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Directory editing with Radio
Overview 
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Directories, such as the one in the box to the right, are a hierarchy of pages that link to other directory pages, and finally to websites.
Our directories are designed to work like the leading Web directories, Yahoo, DMOZ and Looksmart, with one important difference -- we all get to create our own directories and link them together.
OPML is the core format
The format used to interchange directory outlines is called Outline Processor Markup Language, or OPML. People can and are producing OPML output from dynamic applications running in Perl and other net scripting environments. We encourage competition on both sides of this format, from outliners to dynamic server environments. Let's bootstrap a new structure for the Web, it'll be exciting if we can work together.
What is a directory?
A directory is an OPML document stored in a Manila discussion group message.
You can view the directory in a Web browser using Manila's directory displayer.
An example
Suppose message #14 contains an outline document. (It does.)
You would view it as a directory through the following url:
http://radio.outliners.com/directory/14
How to browse
Click on the folder icons to go in a level.
Click on the globe icons to visit a site that's being linked to.
Suggesting a link
Every page that has at least one globe on it also has a link to a page where you can suggest a link. Your suggestion is automatically sent via email to the editor of the directory page.
How to create an outline document
First, be sure that your Manila site knows that you're using an outliner. Follow the instructions on this page.
Second, create a discussion group message, and then click on the Edit With Radio button to open the document in Radio UserLand. Enter an outline that contains the hierarchy you want to create in your directory. Choose the Save command from the File menu to save the outline in your Manila site.
Where you want to link to another site, choose Add Link in the Radio menu and enter the URL of the site you want to link to. (A common mistake is to use the Add Link command in the HTML menu.)
If you link to a directory stored on the same website, the link will be "inclusive". More on that in this section.
Screen shot
Here's a screen shot of Radio UserLand editing a section of the example directory.
Comments
To enter a comment in a directory, enter a comment line in the Radio UserLand outliner.
By default, comments are displayed in italic, but you can change that in the Prefs panel for directories.
When displaying a folder Radio looks to see if its first subhead is a comment, and adds that as a title attribute of the link when displaying the folder icon. In some browsers when you hover the mouse over the folder icon you'll get a tool-tip explaining what the folder contains.
Text
You can enter text lines that are not folders, links or comments. They have no attributes. They are displayed in a very plain way.
HTML markup
You can include HTML markup anywhere in any directory text.
How to include another directory
Suppose you want to work with someone else on a directory. You agree that they will take care of a sub-topic of your directory. To a person reading your directory the result will be "seamless" -- it will appear as if they are one directory. But you get the convenience of not having to coordinate your changes. The sub-directory, because it's stored in a separate message, can be edited separately.
Here's an example. Check out this directory. The fourth item, "Noodles" is an inclusion, it's contained in message #3708 on this website. If you watch the URLs as you navigate, you can see the inclusions through the use of the "wiggle" character, ~.
Inclusions can be recursive, in other words a directory that's included can in turn include others. You can nest them as deeply as you like.
Rules for inclusion
A node whose type is "link" is treated as an included folder if the url either:
1) Points to a directory on the same website as the directory or
2) If the url ends with ".opml".
In the first case, changes to the inclusion are immediately reflected in the HTML view of the directory. In the second case, changes are reflected when the including outline is saved, or after one hour.
In other words, Radio won't go over the Internet to refresh an included OPML document more than once an hour, but when the outline that contains the link is saved, all included material is refreshed the next time it is displayed.
It's as if the two directories were one, but editorial access is completely up to the server platform you're using. You can store the OPML documents anywhere, they can be generated by any software, and will appear to be part of the including directory.
A new Prefs panel
Every Manila site has a new Prefs panel, accessible through the Editors Only menu, that allows you to control the appearance of directories on your site. The panel is called "Outlines".
Through this panel you can change the icons used for folders and links. You can control how comments appear, change the appearance of the Suggest-A-Link feature, and control the format of the directory itself.
Screen shot.
viewDirectoryBox macro
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viewDirectoryBox is a macro that you can use to include the top level of a directory in a page on a Manila site.
As an example, here's the code that generates the box to the right:
{viewDirectoryBox (14, "<b>My Directory</b>", align:"right", width:175, frameColor:"gainsboro", titleTextColor:"black", boxFillColor:"whitesmoke", hspace:5, vspace:2)}
viewDirectoryBox parameters
It has a lot of parameters, all are optional except for the first.
viewDirectoryBox (path, boxTitle="", align="", width=175, frameColor="black", titleTextColor="white", boxFillColor="white", hspace=0, vspace=0)
path is a string, it's a path from the directory folder to a directory page you want to display in the box. In its simplest form it can just be the number of a message containing an OPML document.
boxTitle is a string, it's displayed in the bar at the top of the directory box.
align is a string, either empty, or "left" or "right". If it's empty, the resulting table is not aligned. If it's left, the table is left-aligned, if it's right the table is right-aligned.
width is a number, the width of the box in pixels.
frameColor is the color of the one-pixel frame enclosing the box; it's also the background color of the box title.
titleTextColor is the color of the text in the box title.
boxFillColor is the color of the directory box.
hspace is the amount of space, in pixels, that horizontally separates the box from the text on the page.
vspace is the amount of space, in pixels, that vertically separates the box from the text on the page.
Configuring your directory
If you're running your own Manila site, you can control the appearance of directories on your site. There's a prefs panel for directories, choose Prefs from the Editors Only menu, then click on Directories. As is normal Manila practice, you'll see macros in {curly braces} that are filled in by Manila as it renders pages.
The {opmlUrl} macro is new as of 12/15/00, and will not appear in the templates of sites created before that date. After rendering, it contains the URL of the OPML file for the directory you're reading. This is useful if you want readers of your site to be able to easily include your directory in their directories. They can click on the link to get the URL of the file -- this is the key bit of info they need to include a directory.
We suggest using this graphic to represent the XML link. Here's the HTML code to include in your directory template:
<a href="{opmlUrl}" title="Click on this icon to get the XML behind this HTML page."><img src="http://www.scripting.com/images/xmlIcon2.gif" height="14" width="36" border="0"></a>
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