21 Aug 2000

08/21/2000

Apps.Com is a portal for web apps.

As Dave mentioned on Scripting News, I'm working on connecting Manila to the nodeTypes structure. What does that mean? Well, it's not finished yet, so I can't describe the final product.

But here's what there is so far. A Manila site is a node. If you expand it, you get nodes for your home page and your various templates. To edit your home page, just double-click the home page node. It opens in a new window, just as if you had clicked the Pike button on your Manila site. (Works the same for templates and messages, of course.)

So I used that feature today: I like it, it makes it easy. It's easier than going to my site, then going to the dynamic version (this is a static rendering site), then clicking the Pike button.

I think -- nothing's certain yet -- that you'll have a single outline where you can put all the sites you write for frequently.

Note to David Brown, who's doing something similar with Zope -- we're using XML-RPC here. The Manila XML-RPC interface is what's used to get and set messages, templates, etc.

Update: I just added the ability to bookmark Manila pages. So if you bookmark your home page, opening it for editing is very simple. Choose it from the Bookmarks menu, and there it is, the editing window is open.

Now I'm considering writing a custom startup script that opens certain pages for me whenever I launch Radio UserLand. Then it's even easier -- no need even to go the Bookmarks menu, my weblog's home page will be open every time I launch.