Using OPML link macros

activeRenderer tutorial - part 9

This is a tutorial for activeRenderer's most geekish feature to date.

This should be a warning to activeRenderer users who have already tried activeRenderer's most outlandish functions :-)

It was inspired by Brian Holland, a fellow New Yorker and publisher of the The Foreign Street China Brief.

Step 1: Understanding OPML link attributes.

When editing an OPML compatible outline, you can attach the URL address of any Web accessible document to any of your outline's paragraphs.

This URL address shows up as specialized wedge icons at the left of the paragraph it is attached to.

To learn more about OPML links, their transcluding properties, and how to attach them using Radio's outliner, click on the 'page' wedge icon of this paragraph.

Step 2: Introducing link macros.

Link macros are ways of referencing the text of a specific component of any outline within the URL address of an OPML link.

They are completely unrelated to Radio macros.

Link macros are encased between ## markers. Expand this node for a full list.

##title##: references the outline's title.

##self##: references the text content of the current paragraph.

##parent##: same for the parent node of the current paragraph (at the previous outline level).

##previous##: same for the previous sibling paragraph (within the same outline level of the same parent node).

##next##: same for the next sibling paragraph.

Step 3: What's the point of mixing OPML links and macros ?

Think search engine requests... Here's where it gets really geekish: you can use a macro as the search criteria for requests.

For instance: http://www.google.com/search?q=##title##. Click on this paragraph's 'page' wedge, and learn what Google has to say about 'Using OPML link macros'.

Step 4: Going crazy with macros.

The Foreign Street China Brief

Click this paragraph's link to learn about Brian's site through MSN Search, thanks to the ##parent## macro.

The request is http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=##parent##.

Click on this link to lookup Brian's site through Alta Vista, thus testing the ##previous## macro. The request is http://www.altavista.com/web/results?q=##previous##.

More about the The Foreign Street China Brief.

The previous paragraph checked out Brian's site on Yahoo, courtesy of the ##self## macro. The request is http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=##self##.

Finally, click on this paragraph's link to see what Amazon's A9 can find about Brian's site, using the ##next## macro. The request is http://a9.com/##next##.

The Foreign Street China Brief

Step 5: Here's the best part: you can make creative use of OPML link macros even if your name isn't Brian Holland :-)

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activeRenderer News

Radio Upstreaming Beta and activeRenderer

A quick note: the new upstreaming scheme provided with Radio's Uptreaming Beta will break the normal automatic upstreaming of outlines saved in 'outlines' or 'opml' folders under Radio's root folder ('www') or any Radio category folder.

I have a fix ready in activeRenderer version 2.5.2, but other features of 2.5.2 are not quite ready for release yet.

I'll announce vs 2.5.2 soon on the ar-announce list.

In the meantime, any beta-tester who wants the fix right now can get a pre-release aR 2.5.2 update by dropping me a line directly.

5/4/05 - 4:59 pm GMT - [guid]

activeRenderer Users Gallery Update

[image] First update in over a year.

I had almost forgotten the existence of the activeRenderer Users Gallery page :-).

Anyway, my hat's off to Dawn and Drew.

While they are not using Radio Userland as their publication tool, they've made a great use of the public activeRenderer web service and its XML-RPC API to create outlined show notes for their podcasts.

[image] Thanks to the audio transcluding feature of activeRenderer 2.5 built into the web service, you can listen to their podcasts directly inside the show note page by clicking the small 'loudspeaker' wedge icon in the 'MP3 File' paragraph.

[image]

4/14/05 - 4:25 am GMT - [guid]

Outline link macros

Starting with version 2.5, activeRenderer provides a way to include part of the outline's content into the URL specifying a transcluding link.

If you think this is gibberish...

You're probably right.

A small example will probably make things clearer, at least if you are reading this directly on the activeRenderer News site.

Click on the 'page' wedge icon to the left of the next paragraph to learn what MSDN can report about activeRenderer. activeRenderer The URL of the link attached to the previous node looks like this: http://beta.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=##self## ##self## is a link macro that references the current node's textual content.

Link macros come in several flavors besides ##self##.

They are useful as search requests arguments to specify richer outline links.

Learn more about link macros in activeRenderer's Tutorial 9.

4/7/05 - 9:58 pm GMT - [guid]

With the webOutliner tool installed...

...

I can prepare a post using a full featured browser based outliner, then press the 'post to weblog' icon to publish it into this weblog.

This is my first public posting experiment with the webOutliner, a companion Radio tool to activeRenderer.

The webOutliner is still under wraps, but its release date is getting closer :-) There is no official webOutliner site yet, but a demo site has been running for some time.

There is also a wo-support discussion group; and a support index.

With the current version of webOutliner, I can format my posts in static HTML (using HTML blockquote tags) or, in activeRenderer style dynamic HTML, such as in this post.

This is fun when linking to podcasts, such as these Morning Coffee Notes from Dave Winer.

There's still a little work to do: filtering DHTML in the RSS feed, providing for post links and enclosures, sending outlines over email.

Parallel development is on the way on non Radio, non Usertalk environments.

Stay tuned.

4/5/05 - 9:22 pm GMT - [guid]

how this works