Questions from the author of newsRiver.root

There are some outstanding issues with the 0.2x release of newsRiver.root, and I want to make sure we've looked at all of them before I move on.

1. If you had trouble updating (it seems almost everyone did), you will need to do the following: 1. Quit the OPML Editor. 2. Download the newsRiver.root into the Guest Databases/apps/Tools sub-folder of the OPML Editor application folder, replacing the old version. 3. Re-launch the OPML Editor. The update mechanism broke because I was trying to update the update mechanism itself without doing the special dance needed to make that work. Murphy-willing this won't happen again.

2. If you're using Firefox on Windows you're probably having trouble with the commands that open browser windows from the NewsRiver sub-menu of the Tools menu. The last character on the URL gets chopped off. Unfortunately since I'm traveling and am using a Mac on the road, I can't try out workarounds until I get back to California next week. So for now, you'll have to bookmark the pages in the browser, and get to the various pages that way, for now. But (and this is very important) -- if you're having the problem and are not using Firefox on Windows, please speak up and say what platform you're on and what browser you're using. Right now we think this problem is in the implementation of DDE in Firefox.

3. There were some reports of problems with the Preferences command. When people enter a new value and click on Submit they get a message saying something like "postargs not defined." I cannot reproduce this here, so I assume only some people are seeing this. If the Preferences don't work for you, please post a note here, and try to say more than "they don't work." The best bug reports are like the ones Dave Seidel and Steve Kirks provided in the last round, they actually figured out what the problem was and all I had to do was make the change and distribute the result. I certainly don't expect everyone to be able to do this, but when I get reports like those, it makes my work easier. This bug has been fixed.

Once I'm pretty sure we're not leaving people behind, I'll go for the next set of features (podcatching) and version 0.3.

# Posted by Dave Winer on 1/5/06; 1:57:20 PM - --