Restoring a Radio weblog from HTML files. The worst-case scenario for new Radio webloggers is to delete the Radio UserLand installation folder or lose it in a crash without a backup.

Many new users believe that because their weblog is still on the Web, it can be easily restored from backup. Unfortunately, this is only true if the user has turned on nightly backups. Otherwise, there's no automated way to grab the entries from HTML Web pages and save the data in weblogData.root, the database in the Data Files folder where the entries and other weblog data are kept.

To help the publisher of the Patriotically Incorrect weblog, I'm working on a script that downloads all of a Radio weblog's Web pages and builds a new copy of weblogData.root. Though it's not ready for release yet, the script appeared to restore all 35 entries of that weblog correctly. If you know anyone trying to restore their Radio weblog with nothing but Web pages left for backup, tell them to contact me. [Workbench] 
4:09:25 PM      comment []   trackback []  



Radio UserLand: This way lies madness. For Chapter 21 of Radio UserLand Kick Start, I'm working on a gateway tool that posts weblog entries via HTTP POST to any Web CGI script, even if it requires cookie-based authentication.

As a demonstration, the tool is mirroring the last five Workbench posts to my Metafilter user page (login required to view).

Radio gets knocked for being maddeningly complicated when you venture beyond the "five minutes to first post" features, and in some ways working with the software promotes Apocalypse Now-style "oh, the horror" moments. However, the fact you can do stuff like this in a few hours' work with under 50 lines of code is really amazing. [Workbench] 
4:08:29 PM      comment []   trackback []