[image] [image] Change in plans! We've decided to release activeRenderer vs 2.3 now instead of mid June.
The 2.3 version adds multilingual support, thanks to Gwénaël's patient work. There is now a language selection popup at the bottom of activeRenderer's preferences page.
The only language we offer in addition to English so far is French. Others will follow: from Scotland, AJG Beaumel has volunteered a German translation. We are currently looking for translators in Italian, Spanish, Dutch and Danish. Those are the latin alphabet based languages I could extract from activeRenderer's registration database.
[image] Gwénaël has made the actual translation task extremely easy, no knowledge of programming required. We will keep making small modifications in the 2.3 track. We aim to enable the publication of outlined sites in several different languages, as opposed to today's single language choice for all documents.
Gwénaël is still working on his activeRenderer macros wizards, which will be at the core of version 2.4, still scheduled for mid June.
The next version of activeRenderer will include wizards to help bloggers add side rolls to their templates using activeRenderer's activeRoll and rssBox macros.
Gwénaël, who first came up with this brilliant idea, is hard at work getting those wizards ready. If your French isn't too rusty, you may try out his public prototypes of the rssBox and activeRoll wizards.
We'll be working together next week in Paris, our target is to release a 2.3 version of activeRenderer by mid June. More on the coming 2.3 version later...
Taking advantage of Feedster's feedpapers, I've updated activeRenderer's rssBox demo page to display a side by side view of both Kerry and Bush consoladited news feeds.
The outlined view makes it easy to compare news headlines, and the preview mode lets you scan through interesting looking posts by simply hovering your mouse's cursor over the 'wedge' handle at the left of each title. Clicking the wedge actually opens, or expands, the news item.
The template for the demo page is available for download, as an example of rssBox macro use.
Another way of leveraging RSS feeds is including an RSS box in a blogroll, as I do on s l a m's home page.
Bruce Loebrich has made impressive progress porting some of activeRenderer's features to the Movable Type weblogging world.
Check out the MT weblog outlined view on our experimental site.
We're getting closer to a first release, though I cannot commit to any specific date at this time.
We're interested in all suggestions from current MT users regarding expected outline publishing features.
[image] Gwénaël Le Dréan demonstrates the first level of localisation achieved in activeRenderer version 2.1 and later (as well he should since he's behind a large part of our common effort towards a fully localised tool :-).
Even if you don't speak French, you will notice his outline carries correctly accented vowels like é è à. Gwénaël also localised the output of the activeRendererFunctions macro with its latest parameters, to display the French mentions 'tout déplier', 'tout replier' instead of the default 'expand all', 'collapse all' in the right side bar.
This version features a new twist in weblog outlining: you can now select outlined styles for each weblog category that has HTML rendering turned on in its settings, separately from the style given to the main home page.
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Category selection comes handy when publishing several web sites from the same Radio installation. For instance, I'm publishing s l a m as the 'main' site of my Radio installation, with no outlined style at all, whereas activeRenderer News is publihed from the 'activeRenderer' category with both day headers and post titles outlined.
To turn categories on, check Radio's categories preferences. Click category names in Radio's categories page to turn HTML rendering on or off. Check out the updated preferences page to experiment with weblog outlining.
I've also fixed a number of bugs in the tool's uninstallation code, and upgraded it to my latest understanding of Frontier's tools suite.
When you uncheck activeRenderer from Radio's Tools page, if you had the activeMenu or any of the weblog outlining preferences checked, all original templates are restored, so that the Radio's desktop website menu no longer includes the 'Browser' option, and the next publishing session will occur without applying any outlined style. Rechecking activeRenderer in the Tools page will restore it, complete with its preferences, to the state it was at the time of its last de-activation.
When you remove activeRenderer.root from Radio's Tools folder and restart Radio, all components of activeRenderer, including its serial number and preferences, are removed from Radio's object database, leaving no trace behind.
The 'activeRenderer', 'opml' and 'outlines' folders created by activeRenderer in Radio's www file structure are left in place though, since removing them has consequences on the public sites contents. Think twice before removing them manually.
activeRenderer modifies Radio templates. The 'activeMenu' option (checked by default) modifies '#desktopWebsiteTemplate.txt' and '#template.txt' in the www folder. Weblog outlining modifies '#homeTemplate.txt', "#dayTemplate.txt', and '#itemTemplate.txt', either in the www folder or in all relevant subfolders of the www/categories folder.
Before making any modification, activeRenderer backups the original files in 'activeRenderer/local/backup'. Before restoring any original template, it copies all modified versions to 'activeRenderer/local/custom'. 'activeRenderer' folders can be found in www and in each category folder for which an outlined style was selected. In the unlikely event something goes wrong, you should always be able to restore the proper templates from the 'backup' or 'custom' subfolders.
To update your version, click on the update link in the activeRenderer section of the status center in Radio's desktop website home page, or select the Tools / activeRenderer / Update... Menu in the Radio application.
You may also choose to set your activeRenderer preferences to auto update the tool every time you launch Radio: this is the way to ensure you are running the latest available code.
I'm now switching to other projects (replacing the registration service for one), while Gwénaël tries to keep up with the localization effort.
