Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
scriptingNews outline for 12/17/2000
Author: Dave Winer Posted: 12/17/2000; 6:27:24 AM Topic: scriptingNews outline for 12/17/2000 Msg #: 22021 Prev/Next: 22020 / 22022
Radio 7.0b32
Radio UserLand 7.0b32 has been released. It includes two new commands, Save As HTML and Save As Plain Text. The first renders an outline and saves it to disk; the second allows you to create and edit plain text files in Radio -- which means you could edit Python scripts in the outliner, for instance.
Flash gets a scripting language, XML-RPC support
I got an email from Chris Langreiter this morning and asked that he post it to the XML-RPC discussion group. An interesting and surprising thread. I didn't know that Flash has an integrated scripting language.
And Tom Fuerstner has Flash doing XML-RPC. Chris says this brings Flash into the space currently occupied by Java on the client side. Any application environment that supports XML-RPC can be the back-end.
Of course Java already supports XML-RPC, so I'm not sure if this is a killer for Java or not. But there sure are great authoring tools for Flash.
Since there's a scripting language in Flash, is there a way to use Radio to author Flash script content? What do we need to do to make Radio Flash-friendly? (This is a current topic at UserLand, the next release of Radio will work well for authoring Python scripts.)
How new is the scripting language in Flash? Is there a Flash developer community site, and if not should we start one?
Lots more Flash scripting URLs on today's mail page.
Michael Classen's RSS tool
Honestly, I'm not exactly sure what this tool does, but it seems to build on RSS in an interesting way, in a browser-based Java applet. If you figure it out let me know. It's cool that he's providing the source. Maybe it's a starter for a project you want to do?
How to be an editor
Wes Felter, one of our Pundits (a highly subjective list, certain to grow) asks "How do I become an editor? The About page doesn't mention anything." That's why I think of Wes as a pundit, his questions cut right to the core. I'll put this text on the About page later today.
It's hard to say how you become an editor. Let me try anyway. The first thing to do is to create a directory. Pick a subject you track, something you know a lot about, or a subject that you have a list of authoritative websites for. You can create the directory on your own Manila site, or on SuperOpenDirectory, or you can create the directory using an XML editor, and save it on your Apache server, or whatever. It just has to be accessible over HTTP and the file name must end with .opml.
Now -- how to get it linked into SuperOpenDirectory? That's pretty simple too, but of course you have a few choices. The first step is to have an opinion about where it should be linked in. Visit that page and look at the bottom of the directory display. Pages that have links also have a link that allows you to suggest a link. Click on it, fill in the form and include the URL of your directory. An email will be sent to the editor of the page. It might not be me. Hopefully as the tree builds it won't be me. I'm taking responsibility for the top level of the directory, but I'm looking for ways to delegate big chunks of the directory to other people.
Another possibility is to post a pointer to your directory to the SuperOpenDirectory mail list. That way our competitors will see the link too. There's no reason for your directory to only be linked in in one place. If you come up with the Killer Directory perhaps 20 other directories will want to include it. Maybe your directory will be the top level directory that everyone will want to bookmark?
Dubya & Dan
Salon tuned into something that I had already figured out.
This time around the Man of the Year is Dan Quayle and the Secretary of State is Daddy. (Or in Bush family terminology, Poppy.)
Shawn Fanning was a Person Who Mattered, as was Thomas Penfield Jackson.
This page was archived on 6/13/2001; 4:56:57 PM.
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