Radio UserLand: The Missing Manual

David Brown is hoping that MailEdit makes it into the Radio product. David is the author of this powerful Radio tool and I think it would be a fabulous addition to Radio as well.

As a selfish desire, I'd like to see some of the functionality of MailEdit make it into the main Radio product. I think many people would find it useful. Well, I know I do.

MailEdit allows one to post and edit weblog entries to a Radio weblog via email. Posts can contain images too! It does even more than that but you'll have to install it to see for yourself.

I'm tired of typing the same URL over and over again. Aren't you? You know the drill.. Start a weblog post in Radio, create a link to the same web address that you've typed a hundred times before, hope you got all the HTML correct, and post your entry. Fortunately, Radio allows us to save shortcuts for those URL's that we refer to often, so that instead of typing out all that bothersome HTML code every time, we simply type a special word that we get to create and be sure to enclose it in double quotes.

For instance, I refer to NetNewsWire, the RSS news reader by Ranchero Software quite a bit. I got tired of type the HTML code every time I wanted to make a link to their site. So, I added a shortcut to Radio called 'nnw' and then entered the HTML code that makes it a link. Now, whenever I type those letters, enclose them in double quotes, and post to my site, Radio will automatically convert that shortcut into the full HTML code that creates a link to Ranchero's site. Let's test it. This should produce a link to "nnw".

Here's how you do it. Start up Radio. From the Tools-Developer's menu, select Jump... or Command-J for the Mac users like me out there. Enter user.html.glossary and choose OK. You'll see a bunch of entries which are existing shortcuts.

Try adding your own shortcut. Hit Enter to start a new entry, add a shortcut name, tab to the next field, enter the HTML for that link (follow the example of another shortcut to be sure you get it right) and hit Enter. Now, the next time you enter a new post in Radio, just enter your shortcut in double quotes and Radio will expand it for you, automatically.

There's more to know about Shortcuts, if you find this helpful. Perhaps I'll talk more about them in the future. Until then, take a look at the shortcuts page on the Radio site for more info.