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How to edit a Manila directory in Radio's Outliner
Posted by Dave Winer, 4/15/02 at 10:36:38 AM.
Yesterday I walked a friend through the process of creating and editing a Manila directory in Radio's outliner. It's not that many steps. You can find the complete docs here. But try this walkthrough first, if you have Radio 8. It takes about five minutes if you're familiar with the outliner. Even though most people who use Radio don't have a Manila site, you're welcome to experiment on this Manila site.
0. The usual disclaimer applies. If you're happy with Radio as a weblog tool and news aggregator, you may choose to completely ignore the outliner. To immediately regain focus, click here.  If you want to give it a whirl, please advance to step 1.
1. Become a member of this Manila site.
2. Tell Manila that you're a Radio user. Use the default port, 5335.
3. Create a new discussion group topic. The title doesn't matter. Neither does the contents of the message, but it must not be empty or Manila will reject it.
4. Be sure Radio is running.
5. Click on the Edit With Radio button. Screen shot.
| | Like the XML Coffee Mug, this icon links to the Web server that's built into Radio. When you tell Manila that you are using Radio (Step 2), it shows an Edit With Radio icon whereever an Edit This Page button appears.
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6. Bring the Radio app to the front. (On Windows, right click on the tray icon, on Mac OS X, open it via the dock.)
7. You should see an outline window in Radio with the same title as your Manila message, containing the text of the message. Make a change to the text. Choose Save As from the File menu, and enter My Test Directory, and click on OK. Switch over to the Web and verify that the title and contents of the message changed on the Manila side.
| | The Save command also works. If you make a change, and choose Save, the result goes back to Manila, and its title remains unchanged. You can change the title of the message as you save with Save As.
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8. When you view the message in Manila it displays the message number on the fourth line of the status area, just below Topic. Screen shot. Suppose your message number is 61. Then this is the URL for that message, viewed as a directory:
| | If you click on that link you'll go to my test directory, not yours. Change the number to your message number in order to view your directory. This is the critical step. A directory is just another way to view an outline in Manila. And Radio is the outliner, although the interface is open, and accessible through SOAP and XML-RPC. More on that later as there is interest and time to write another howto.
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| | The term "directory" can be confusing because it's used in several ways in computers. When we talk about directories in this context, we mean Yahoo-style or DMOZ style directories, that organize Web content in categories, sub-categories, etc. Other kinds of directories are used in file systems and mail servers.
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9. Now, add some real content to your directory. Bring the Radio app to the front, and edit your outline, building a structure with a few levels of depth. To link to a site from your outline, place the cursor on a headline containing the name of the site and right-click. Choose Add Link. Enter the URL of the site you want to link to. Screen shot. Click on OK. Save.
| | You might want to look at your Favorites menu for ideas of things that interest you that you could organize for others to look at or use. If you're an attorney, create a list of sites that a lawyer might find useful. If you're a librarian, show us the great places to do research that we don't know about yet. If you're a programmer, gather resources for a technology that you care about. This is the fun step of course, it's where you get to be creative.
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10. Each time you add or change something, look at the directory on the Manila site and see how changes to your outline change the structure of the directory. Folders are created by indenting. If the first top level head is a comment (press Shift-Return to create) it's displayed next to the directory title. You can include any OPML document in a directory and when it's browsed it will appear to be part of the directory doing the inclusion. There are lots of little touches that reveal themselves as you use it. More information about editing Manila directories in Radio is here.
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