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!