Features
Features on things wordy, geeky, and webbyPDA-lize the Blog - Update
Sunday, December 26th, 2004 at 9:31 AM | 2 commentsThanks to A. Non for letting me know the PDA Your Movable Type Blog entry needed updating. I just tested it and it still works. Thanks to AvantGo’s changes, there are fewer screens and steps.
For WordPress users, there is WP Mobile Edition from the talented and prolific WP’er, Alex King (details also at WP Support). Also, WP has a discussion on a posting through a PDA blogging client. Another option is to use BlogMail (not limited to WP).
When I first posted the entry, my blog was using .html files. Now it uses .php and all went well. So, I’ll use the php name in this version. If you use .html or .htm, just substitute php with whatever you use.
If you run a weblog using Movable Type, then you can easily make it available for PDA readers. It takes under 30 minutes to set it up. For me, it took 10 minutes max.
Select the weblog to convert to PDA format. Click on LIST & EDIT TEMPLATES > CREATE NEW INDEX TEMPLATE (just above the gray boxed area that lists your existing templates) .
In the NAME box, enter a name for the weblog. Mine says, “Portable meryl’s notes.”
In the OUTPUT FILE box, enter a name for the file with a .html extension. Here I enter, “pdanotes.php.” Copy and paste the following and change the <TITLE> and the <DIV> right after the <BODY> tag.
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=iso-8859-1" />
<TITLE>meryl’s notes on the go!</TITLE>
<style type="text/css">
<!–
body {
color:#333;
background-color:white;
margin:20px;
padding:0px;
font:11px verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
leftMargin=0
}
h1 {
font:bold 12px/12px verdana, arial, helvetica,
sans-serif;
margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;
padding:0px;
}
p {
font:11px verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
color:#333333;
margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;
padding:0px;
}
.Content>p {margin:0px;}
.Content>p+p {text-indent:0px;}
.tinyfont { font:8px verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; }
.smallfont { font:9px verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; }
.titlefont { font:14px verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; }
a {
color:#000000;
font-family:verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
text-decoration:none;
}
A:link { color: #09c; TEXT-DECORATION: none }
A:visited { color: #07a; TEXT-DECORATION: none }
A:active { TEXT-DECORATION: none }
A:hover {
FONT-WEIGHT: normal; FONT-STYLE: normal
BACKGROUND: #eee;
}
#Header {
margin:50px 0px 10px 0px;
padding:17px 0px 0px 20px;
/* For IE5/Win’s benefit height = [correct height] +
[top padding] + [top and bottom border widths] */
height:33px; /* 14px + 17px + 2px = 33px */
border-style:solid;
border-color:black;
border-width:1px 0px; /* top and bottom borders: 1px;
left and right borders: 0px */
line-height:11px;
background-color:#eee;
/* Here is the ugly brilliant hack that protects IE5/Win
from its own stupidity. Thanks to Tantek Celik for the
hack and to Eric Costello for publicizing it. IE5/Win
incorrectly parses the "\"}"" value, prematurely
closing the style declaration. The incorrect IE5/Win
value is above, while the correct value is below. See
http://glish.com/css/hacks.asp for details. */
voice-family: "\"}\"";
voice-family:inherit;
height:14px; /* the correct height */
}
body>#Header {height:14px;}
.Content {
margin:5px 5px 5px 5px;
padding:2px;
}
.dateheader {
position:relative;
width:auto;
min-width:120px;
margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;
padding:5px;
z-index:3;
}
–>
</style>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<DIV id=Header>meryl’s notes on the go!</DIV>
<div align="left">
<MTEntries lastn="15">
<MTDateHeader>
<div class="dateheader"><H1><$MTEntryDate format="%A, %B %e,
%Y"$></H1></DIV>
</MTDateHeader>
<br>
<DIV class="content">
<span class="titlefont"><i><$MTEntryTitle$></i>
(<$MTEntryDate format="%I:%M%p"$>)<br /></span>
<$MTEntryBody$>
<MTEntryIfExtended>
<p><$MTEntryMore$></p>
</MTEntryIfExtended>
<MTEntryIfAllowComments>
<p>:: Comments left behind ::</p>
<MTComments>
<$MTCommentBody$>
<span class="smallfont">:: <$MTCommentAuthorLink$>
<$MTCommentDate$></span><br /><br />
</MTComments>
</MTEntryIfAllowComments>
</div>
</MTEntries>
</div>
<HR width="75%">
<P CLASS="tinyfont" align="center">
<a href="http://www.movabletype.org">Powered by
MovableType</a></P>
</body>
</html>
Hit SAVE and do a REBUILD (can just rebuild the indexes if no other templates are updated).
That’s it for the Movable Type portion. Next step is to go to AvantGo and log in.
Click on MY ACCOUNT (upper right side of the screen) > CREATE A PERSONAL CHANNEL (under Subscriptions) > in CHANNEL LOCATION, enter the URL to your new .php or .html file that you just created. For this, it is: http://www.meryl.net/blog/pdanotes.php.
Click on VIEW to make sure it takes you to the page you have just created to verify it is the correct URL. Once confirmed, close the window and you’re back at AvantGo.
Modify the CHANNEL SIZE and CHANNEL REFRESH as you desire. Remember, PDAs holds various amounts of data depending on the user’s PDA. Some are as small as 16 MB and others have 624 MB. When you’re done, click SAVE CHANNEL.
Return to the MY ACCOUNTS tab. Select EXPORT SUBSCRIPTIONS. COPY the new channel you just have created by highlighting the entire URL and pressing CTRL-C. PASTE it in an email or word processor by pressing CTRL-V. This is the URL you give to others or put in your Web site for others to access your pages through the PDA. Here’s the one for meryl’s notes.
Consider yourself portablized!
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2 comments
PDA-lize the Blog
Thanks to A. Non for letting me know the PDA Your Movable Type Blog entry needed updating. I just tested it and it still works. Thanks to AvantGo’s changes, there are fewer screens and steps. For WordPress users, there is…
PDA-lize the Blog
Thanks to A. Non for letting me know the PDA Your Movable Type Blog entry needed updating. I just tested it and it still works. Thanks to AvantGo’s changes, there are fewer screens and steps. For WordPress users, there is…
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