I just posted a new update to RSS Replay that improves editing for all Macintosh versions and for non-standard template-based pages, as well as several other bug fixes and improvements. You can download it at
http://www.rnsoft.com/en/products/rssreplay/download.php
Many thanks to Joshua Orzech, the Art/Creative Director for the Disc Golf Association for reporting the bug, testing it with me, and helping make things better.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Tutorials Make You Think
OK, so I spent a lot of time getting the new Tutorial for RSS DreamFeeder ready. I wrote for many days and I tried to include much of my thinking about how I wanted RSS DreamFeeder to work. It is my hope that sharing these ideas will help you in your thinking about how to maintain your websites. I'm going to include a few key passages here in my blog so other folks might find it and read it and use it.
First, a bit about maintenance from the introduction:
An RSS feed is all about "what's new" -- the ongoing evolution of content on your website. As you grow your website, adding new content to a page, new pages to content sections or even adding new sections to your site, it is important that you plan for that growth. This is what we call the Maintenance Challenge.
To tackle this challenge you must address who is responsible for new content (you, your staff, departmental staff -- be very specific), what tools will they use to create that new content (Dreamweaver, Contribute, InContext, a database web interface), how will that new content integrate into the site, and especially what elements of that new content need to be repeated in other places (excerpts for the home page, title and blurb in a listing page, etc.). Its this last piece that can be the real killer in any maintenance plan. You have to repeat content to entice people to see that content (and someone will forget to do it at some point) but maintenance is easiest when the content stays in one place.
It is this inherent conflict that makes maintenance very challenging. The more you can automate content repetition the less difficult your maintenance task will be. RSS DreamFeeder has automation built into its core. Once a feed has been configured it can extract new content from your website with the click of a single button. One click and your feed will find the new pages, extract just the content you specify, build the links and reconstruct any underlying content linking so that they are absolute URLs and can be repeated on any website, assemble the new content with XML and store that content within your RSS feed.
This passage helps explain how we can get the job done with styles and templates:
In presenting an effective website consistency in design is a key element of conveying information. To do that task Dreamweaver provides both templates and style sheets. Templates control page structure and style sheets control the graphical presentation of content. These two tools allow content to be restricted in placement within the document (template regions) and adherent to a predefined visual order (style selection - also called classing). By making those associations between content and presentation we convey the relationships of content - because what something looks like is what something is (especially in an environment like a website, where there is little additional context beyond the page).
Most importantly, we can then use this relationship in reverse to identify content and its value. In other words, if we make a template with a box on it for a headline, on any page using that template when we look in that box we can expect to find text that is the headline for the page. Now here's the kicker, templates and styles leave an imprint on the code for the page, so if we're really clever we can programmatically collect content for our RSS feed by looking for that code.
First, a bit about maintenance from the introduction:
An RSS feed is all about "what's new" -- the ongoing evolution of content on your website. As you grow your website, adding new content to a page, new pages to content sections or even adding new sections to your site, it is important that you plan for that growth. This is what we call the Maintenance Challenge.
To tackle this challenge you must address who is responsible for new content (you, your staff, departmental staff -- be very specific), what tools will they use to create that new content (Dreamweaver, Contribute, InContext, a database web interface), how will that new content integrate into the site, and especially what elements of that new content need to be repeated in other places (excerpts for the home page, title and blurb in a listing page, etc.). Its this last piece that can be the real killer in any maintenance plan. You have to repeat content to entice people to see that content (and someone will forget to do it at some point) but maintenance is easiest when the content stays in one place.
It is this inherent conflict that makes maintenance very challenging. The more you can automate content repetition the less difficult your maintenance task will be. RSS DreamFeeder has automation built into its core. Once a feed has been configured it can extract new content from your website with the click of a single button. One click and your feed will find the new pages, extract just the content you specify, build the links and reconstruct any underlying content linking so that they are absolute URLs and can be repeated on any website, assemble the new content with XML and store that content within your RSS feed.
This passage helps explain how we can get the job done with styles and templates:
In presenting an effective website consistency in design is a key element of conveying information. To do that task Dreamweaver provides both templates and style sheets. Templates control page structure and style sheets control the graphical presentation of content. These two tools allow content to be restricted in placement within the document (template regions) and adherent to a predefined visual order (style selection - also called classing). By making those associations between content and presentation we convey the relationships of content - because what something looks like is what something is (especially in an environment like a website, where there is little additional context beyond the page).
Most importantly, we can then use this relationship in reverse to identify content and its value. In other words, if we make a template with a box on it for a headline, on any page using that template when we look in that box we can expect to find text that is the headline for the page. Now here's the kicker, templates and styles leave an imprint on the code for the page, so if we're really clever we can programmatically collect content for our RSS feed by looking for that code.
RSS DreamFeeder v 2.5.2 Posted
I quietly posted version 2.5.2 yesterday. It solves an interesting issue with duplicated cotnent in automated feeds when there isn't both a link and headline to compare to. I hope it works better for you. As always please send any support questions you may have to support at rnsoft.com.
New Tutorial for Creating RSS Feeds with Dreamweaver and RSS DreamFeeder
I just posted the new tutorial on how to create RSS feeds with Dreamweaver and RSS DreamFeeder. Actually its a set of related long tutorials covering how to create manually edited text feeds, podcasts, and photocasts as well as automated text feeds that extract content from web pages with a single click of a button. I hope you enjoy it.
http://www.rnsoft.com/en/products/rssdreamfeeder/tutorial.php
http://www.rnsoft.com/en/products/rssdreamfeeder/tutorial.php
Saturday, May 9, 2009
RSS DreamFeeder v 2.5.1 Posted
I quietly posted version 2.5.1 this weekend. It solves an interesting issue with capture on modification if the link and the headline are not modified. It honestly was something I didn't think about when I built the extension but I'm happy to support this angle on using RSS DreamFeeder. I hope it works better for you. As always please send any support questions you may have to support at rnsoft.com.
Monday, May 4, 2009
RSS DreamFeeder v 2.5 Brings RSS Editing and Generation to Dreamweaver CS4
Lexington, KY, May 4, 2009 — RNSoft President & CEO Ronald Northrip this morning announced the immediate availability of RSS DreamFeeder version 2.5, an update to the popular Dreamweaver extension for creating and editing RSS feeds.
RSS DreamFeeder allows you to directly edit any kind of RSS feed you want. Open up any feed and click the Content tab and you'll be able to quickly edit the text of your headlines or the url for the audio files you're using in your podcast.
RSS DreamFeeder also includes an integrated search engine that looks through your website for new and updated content to include in your RSS feed. When you process your feed, any new or updated content will be extracted from your HTML or XHTML pages in the method that you specify, and listed as entries within your RSS file.
This update solves many bugs and adds important features to simplify using RSS DreamFeeder.
New in version 2.5:
- CS4 Compatible! (Supports DW8, DWCS3, DWCS4)
- Improved Content Sampling: 1-click content identification so anyone can build automated feeds
- Automated Entry Removals: if the source of a feed entry is removed from your website then its corresponding entry will be deleted automatically
- Fixed Values for common elements like Author
- Improved RSS & ATOM generation -- required content is better enforced so your feeds will validate
- Ping Server updates
- Lots of engine improvements and bug fixes!
- A more complete list of features is available at
http://www.rnsoft.com/en/products/rssdreamfeeder/features.php
Get your copy of RSS DreamFeeder today and start publishing your RSS feed tomorrow!
http://www.rnsoft.com/products/rssdreamfeeder/
RSS DreamFeeder 2.5 brings better RSS creation to Dreamweaver CS4 websites. With fantastic features like Podcasting, Photocasting, Videocasting, and Document casting along with brilliant innovations like the Content Sampler and Entry Editing, RSS DreamFeeder 2.5 delivers all the power and potential of RSS with the simplicity of using Dreamweaver.
Simpler is Better
RSS DreamFeeder allows you to directly edit any kind of RSS feed you want. Open up any feed and click the Content tab and you'll be able to quickly edit the text of your headlines or the url for the audio files you're using in your podcast.
RSS DreamFeeder also includes an integrated search engine that looks through your website for new and updated content to include in your RSS feed. When you process your feed, any new or updated content will be extracted from your HTML or XHTML pages in the method that you specify, and listed as entries within your RSS file.
This update solves many bugs and adds important features to simplify using RSS DreamFeeder.
New in version 2.5:
- CS4 Compatible! (Supports DW8, DWCS3, DWCS4)
- Improved Content Sampling: 1-click content identification so anyone can build automated feeds
- Automated Entry Removals: if the source of a feed entry is removed from your website then its corresponding entry will be deleted automatically
- Fixed Values for common elements like Author
- Improved RSS & ATOM generation -- required content is better enforced so your feeds will validate
- Ping Server updates
- Lots of engine improvements and bug fixes!
- A more complete list of features is available at
http://www.rnsoft.com/en/products/rssdreamfeeder/features.php
Get your copy of RSS DreamFeeder today and start publishing your RSS feed tomorrow!
http://www.rnsoft.com/products/rssdreamfeeder/
RSS DreamFeeder 2.5 brings better RSS creation to Dreamweaver CS4 websites. With fantastic features like Podcasting, Photocasting, Videocasting, and Document casting along with brilliant innovations like the Content Sampler and Entry Editing, RSS DreamFeeder 2.5 delivers all the power and potential of RSS with the simplicity of using Dreamweaver.
Simpler is Better
Monday, April 27, 2009
RSS Replay 1.6.2 Now Available
I like it when people report bugs that I can actually reproduce in the lab. After the update last week several folks reported one or two more problems. I am happy to report that those bugs have been fixed and this update has now been posted for everyone to download at http://www.rnsoft.com/en/products/rssreplay
Sunday, April 19, 2009
RSS Replay 1.6.1 Posted
Early this morning I quietly posted version 1.6.1 of RSS Replay. This update fixes a flashing issue when the Replay is selected from the layout with certain versions of Dreamweaver. I didn't know the bug was there at all -- it wasn't in any of my testbed environments. It was first reported by Kathy Pelham and she helped me fix it. So lets all say thank you to Kathy when we see her next, OK?
As a small side rant, I'd like to point out that Adobe approved 1.6.0 without any bug reports so their testbed is no better than mine. I'm sure if they had encountered the flashy-thingy bug they would have said so. It is entirely possible that some setting somewhere changes the essential behavior when synchronizing a document, and Kathy has it and both Adobe and I do not. But if that were the case you'd think it would be in the documentation.
There is still a quick flash of the property inspector when using DW8 & CS3 as settings in the document are change. That's because the JavaScript within the document has changed, shifting the position of the selection. The selection doesn't move on its own so I have to reselect the Replay place holder in the layout and that reloads the settings. This was resolved by Adobe with CS4 as they started to get more involved in doing JavaScript widgets in Dreamweaver. I, for one, am glad to see the progress.
As a small side rant, I'd like to point out that Adobe approved 1.6.0 without any bug reports so their testbed is no better than mine. I'm sure if they had encountered the flashy-thingy bug they would have said so. It is entirely possible that some setting somewhere changes the essential behavior when synchronizing a document, and Kathy has it and both Adobe and I do not. But if that were the case you'd think it would be in the documentation.
There is still a quick flash of the property inspector when using DW8 & CS3 as settings in the document are change. That's because the JavaScript within the document has changed, shifting the position of the selection. The selection doesn't move on its own so I have to reselect the Replay place holder in the layout and that reloads the settings. This was resolved by Adobe with CS4 as they started to get more involved in doing JavaScript widgets in Dreamweaver. I, for one, am glad to see the progress.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
RSS Replay v 1.6 is out now and works with Dreamweaver CS4
This morning I announced the immediate availability of RSS Replay version 1.6, an update to my popular Dreamweaver extension for placing content from RSS feeds into webpage layouts.
RSS Replay uses AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and ASP or PHP to collect RSS content from RSS feeds and applies formatting with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) that you can control to present the content in the way that best suits your needs. You can Replay content from any RSS or Atom feed, from your website or any other, combine multiple feed sources, or have multiple blocks of Replayed content on the same layout.
This update solves many bugs and adds important features to simplify using RSS Replay.
New in version 1.6:
- CS4 Compatible! (Supports DW8, DWCS3, DWCS4)
- Improved JavaScript -- Supports More Web Browsers
- ASP/PHP Proxys security improvement -- now support Mod_Security for Apache servers
- A more complete list of features is available at http://www.rnsoft.com/en/products/rssreplay/features.php
Get your copy of RSS Replay today and start republishing RSS content tomorrow!
http://www.rnsoft.com/en/products/rssreplay/
RSS Replay uses AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and ASP or PHP to collect RSS content from RSS feeds and applies formatting with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) that you can control to present the content in the way that best suits your needs. You can Replay content from any RSS or Atom feed, from your website or any other, combine multiple feed sources, or have multiple blocks of Replayed content on the same layout.
This update solves many bugs and adds important features to simplify using RSS Replay.
New in version 1.6:
- CS4 Compatible! (Supports DW8, DWCS3, DWCS4)
- Improved JavaScript -- Supports More Web Browsers
- ASP/PHP Proxys security improvement -- now support Mod_Security for Apache servers
- A more complete list of features is available at http://www.rnsoft.com/en/products/rssreplay/features.php
Get your copy of RSS Replay today and start republishing RSS content tomorrow!
http://www.rnsoft.com/en/products/rssreplay/
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Kim is quoted in the newspaper
My wife's work at Child Advocacy Today (the Kentucky Medical-Legal
Partnership) was covered in the local paper. How cool is that -- she
even got a quote in.
Partnership) was covered in the local paper. How cool is that -- she
even got a quote in.
Legal help now offered at Ky. Clinic
http://www.kentucky.com/101/story/671787.html
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