2Second(fuse) - Tinderbox 5

ToDay Tinderbox
10/4/05 08:22 - permalink - email - category: Tinderbox

January 2006 is my target month for change, with many arcs of effort reaching the same point of fruition. Music releases, a Max/MSP toolbox, some noisy hardware fun, Daevlmakr re-launch, 2Second(fuse)v2. For projects like these, sequence is important but timing is all set to the same value: as soon as it can be done.

I've implemented a very stripped down GTD variant in Tinderbox to keep my daily tasks focused and rolling, without the overhead of tracking due dates and priorities:

MasterLists contains complete, step-by-step breakdowns of the actions necessary to move from start to finish, along with notes and ideas on alternate plans.

The individual day notes in the ToDay container give me a constant indicator of what I need to do right now from MasterLists. They're also a daily place for non-project ToDo items to stay in front of my eyes. If I don't finish my tasks today, I simply cut and paste the lot into tomorrow.

Option-J creates a triangular delta, which looks enough like an upward arrow to tell me the action is dependent on the one above it, but not distinct enough to warrant placement as an individual action. Option-V creates a nice tick mark (which may have thought it was a square root before I had my way with it) to give an OCD "this one's done" tingle.

There's no automation, no sexy contextual coloring or aggregations... just hands-on involvement with the low-level daily tasks involved in linear accomplishment of larger goals. I wouldn't manage a multi-threaded project with different dates and priorities for deliverables with this, but for immediate purposes it works wonderfully.

Tinderfeeds For 2.5
7/3/05 17:38 - permalink - email - category: Tinderbox

After upgrading to Tiger, the first thing I did was pull down the Tinderbox 2.5 update, which is rocking. (Thanks Mark!)

Some necessary changes were made to quote handling in actions, rules and templates in 2.5, and as a result my swanky templates for Atom and RSS feeds have broken. Nothing too terrible, just extra quotes around date stamps which will prevent the feeds from validating. If you're using these, don't panic... they should still operate in everything except the most ticky of readers.

I don't like to let cruft accumulate, so I've updated the templates and links in the original post for use in 2.5, removing the troublesome quotes and restoring both validation and swank. Here are links to both old and new versions:

tinderfeeds_24.zip

tinderfeeds_25.zip

Update: Extra thanks due Benoit Pointet for pointing me to the Tinderbox ^version^ export code. I've updated the 2.5 templates with it. Sweet!

Tinderbox 2.4.1
5/17/05 13:15 - permalink - email - category: Tinderbox

I upgraded to Tinderbox 2.4.1 today and can definitely feel the speed boost. I use my main WIP Tinderbox file as an expansion brain for storing, planning and making sense of everything. It contains thousands of notes and legions of hard-working agents and rules, with more flowing in all the time.

Everything is zippier now.

My brain just got faster.

Tinderbox Pipeline
5/9/05 00:22 - permalink - email - category: Tinderbox

One of the very best aspects of using Tinderbox to weblog is a function of its operation as a stand-alone program. When nomadic, as I was this weekend, I can create weblog entries anywhere at any time, export them as HTML to a local directory and check its appearance in the browser. I can write them over the course of hours and days between other work. I can adjust and nudge and add content as it occurs to me or as it shows up of its own accord.

Once I'm back on the net it's a simple task to synchronize webhost with local directory et voila! instant updates.

Tinderbox Export: RSS 2.0 and Atom 0.3
4/9/05 22:48 - permalink - email - category: Tinderbox

I use Tinderbox from Eastgate Software for all kinds of grooviness, including the creation of 2Second(fuse). When I began building this weblog the existing feed templates just weren't rocking NetNewsWire the way I wanted them to. A bit of reverse engineering, occasional glances at the specs and a little perseverance gave me new export templates for both RSS 2.0 and Atom 0.3. This wasn't difficult to accomplish, but did take some tweaking before the new feeds would validate.

If you're a new Tinderblogger (or one without feeds) and export your weblog to your own site rather than using Blogger or MovableType, this may save you some work.

Set Up

There are four HTML export template files you'll need to place in your local html templates directory:

rssnews.txt, rssnewsitem.txt, atomnews.txt, atomnewsitem.txt

They're available in two versions:

tinderfeeds_24.zip for use in Tinderbox 2.4

tinderfeeds_25.zip for use in Tinderbox 2.5.

Download them, then fire up a text editor and have a look. You'll want to edit them to include your own copyright info, author name and email address in the appropriate spots. Make sure you have the attributes set in your Tinderbox document for WeblogTitle, WeblogTagline and base URL, as this data is used in the templates.

Step By Step

First, I created two agents which skim the first few posts from a container called archives, one for RSS and one for ATOM.

Outline view in Tinderbox 2.4 showing RSS and Atom agents collecting recent posts for the feeds.

The container archives is kept sorted chronologically, most recent first, so the Agent Query below gathers the most recent entries into RSS and ATOM. You reach this query pane by selecting each agent and hitting Enter. Each agent is the same here except for its Name. I chose to feed only the nine most recent entries, but it could be any number you like. After an entry is no longer within range, it will drop out of your feeds.

If you don't keep your entries in a main container called archives, just substitute the name of whatever container you're pulling from.

Next, select each agent and hit Cmd-Option-I to bring up Info. To set the proper HTML export values double-click the attribute properties for each of the following:

HTMLExportTemplate for RSS == rssnews.txt, for ATOM == atomnews.txt

HTMLExportFileName for RSS == index, for ATOM == atom

HTMLExportExtension is .xml for both agents

Below are my complete HTML export settings for the RSS agent. The ATOM agent is exactly the same with the above exceptions.

How It Works

The main template files (rssnews.txt and atomnews.txt) wrap header and closing information around the exported feed page, and tell Tinderbox to process each child note inside the agents with a second template before inserting its data in the main feed.

This second template (rssnewsitem.txt and atomnewsitem.txt) simply formats each note to be an individual entry in the feed.

Cleaning Up

Export your weblog to HTML (Cmd-Shift-H) and presto! The feed files you've generated (index.xml and atom.xml) should go in the top level of your website, the same directory where index.html lives.

Put the following discovery code inside the <head></head> tags of your site's index.html page:

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="YOUR_WEBLOG RSS 2.0" href="http://YOUR_SITE_URL/index.xml">

<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="YOUR_WEBLOG Atom 0.3" href="http://YOUR_SITE_URL/atom.xml">

I've tested the feeds generated by these templates using NetNewsWire and Pheeder on OSX, FeedReader on WinXP and Firefox's built-in feed reader on both platforms. The RSS feed has also been routed through LiveJournal's built in feed support and shows properly on Friends pages. (Thank you, Mgoa Bloom.)

Looking around at other people's feeds for examples to crib from, I found most feeds have at least a few problems and won't validate. These feeds will. You can test them out (or 2Sec's own) at feedvalidator.org.

Happy syndication!