Vanity Foul

Vanity Foul
Dedicated to the wanderings of an egotistical mind.

Sunday April 20, 2003

Re: Producing OPML with Roller

Dave illustrates in a brief article how to generate OPML from Roller. As a convenience, we could add a new standard macro named showBookmarkOPML which generates the outline for each Folder:

#showBookmarkOPML( $folderName ) #set( $folder = $vHelper.getFolder( $folderName ) ) #if ( $folder ) <outline text="$folderName"> #set( $links = $folder.getBookmarks() ) #foreach( $link in $links ) <outline text="$link.name" link="$link.url" /> #end </outline> #end #end

Then the user's page could look like this:
<opml version="1.1">
<head><title>Dave's bookmarks</title></head>
<body>
showBookmarkOPML("Blogroll")
showBookmarkOPML("Java blogs")
</body>
</opml>

How does that look?
( Apr 20 2003, 08:07:37 AM ) Roller Permalink Comments [1] [Trackback]

Saturday April 19, 2003

Running on Roller 0.9.7.1

I'm not sure what that sub-sub-release (the .1) is for, but what you're seeing is the latest and greatest from cvs.

Besides Werner's Theme, Brian Blakeley has submitted his as well. I'm working on getting it firmed up, but it is in cvs (as "cheb") already.
( Apr 19 2003, 01:44:28 PM ) Roller Permalink [Trackback]

Thursday April 17, 2003

Re: New Roller Themes Redux

This has been a thorn in my side for some time, I'd really like to get some new Roller themes. Several people on FreeRoller have created some nice looking blogs. I'm going to name names, and hope they voluntarily submit their designs for the benefit of all Roller users.

atog News: atog's template is now in cvs as "clean".
and so it begins...
Jeff Duska's old blog
Absurdities and nonsenses
grubbel

Would the owners of these fine blogs please submit their Weblog pages and any supporting material to their nearest Roller developer? Thank you. If you'd like to suggest a name for the Theme, and include attribution somewhere in the page, please do so.

Update: Werner Ramaeker has agreed to donate his theme.

Even Later: I've heard from atog & Jeff, both agreed to submit their designs. Thanks guys!
( Apr 17 2003, 03:23:36 PM ) Roller Permalink Comments [7] [Trackback]

Re: Whoopee!

My congratulations to Rickard, may the two of you have a long and happy life.
( Apr 17 2003, 01:28:46 PM ) Personal Permalink Comments [2] [Trackback]

The value of an RSS aggregator

I resisted the trend towards RSS aggregators for a long time, but finally setup nntp//rss last week. It did reduce the amount of time I spent reading blogs: I didn't have to click through to every site to see if something changed and I didn't have to wait for the whole graphical-interface to load. But recently I found another use, one that had become vital enough that I was peeved when nntp//rss decided to stop polling my subscriptions for some reason: printing.

You see, I like reading Ted Neward's blog, he provides a great deal of useful information. But some of his longer posts are trying, that is, I have difficulting focussing on the monitor while reading, and scrolling makes it all that more difficult. So I started printing them (ah, paper). But I got all those graphics and links and other posts and whatnot associated with the weblog presentation. Enter nntp//rss: since each post is presented to me as a discreet item, without all the decorations. This makes it much cleaner to read on the monitor, but also makes for a much less encumbered printout. The only downfall is that blog posts with graphics usually don't display (the infamous "relative url" problem?) - but since Ted hasn't made (much?) use of graphics I haven't noticed the loss.
( Apr 17 2003, 10:56:22 AM ) Technology Permalink Comments [1] [Trackback] [Link]

For further reading on today's posts:

atog : thanks for sending me the link , tom . so, i'm very happy to donate my theme. i still have to figure out a name for it though :p

Wednesday April 16, 2003

Compress your data

Bill Kearney wants us to Use compression on your web server. I couldn't agree more, and posted a comment:

It's about time someone stood up and said this. As one of the committers on Roller (http://www.rollerweblogger.com) I've added gzip compression for both the web pages and the RSS feed - it'll be coming in version 0.9.7.

I don't think Dave has this in the README for the next release, guess that means I should put it in there ;-)

Later: there was some bugs with the implementation I *cough* borrowed *cough* from Marty Hall _{© 2002 Marty Hall; may be freely used or adapted}, but I fixed them.
More to the point, my test page went from 34028 bytes to 7939: 23.33% of the original size!
( Apr 16 2003, 03:33:44 PM ) Roller Permalink Comments [2] [Trackback]

Re: But what do you mean? Or "Re: I am sorry"

I honestly believe you; that you weren't *trying* to be patronizing, Chiara. I think perhaps blogs are too much like email or IM, where it is difficult to express emotions clearly. I read too much into the phrases "You are so adorable but utterly helpless" and "How should i write dearest Lance?". I've seen you use "dearest" before, so I shouldn't have taken it personally.

Perhaps it was calling me a "typical male geek" that set me off. I hate to think of myself as typical in any way, whether I am or not.

I likewise appreciate that you've been reading my blog, though I must confess that I suspect my content to be less compelling than your own ;-)
( Apr 16 2003, 03:04:12 PM ) Personal Permalink [Trackback] [Link]

Re: But what do you mean?

Chiara responded to my non-understanding. Now that she has stated clearly what she was saying, I still don't see it in the previous ramble. Chiara states that she wants to be understood, and the only advice I can give is: get those run-on sentences under control.

Oh, and "dearest" Chiara, please don't patronize me.
( Apr 16 2003, 08:21:53 AM ) Personal Permalink Comments [1] [Trackback] [Link]

For further reading on today's posts:

I bla-bla-bla : Lance answers to my apology,

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