topic exchange client: test release #1 ===================== welcome to the topic exchange client test! i'm assuming that you know how to install software on your machine, and are fairly comfortable with editing text files and running things at the command line. if you can install movable type, you should be fine with this! if you can't, perhaps it would be better to wait until the installation is more automated. assuming you want to continue, here's how it goes: pre-requisites ============== 1. python 2.2 or above -- http://www.python.org/download/ WINDOWS: to install, download and run the following link: http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.3.1/Python-2.3.1.exe LINUX: either grab the source tarball from the same page and compile it yourself, or install a package from your distribution. for debian, you can get python 2.2 with "apt-get install python2.2". it comes by default with red hat 8.0+. http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.3.1/Python-2.3.1.tgz MAC OS X: python 2.2 comes by default with later releases. if you don't have it, try this disk image: http://ftp.cwi.nl/jack/python/mac/MacPython-OSX-2.3-1.dmg 2. wxpython -- http://www.wxpython.org/download.php#binaries WINDOWS: once again there is an easy installer; pick one of the following, depending on your python version: python 2.2: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/wxpython/wxPythonWIN32-2.4.2.4-Py22.exe python 2.3: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/wxpython/wxPythonWIN32-2.4.2.4-Py23.exe LINUX: either download and build from source, or get it from a package. i can't find a debian package for it, though, so you might have to go the source route. http://www.wxpython.org/download.php#sources MAC OS X, here's an installer. apparently it's not very stable yet, but give it a go if you can't use windows or linux: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/wxpython/wxPythonOSX-2.4.2.4-py2.3.dmg configuring your blogging tool ============================== first, if you are blogging with Radio, you need to configure it to let you connect in using xml-rpc. first, go here: http://127.0.0.1:5335/system/pages/prefs?page=4.1 check the "... require user authentication ..." box and enter a username and password. (you'll need to enter these as blog_login and blog_password below). click 'submit' to save. now go here: http://127.0.0.1:5335/system/pages/prefs?page=4.7 and check the "... allow incoming XML-RPC and SOAP messages ..." box, then click 'submit'. finally, go here: http://127.0.0.1:5335/system/pages/prefs?page=4.8 then check the "... allow incoming Blogger API messages ..." box, and click 'submit'. configuring the client ====================== once you have the pre-requisites installed, open config.py (from the topic exchange client package) in an editor. there are a few things to change: blog_server: this needs to point to your blogging software's xml-rpc url. for Radio, it's almost always http://127.0.0.1:5335/RPC2. for Movable Type, take the url of your mt.cgi and change mt.cgi to mt- xmlrpc.cgi. blog_login and blog_password: the login and password you use to get in to your blogging software from outside. for Movable Type, use your user name and password. for Radio, use the user name and password you entered on the remote access prefs page. getting it started ================== now that the client is all configured, you need to run it. WINDOWS: double click the 'ite-client.py' file in the explorer, or go into its folder at a command prompt and type: ite-client.py LINUX: open a shell and cd to the folder containing all the files, then type: python ite-client.py MAC OS: open a shell window and cd to the folder containing the files, then type: python ite-client.py actually _using_ it =================== when you start up the client, there will be a short delay and a whole heap of screen output as it performs some self-tests, then downloads your recent posts from your blogging tool. once that is done, a window marked "annotate your posts" will pop up, with a list of posts, each of which has a button marked "topics". click one of the "topics" buttons to get a window with the post content, the excerpt that will be published on the topic exchange, and a huge checklist of topics. check the appropriate topics, then click 'OK'. on a third window will pop up and give you feedback on the pinging process. (on linux / mac os, this feedback may appear in the shell). finally, the post window will disappear. with any luck, the 'topics' button for that post will now say something like 'topics (3)' (if you pinged three topics). feedback ======== please join the ite-users mailing list and let us know how it went for you: enter your e-mail address in the yellow box on http://topicexchange.com/ and click 'subscribe'. at this point it is expected that it will be fairly rough going using the application, because it's still in its very early stages. thanks for helping out :-) - phillip pearson http://www.myelin.co.nz/post/