s l a m

today

articles
howtos
tools
reference

gnu/linux
os x
win32

security
scripting

groupware

Radio
Radio Docs
Frontier Docs

Monday, April 29, 2002

More activeRenderer Updates
Joao Prado Maia, who, when he is not outlining, addresses another of my pet fixations, pointed out that "whenever you scroll down on the page with the outlines and click on a node to be collapsed, the browser actually makes the page go up to the top again."
He came up with the solution of replacing the anchor around the wedge gifs with something like <a href="javascript:void(null);" onClick="doSomethingHere();">link</a>.
I've updated the activeRenderer package with something a little simpler: <a href="javascript:doSomethingHere();">link</a>. It has the drawback of modifying the browser's status bar though.
Shawn Sutherland made me rethink my previous opinion about web browsers not being good enough to edit outlines.
I won't link to his demo page, since he specifically asked me not to (tease :-), but he is pretty close to having a for real, sharable, web outliner using mySQL, PHP, and a clever use of cookies.
I hope he will abstract the database layer, and support XML file formats, such as OPML, or Aaron Straup Cope's OTLML.

7:32:19 PM Google It!

activeRenderer Updates
Paolo provided activeRenderer with transparent background gifs for the outline wedges this morning (Eastern Time). They are now part of the downloadable package.
Wedges rendering will be cleaner for outlines with a non white background.
Paolo also pointed out a major omission in my activeRenderer howto:
you must include #renderOutlineWith "activeRenderer" in the first line of your outline, or within a #prefs.txt file in your outlines folder.
Otherwise, Radio renders your outline with a default renderer which ignores almost all formatting.
The newest version of the activeRenderer tutorial is clearer on this and a couple of other publishing issues.

3:42:07 PM Google It!