog posts.

DirectoryTool

Using DirectoryTool for Radio UserLand, you can create directory files using the Radio UserLand outliner, generate HTML files corresponding to your directory structure, and automatically upload your directory to your Radio UserLand weblog.

Kit

Kit is a suite of "page tools" for Radio UserLand 8, including Weblog search, an improved News Aggregator page, a web Quick Script, "Radio to the Past" for changing weblog items' dates, a web outline editor, a per-category weblog index, a subscribed feeds lister, file uploader, and the Kit dashboard.

MailEdit

The MailEdit tool works like the Mail-To-Weblog functionality built into Radio. If you send a message with the correct subject to the email address that Radio is set up to monitor, it will be posted to your weblog. In addition, MailEdit will return an email confirmation of the posting, along with a copy of the post suitable for editing.

Markdown

Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML). In other words, it makes HTML editing easy! Andy Fragen created a tool for Radio UserLand that allows you to use Markdown on your Radio posts. His tool is in beta and you need to email him for the tool.

Master Ping

The Master Ping tool comes with blo.gs, blo.gs extended, Syndic8, Syndic8 extended, Yahoo and Technocrati.

RadioAtomBridge

The RadioAtomBridge tool is a way to mirror blog posts from Radio Userland to blogs that are hosted at Blogger.com.

Workbench

A set of easy-to-use scripts by Rogers Cadenhead, author of Radio UserLand Kick Start, that enhance the functionality of a Radio UserLand weblog. Workbench.viewCategories is a script to display category links on your home page template and other pages. Workbench.viewPostIndex is a script to display links to your posts in reverse chronological order.

Have a nice hot cup of Radio

On the house! Y'all come back now, ya hear?

Bryce Yehl » Radio Userland Migration Bounty

Bryce Yehl: “So I’m offering $100 via Paypal or Amazon gift certificate to someone who can whip my old data into shape and get it into WordPress.”

Speaking of migrating from Radio UserLand to WordPress, here is a blog entry that explains one person's experience. If you are not a geek, perhaps $100 is the way to go, assuming somebody gets the gig.

Technorati Tags: radio userland, wordpress

• Home
• About
• Tips
• Donovan Watts
• Directory

Search this manual:

Radio Quick Start (PDF, 139K)

If you regularly benefit from this manual, please do consider making a donation!

March 2006
Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
			1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30	31
Feb   Apr

Posts: Previous | Next