Radio Poster posts messages to a Radio UserLand weblog (Radio UserLand is a product of UserLand Software; see http://radio.userland.com for details). To post a message simply create a new window, fill in the server information, compose the message, and send it. A substitution glossary makes it easy to add links to a message. Just drag a link to the glossary field of a message, name the link, and then refer to the link in a message with the name enclosed in double-quotes. Radio Poster automatically performs the link substitution when posting the message. There is also a persistent global glossary that is shared among all messages. Radio Poster supports message drafts and message editing. Before a message is posted, it can be saved for later editing and posting. After a message is posted, it can be saved, edited, and reposted.



Why use Radio Poster?

Typically messages are posted to a Radio weblog using Radio's desktop web page. Radio Poster offers several advantages over the desktop web page. With Radio Poster, messages can be saved as drafts. This allows a message to be composed over several days and posted only when it is perfect. Also, posted messages can be saved for reposting or backup. Saved posts can be transferred to another Radio account or to a different weblog system. Radio Poster's link glossaries make composing messages much easier than using the desktop web page, especially with messages that are a combination of links and link commentary.



Using Radio Poster

Launch Radio Poster and you will see a window like this:

Radio Poster supports the Blogger API protocol, as well as the MetaWeblog API protocol. That means you can post to Blogger and Movable Type weblogs, in addition to Radio UserLand weblogs. Configuring Radio Poster to post to these different types of weblogs is described in the next sections.



Posting to a Radio UserLand Weblog

In order to use Radio Poster with Radio UserLand, you must have the Blogger API turned on for your copy of Radio. On Radio's Prefs page (which you can get to from Radio's desktop web page) under Internet and server settings is The Blogger API in Radio. Follow that link and make sure that the Blogger API is turned on.

Radio Poster already comes configured to post to Radio UserLand weblogs. Radio UserLand speaks the MetaWeblog API protocol. The popup at the top of the configuration tab panel controls whether Radio Poster uses the MetaWeblog API or the Blogger API to talk to the weblog server. For a Radio UserLand weblog, make sure to choose MetaWeblog as the protocol.

The address field should contain the address of the machine on which Radio is running. The best way to figure out the address is to look at the URL you use to connect to your desktop web page. If you post to your weblog with an address that looks like http://127.0.0.1:5335, then the address you want to configure Radio Poster with would be 127.0.0.1. That would be the case if Radio is running on the same machine you use to post to your weblog. If your copy of Radio is running on a different machine, then you probably have a domain name in place of the 127.0.0.1. Put that domain name as the address in Radio Poster.

Next you need to tell Radio Poster on which port to connect to Radio. The default for Radio is 5335, and that is what Radio Poster comes configured with. If you aren't sure what port to use, you can again look at the URL you use to connect to your desktop web page. It will be the number that follows the address in the URL. In the example URL given above the port is 5335. Don't enter the colon. That just separates the address and the port.

The next piece of information Radio Poster needs to talk to Radio is the path. For Radio this will always be /RPC2, which should already be entered in the path field.

Next you need to tell Radio Poster your Radio username and password. If you post to Radio from the same machine on which Radio is running, then it is possible that you don't have a username and password. In that case you can leave those fields blank. If Radio is running remotely, however, then you probably log in when you access your desktop web page. Use the same username and password for Radio Poster that you use to log into your desktop web page.

Finally, you need to specify a Blog ID. For Radio UserLand, this will be home, which should already be entered into the Blog ID field.

Once all of the fields have been entered, check the Default configuration checkbox, so that this same configuration will be used for all new message windows.



Posting to a Movable Type Weblog

Radio Poster needs to talk to Movable Type using the Blogger API. Select Blogger with the protocol popup. The address field should contain the address of the server that serves your weblog. The port field should contain the server port number (most likely 80). The best way to find out your server's address and port is to examine the URL that you use to connect to your weblog to make a new post. Connect to that page and look at the URL in your browser's address field. The address will be the text right after the http:// and before the following slash. If there is a colon (:) and a number following the address, then that number is the port. If there is no number, then the port is 80. Put the address part of the URL in Radio Poster's address field and and put the port number in Radio Poster's port field. If there is no port number, then put 80 for the port.

The path field needs to be filled in with the path to Movable Type's mt-xmlrpc.cgi script. The path to that script varies from installation to installation. Most likely it lives in the same directory as the mt.cgi script, which is what you use to connect to your weblog to make and edit posts. In my Movable Type installation, both mt.cgi and mt-xmlrpc.cgi live in my web server's cgi-bin folder. So I enter /cgi-bin/mt-xmlrpc.cgi in Radio Poster's path field.

The username and password fields should contain the username and password that you use to log into your Movable Type weblog. The Blog ID should contain the ID of your weblog. The ID is very likely 1, but to find out, look again at the URL you use to connect to your weblog to make a new post. At the end of the URL should be the text blog_id= followed by a number. The number is the ID of your weblog and it should be entered into Radio Poster's Blog ID field.

Once all of the fields have been entered, check the Default configuration checkbox, so that this same configuration will be used for all new message windows.



Posting to a Blogger Weblog

Radio Poster needs to talk to Blogger using the Blogger API. Select Blogger with the protocol popup. The address field for a Blogger weblog should be filled with plant.blogger.com. (Note that the Blogger address may change in the future. plant.blogger.com is the correct address at the time this document was written.) The port field should contain the server port number, and for Blogger that number is 80. For path enter /api/RPC2.

The username and password fields should contain the username and password that you use to log into your Blogger weblog. The Blog ID should contain the ID of your weblog. To find the Blog ID for your weblog, look at the URL you use to get to your weblog's edit page. That URL most likely looks something like http://www.blogger.com/blog.pyra?blogid=xxxxxx, where the xxxxxx should be a number. That number is the ID of your weblog and it should be entered into Radio Poster's Blog ID field.

Once all of the fields have been entered, check the Default configuration checkbox, so that this same configuration will be used for all new message windows.



Composing a Post

The Compose tab of a message window looks like this:

The Compose tab has four elements on it. The Title field will become the title of the post. If you leave this field blank, then your post will have no title. The Link field is a link that will be applied to the post's title. You may leave the link field blank even if you fill in the title field. These two fields correspond to the title and link fields that you will find on the posting form on Radio's desktop website. Note that if you have the title/link option turned off in Radio, then filling in these fields will have no effect on your post. Also note that only the MetaWeblog API supports titles and links and only Radio UserLand currently supports the MetaWeblog API. If you are posting to either a Movable Type or Blogger weblog you can leave those fields blank.

The next field is the Compose field itself. Enter the body of your post in this field. Radio Poster can perform some special substitutions for you when you compose a post. First, any piece of text that is enclosed by underscore characters (like _this_) will be wrapped by <i></i> tags (like <i>this</i>) such that it will appear in italics in the post. Similarly, any piece of text enclosed by asterisks (like *this*) will be wrapped by <b></b> tags (like <b>this</b>) such that the text will appear in bold in the post. The second kind of substitution Radio Poster can perform is link substitution using the link glossary, which is the fourth field in the Compose tab. The link glossary is a two-column table. The first column is the name of a link, and the second column is the link itself. There are several ways to get a link into the link glossary. One way is to drag a link in from someplace else, such a browser window. If you drag a link into the glossary table, an item will be created with that link in the second column. The first column will then be activated for editing. Another way to enter a link into the table is to paste it in. If you copy a link from someplace else and paste it into the table, an item will be created with that link in the second column and the first column will be activated for editing. Name the link with text that you would like to appear in the post. Refer to the link in the post using the name enclosed in double-quotes. For example, if you wanted to place a link to Scripting News in your post, you would paste or drag the text http://www.scripting.com/ into the glossary and name it Scripting News. You would then refer to that item in your post by enclosing it in double-quotes, like this: "Scripting News". In the post, the text will appear like this: Scripting News. Here is a screen shot that demonstrates the link glossary:

It is possible to delete items from the link glossary. Select the item or items you would like to delete and hit the delete key. The items will be deleted. This will also work in the global glossary, which is described later in this document.



Sending a Post

Once you have composed your post, you are ready to send it. The Send tab panel looks like this:

This tab contains a preview field, and two posting options. The preview field gives you some idea of what your post looks like after all of the substitutions have been applied to it. In the screen shot above, Scripting News has been replaced by a link. The preview also takes a guess at what the title might look like. This is only a guess. The actual appearance will depend on how you have configured your weblog templates.

Below the preview field are two posting options. The first option is a checkbox that controls whether or not the message will be posted to your home page. Radio allows posts to categories without posting to the home page. If you don't want the message to appear on your home page, turn the "Home" checkbox off. The second option controls which categories the message will be posted to. Categories should be listed with commas between them. It is up to you to specify the categories as you have configured them in Radio. This version of Radio Poster does not query Radio for your category list. Radio will not complain if you specify a category that doesn't exist, but it won't be posted to it. Note that the Home and Categories options are only available for the MetaWeblog API. You can ignore them for (and they have no effect on) Movable Type and Blogger weblogs.

Once all options have been specified and the message looks the way you want it to, send the message by clicking the Post button. Radio Poster will display a status dialog while it is posting the message. Once the message has been posted, Radio Poster will display a dialog telling you whether or not the post was successful. If the message was posted successfully, it will be assigned a message id, which will appear in the lower-right corner of the message window. Once a message has been posted and assigned a message id, it is no longer a draft but an actual post on your weblog. The Post button will now be named Repost. You can, if you wish, make changes to the message and repost it. This will not create a new message on your weblog. It will edit the message that has already been posted.

A message window can be saved as a file. If you save it before you post it, then it is considered a draft that you can open and work on at a later time. If you save it after you have posted it, then it is considered a saved version of the posted message and you can edit it and repost it as often as you like. If you save all of your posted message, then you can go back to any one of them and repost them any time you wish.



Global Glossary

In addition to the link glossary that is part of every message window, there is also persistent global glossary. The global glossary can be made visible from the Windows menu. The global glossary behaves exactly like a local message glossary, except that it is shared by all messages. The local glossary takes precedence over the global glossary for all substitutions.



Acknowledgments

HTTP Socket Architecture by Dan Vanderkam (see http://www.nd.edu/~jvanderk/rb/httpsocket.html).

Radio Poster is a REALbasic app. REALbasic is copyright © 1997-2002 REAL Software, Inc. (see http://realbasic.com/).

Radio UserLand and Radio are trademarks of UserLand Software (see http://radio.userland.com).


Contact

Please address all bug reports and such to leshner@ljug.com
Will Leshner's weblog: http://radio.weblogs.com/0100438/