Category Archives: RadioAtomBridge Tool

New version of the RadioAtomBridge tool – v3.2!

Posted on by
Reply

Tonight I posted the lastest version (v3.2) of my RadioAtomBridge tool for
Radio Userland
. This tool is a way to mirror blog posts from Radio Userland
to
blogs that are hosted at Blogger.com. The tool has been working
great over the last year, but recently Blogger.com changed their API
(wisely!) to require the use of SSL. I discovered this when my
tool failed and stopped working.

I spent the last several weeks making a number of changes, and cleaning
up the tool in general. There were several fixes that I wanted to
get in place, and I think that I have covered the majority of
them. The primary change was to allow you to specify using
SSL/TLS for the ATOM posts. This does require a download from
Userland of the Radio Userland TLS module … but it’s a free download.

I’ve done a good bit of testing, and have actually posted this article
with the tool. I believe that I have things working well enough
to release a build as v3.2 … so go and grab a copy and give it a
try! If you have problems, please post comments on the
RadioAtomBridge blog … I’ll look for them there!

Installing the RadioAtomBridge Tool v3.2

Posted on by
Reply
The Radio Userland Atom
Bridge Tool is designed to allow anyone using Radio Userland an easy way to
mirror posts to any Blogger.com or Blogspot.com blog, using the Atom API. This
tool is based on prior work from other developers – Dave Winer and Steve Hooker
– who wrote the ManilaBloggerBridge and xManilaBloggerBridge respectively.

The installation is straight forward and should require very little
effort overall. There are a few key points to understand about how this tool
operates:

  • Blogger.com has recently started to use SSL for all ATOM API
    access. With v3.2 of the RadioAtomBridge tool, you will have to
    download and install the Radio Userland TLS module. Make sure to download and install this before proceeding!
  • Once it is installed, you will configure the tool using the Radio Userland
    Tools link on the Home Page.
  • The tool will not mirror posts from
    your blog home page to Blogger … only posts to categories are mirrored. This
    is on purpose so that you can selectively post to your Blogger blog by using
    categories. If you want a post to go to your home page, and to a Blogger blog,
    then simply create a category and always check both your home page and that
    category when posting.
  • This tool ought to work with any other Atom API compliant server. Give it a
    try, if it fails then come back here and comment or complain. If you provide
    enough information I’ll see if I can take a look at it and get it
    working.

Ok … so how to get started. First, make sure to go and get the Radio Userland TLS module and install it.  Second, go and download the RadioAtomBridge
Tool. Once you have it downloaded, copy it into the Radio UserlandTools
folder on your computer. On Windows systems, this is usually the Program
FilesRadio UserlandTools. I’m not real sure where this folder is on a Mac. When
you copy the tool into this directory, give it a minute or so and the tool will
be installed.

Next, you’ll want to go to the Radio Userland Home Page, and then click the Tools menu. You ought to see
a new tool called the RadioAtomBridge. Make sure that the checkbox to the left
of the name is checked. If it is not, then check the box to enable the tool and
Submit the page. If the tool is enabled then the name RadioAtomBridge will be a
highlighted link … click
it.

You will now be presented with the configuration page. You will
see each category and a checkbox where you can enable that category to be
mirrored. The first three configuration fields are already configured for
Blogger.com, so you only need to update the Blog ID, your Blogger username, and
password.

To get your Blogger Blog ID, go to Blogger.com and log in. On
the Dashboard, click on the name of the blog that you want to configure in
Radio. If you now look at the URL in the address bar of your browser you will
see a URL like: http://www.blogger.com/posts.g?blogID=99999999

… your Blog ID is the number at the end . Your Blogger username and
password ought to be obvious.

Lastly … do not check the box about
Manila sites. I’m probably going to remove this option as it is an older feature
of the ManilaBloggerBridge.

Once you have entered all of these settings,
Submit the page and your changes will be recorded … and you’ll be ready to
start posting. Go back to your home page … write a post … check the category
that you configured. After you have posted, go to the Radio Userland Events page and look for
the indication that the post to Blogger occurred. You can also go back to the RadioAtomBridge page and
scroll down to your category. There should now be some statistics about the
post, and possibly an error message if there are problems.

I
have now been using this tool for a number of months, and I am
currently mirroring five different categories to five different
blogger.com weblogs.  I’m very happy with how this tool is now
working … I hope that someone else finds this valuable!

Fixes to the RadioAtomBridge tool for Radio

Posted on by
Reply

As of tonight, I have fixed two more issues with the RadioAtomBridge tool.

Last night I was able to get SSL/TLS working to post to Blogger.com …
since they have now started to enforce requiring this.  I also
fixed the links on the events page so that they will now take you to
your Atom feed for the appropriate blog.

Tonight I thought I would do a couple of other tweaks.  First, I
added a quick fix that will include the date and time as a title if you
do not specify one.  Blogger requires a title on every post. 
Second, I did a fix to the prefs page for RadioAtomBridge to account
for category names that might have a ‘.’ in them.  The way the
code had been written it failed on my categories where I used a domain
name for a category.

I also spent some time learning how the prefs page works, and now I
think that I am going to add a new option for SSL/TLS enabled disabled
to keep the tool working with any potential Atom site.  It’s going
to take some time for that fix.

I’m still pushing to get v3.2 out the door in the next few days. 
This prefs page fix is the last one that I want to address for now.

One thing that it fun is that I am still learning more and more about
Usertalk, and the underlying architecture of Radio and tools.  Not
sure its useful in the long run, however its fun to experiment
with!  🙂

RadioAtomBridge update coming

Posted on by
Reply

I really have put off working on my RadioAtomBridge for a while
now.  It worked for me, and that’s what counts … right?  🙂

Well, over the last week, it stopped working for me … and I was
frustrated.  I haven’t seen any comments on the blog about it, and
so I figured that it was probably ok, but the more that I looked into
the problem it appears that there were two issues:

  1. It appears that Blogger/Google have lived up to their promise of
    requiring SSL/TLS to secure the ATOM posting.  This really does
    make sense, and I’m not against … I just didn’t want to have to edit
    code again.  But I have, and I am now testing this new version
    that I worked on last night.  If all goes well, I’ll post a new
    version for people in the next day or so.  Oh and another note …
    this is slowly becoming the Radio Blogger Bridge
    again since I am slowly hardcoding some things to work with Blogger,
    and removing some options.  I might see how easy it is to add an
    option for SSL/non-SSL … but don’t count on it.
  2. I also found that Blogger will not allow you to create a post
    that does not include a “title”.  So if you post, and the title is
    empty, it causes a java:Null Pointer Exception on their server. 
    Wonderful.  I haven’t yet fixed this, but am looking at what I
    might do … maybe force a default title of the time and date?

Anyhow … it was fun to get into Radio again … and it was also a
pain.  I hate that I have not yet found a fully supported blogging
tool that really does what I want it to do.  But I am working on
it!

Keep your eyes on the Radio Atom Bridge blog for update news!

Updated RadioAtomBridge v3.1

Posted on by
Reply

There have been a number of reported bugs in the Radio-Atom Bridge Tool
that I have fixed as of last night … and so I have posted the RadioAtomBridge Tool v3.1
which fixes two core bugs.

  1. There was a dependency on another tool which I have removed for
    now. This call simply added some enhanced formatting of posts,
    and I can probably reincorporate this in the future if you have that
    tool installed, but for now I simply removed the call to that function.
  2. There also was a bug in the editing of a post. This has
    also been fixed … with one caveat. In the original
    ManilaBloggerBridge Tool there is a limit that you can only edit your
    post on the day that you created it. I’m not sure why this is,
    but I did not want to make too many changes at once … so this limit
    is still in place.

There are still a couple of issues that I want to resolve, however I am
sticking to testing the core functionality for right now!

Configuring Radio Userland to mirror posts to Blogger.com

Posted on by
Reply

The Radio Userland Atom Bridge Tool is designed to allow anyone using Radio
Userland an easy way to mirror posts to any Blogger.com or Blogspot.com
blog, using the Atom API. This tool is based on prior work from
other developers – Dave Winer and Steve Hooker – who wrote the
ManilaBloggerBridge and xManilaBloggerBridge respectively.

The installation is straight forward and should require very little
effort overall. There are a few key points to understand about
how this tool operates:

  • Once it is installed, you will configure the tool using the Radio Userland Tools link on the Home Page.
  • The tool will not mirror posts
    from your blog home page to Blogger … only posts to categories are
    mirrored. This is on purpose so that you can selectively post to
    your Blogger blog by using categories. If you want a post to go
    to your home page, and to a Blogger blog, then simply create a category
    and always check both your home page and that category when posting.
  • This tool ought to work with any other Atom API compliant
    server. Give it a try, if it fails then come back here and
    comment or complain. If you provide enough information I’ll see
    if I can take a look at it and get it working.
  • NOTE:
    There is still one dependency on another tool from Steve Hooker – the
    backLogAllRSS Tool. You will have to go to his backLogAllRSS web page and download a copy
    of this tool, and install it in Radio.

Ok … so how to get started. First, go and download the RadioAtomBridge Tool.
Once you have it downloaded, copy it into the Radio UserlandTools
folder on your computer. On Windows systems, this is usually the
Program FilesRadio UserlandTools. I’m not real sure where this
folder is on a Mac. When you copy the tool into this directory,
give it a minute or so and the tool will be installed.

Next, you’ll want to go to the Radio Userland Home Page, and then click the Tools
menu. You ought to see a new tool called the
RadioAtomBridge. Make sure that the checkbox to the left of the
name is checked. If it is not, then check the box to enable the
tool and Submit the page. If the tool is enabled then the name
RadioAtomBridge will be a highlighted link … click it.

You will now be presented with the configuration page. You will
see each category and a checkbox where you can enable that category to
be mirrored. The first three configuration fields are already
configured for Blogger.com, so you only need to update the Blog ID,
your Blogger username, and password.

To get your Blogger Blog ID, go to Blogger.com and log in. On the
Dashboard, click on the name of the blog that you want to configure in
Radio. If you now look at the URL in the address bar of your
browser you will see a URL like:
http://www.blogger.com/posts.g?blogID=99999999

… your Blog ID
is the number at the end . Your Blogger username and password ought to be
obvious.

Lastly … do not check the box about Manila sites. I’m probably
going to remove this option as it is an older feature of the
ManilaBloggerBridge.

Once you have entered all of these settings, Submit the page and your
changes will be recorded … and you’ll be ready to start
posting. Go back to your home page … write a post … check the
category that you configured. After you have posted, go to the
Radio Userland Events page and look for the indication that the post to Blogger occurred. You can also go back to the RadioAtomBridge
page and scroll down to your category. There should now be some
statistics about the post, and possibly an error message if there are
problems.

So far it works for me … I’m going to keep testing and might have
some updates. Good luck and I hope that someone finds this
valuable!

Testing my RadioAtomBridge Tool

Posted on by
Reply

This is simply a test post from Radio Userland
… to see how my fixes work …

It’s the Eric Rice show on Engadget.

Eric Rice has too much fun with Flickr. Is this why Yahoo bought Flickr? Heh.

Eric is doing the new Engadget podcast.
(Lenn and Phil have moved over to Make). I see people are giving him
heck because he isn’t as big a geek as Phillip Torrone is. Well, duh.
Eric has his own style, though, that’ll be endearing to lots of people.

Just talk smack about gadgets and it’ll be fine.

[Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]