Allah Sulu's Massive Tool
[Most Recent Entries]
[Calendar View]
[Friends]
Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Allah Sulu's Massive Tool's LiveJournal:
[ << Previous 20 ]
| Monday, February 8th, 2010 | 6:52 pm [allah_sulu]
 |
LJ Tag URLs Evilgrins has spotted what appears to be another pointless change on the part of LiveJournal. It affects the way that you use URLs which contain tags. Under the old format, any spaces in the tag were replaced by plus signs; under the new format, they remain spaces (or "%20", which is simply the hexadecimal notation for a space character).
OLD: http://community.livejournal.com/as_massive_tool/tag/new+update! NEW: http://community.livejournal.com/as_massive_tool/tag/new%20update! The thing that makes this noteworthy is that not only did they change the format of the URLs, but that the change is not backward compatible. URLs in the old format will no longer work. So if you created any links in any of your old posts using any of these URLs, they no longer work. Those posts now contain broken links. There's only one logical reason for them to make this change, and to do it in this manner – to be able to put multiple tags in one URL (like star%20trek+convention to give you all posts that have both "star trek" and "convention" tags). However, I just checked to see if I could do that, and that still comes up with an error… So either that (multiple tags) is a planned future enhancement, or LJ is just dicking with us again. (If you click on any of the interests on your profile page, you'll see that they also create URLs in the new format. However, just to be inconsistent, for interests the old URLs with the plus signs still work.) | | Friday, January 29th, 2010 | 3:11 pm [allah_sulu]
 |
Emoticons and Other Unicode In a previous entry (from 2005!) I posted a table of Japanese emoticons and the codes needed (since not all of them were English keyboard characters) to use them. Well, below the cut are more emoticons, along with a variety of other symbols which might come in handy under circumstances which I, for one, am not completely able to foresee. Note that some of these contain characters from foreign languages (Chinese, Japanese, Russian) that may not be loaded onto your computer (or the computer of the person reading your post) or other unicode characters which may not be contained in the font that you (or your readers) are using. Anyway, just copy the text in the "HTML Code" column in order to display the emoticons in the "Characters" column. ( Read more... ) | | Thursday, January 21st, 2010 | 8:51 am [allah_sulu]
 |
Another YouTube Trick: The Preview Pic Above is a YouTube video. Below is the video's embed code, simplified: <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qBjLW5_dGAM&rel=0&hl=en_US&fs=1&hd=1&showsearch=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed>
Note the part of the YouTube URL which is highlit in green – that's the unique part which identifies the specific video. If you wanted to post an image, made from the preview picture of the YouTube video (the picture that's shown before you click on it to play), you can do it by constructing a new URL around that unique identifier, like so: 
Above is a picture, which can be displayed or saved. Below is the image's code: <img src="http://img.youtube.com/vi/qBjLW5_dGAM/0.jpg">
Note that you can do this for any YouTube video simply by copying the video's unique identifier (highlit in green) into the picture URL. | | Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 | 4:31 pm [allah_sulu]
 |
[Update] Allah Sulu's Massive Tool version 3.5.6 There is a new version of Allah_Sulu's Massive Tool available, which can be downloaded either in Windows installer format ( setup.exe etc.; good for first-time installers but may not work with Windows 9x/Me) or as a simple ZIP archive of files which can be extracted into your existing Massive Tool directory over the current files (in either event, make sure that you are not running the Massive Tool while you're trying to install/extract the update!) New changes include: - On the Edit → "Preferences…" → "Documents" tab, there is a new option for the default strikethrough code:
<del>. I added this because I've seen some blog sites that prefer <del>, and may not even recognize <s> or <strike>. - The Edit → "Preferences…" screen has a brand-new tab called "Blacklist". I often use the Massive Tool as a sort of aggregator, for opening up a whole block of webcomic and/or news sites at once, and sometimes I'll also use it to open links on other lists, like Random Pictures or LJ Latest. However, those picture lists can sometimes contain pr0n from Russian sites, which may also carry infections (not to mention being NSFW); so I've added a "blacklist" function to the Massive Tool which will block any URL containing a substring on the list. So far, my personal blacklist contains a single element –
.ru/ – meaning that the tool will neither manually or automatically open any URLs from Russia. (Note that the Blacklist tab does not currently recognize wildcards, merely substrings.) There is also a checkbox for enabling and disabling the Blacklist with a single click.( Screen Shot ) - If you click on the "Update Icons/Tags/Groups" button on the LJ → "Post to LiveJournal…" screen, I've modified the code so that it will correctly handle icons with multiple keywords separated by commas. I never do that, so I didn't realize that there was a problem. My wife
Q found that bug. - The Insert → "Paragraph…" screen has another option added, "Letter Space", which lets you change the spacing between letters.
- The code to embed an MP3 player in your post or document can now be executed directly through the Massive Tool rather than relying upon an external Macro file. Simply paste the MP3's URL into the "Image URL" field on the HTML → "Images…" screen. It's still possible to select a different Flash MP3 player to be used by the Massive Tool for MP3s by editing the configuration files.
- The HTML → "Tables…" screen has a new option on the "Borders" pull-down menu: HTML. This allows you to create a solid border around the table of a single color, or two colors (using one or both of the Border Color controls), of the width specified (by the number directly to the right of the "Borders" pull-down menu). This option will only work if the border width is a number greater than zero, and allows you to specify two-colored borders that work in Firefox as well as Internet Explorer.
- I made some further tweaks to the Wiki code translator, and made "BBCodes" and "Wikipedia Codes" (on the Windows menu and the toolbar) mutually exclusive. (Just a reminder, you can right-click on either of those buttons to convert BBCodes or Wiki codes into HTML.)
- I had to make a tweak to the "HTML Preview" window to allow form buttons to work correctly within the Massive Tool.
- As always, there are new icons, backgrounds, and modifications to the internal language used for coding macros. A new Macro file,
DocShuffle.RIM, will randomly change the order of the lines in your document.
| | Saturday, December 12th, 2009 | 9:41 pm [allah_sulu]
 |
Windows 7 I just got a new Samsung netbook yesterday, and the very first thing I installed on it was my Massive Tool. I used it to post a test message to my journal, and it worked! So, the Massive Tool is compatible with Windows 7 (Starter Edition, IIRC). All of my other machines are Win XP, however; so I have never actually tried using the Massive Tool under Windows Vista… And I probably never will. | | Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 | 6:18 pm [allah_sulu]
 |
| | Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 | 8:49 pm [allah_sulu]
 |
Stupid LJ Tricks This is an old one, but I haven't seen it used in a while, so I figured it was good time to dig it out and spring it on people again. A lot of old-timers had forgetting it, and a lot of newbies had never seen it before. Hilarity, as they say, ensued. Basically, it involved me pasting a cartain image on top of a poll in my journal, or at the top of a long list of items in Random Pictures and watching the drama begin. Here's the picture below – some of you might not actually see anything in the white border: The way it works is that everyone sees a picture which they themselves edited and/or updated, which is still saved somewhere on LJ – Or, in the minority of cases, they see nothing. Presumably (although I'm not really sire how this works), it might be that those people who see nothing have never edited/uploaded pictures through LJ and thus doesn't have a draft image saved. I don't know what you guys are seeing (unless you answered my earlier poll, but I see this: 
Feel like being a bastard and inflicting this trick on your readers? (Some of them may object vehemently, until they found out that you haven't raided their personal photos and posted them up for the world to see – remember, only you can see your pricture, and only they can see their picture.) Here's the code: <img src="http://www.livejournal.com/misc/mogupic.bml?size=500">
The size parameter is optional and can be omitted. | | Thursday, October 15th, 2009 | 8:46 am [allah_sulu]
 |
| | Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 | 4:36 pm [allah_sulu]
 |
Who Has The Button? This is a normal link: My Journal HTML: <a href="http://allah-sulu.livejournal.com/">My Journal</a> This is a button link: HTML: <form method="post" action="http://allah-sulu.livejournal.com/"><input value="My Journal" type="submit"></form> They both accomplish the same thing; but sometimes, if you're going for a particular effect, you might want to be able use a button instead of a regular link. (It's also possible to change the color and size of the button, change the size and format of the text, put graphics on it instead of or in addition to the text, and so on; but I'll address those techniques later.) | | | This is the URL you're linking to. | | | | This is the text you want displayed. | | | Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 | 5:01 pm [allah_sulu]
 |
[Update] Allah Sulu's Massive Tool version 3.5.5 There is a new version of Allah_Sulu's Massive Tool available, which can be downloaded either in Windows installer format ( setup.exe etc.; good for first-time installers but may not work with Windows 9x/Me) or as a simple ZIP archive of files which can be extracted into your existing Massive Tool directory over the current files (in either event, make sure that you are not running the Massive Tool while you're trying to install/extract the update!) New changes include: - I've removed a couple of minor superfluous controls on the HTML → "Anchor / Links…" screen and made it smarter. First of all, there's no longer a pull-down menu for selecting whether you're creating a normal hyperlink, an email link, or an anchor – the Massive Tool will figure that out for you.¹ Second, if you paste an URL (or email address) into the "URL/EMail" text box but leave the "Text" box empty, the Massive Tool will attempt to provide default text for certain recognized domains.² (Double-clicking on the empter "Text" box will fill it with the default text if any.)
- The Marquee function on the HTML → "Font / Format…" screen now has a Height or Width option, as applicable (height for vertical marquees, width for horizontal marquees), which is measured in pixels or percentage of the available area. See this post for more information.
- You can now paste an URL with an ".swf" extension into the "Image URL:" box on the HTML → "Images…" screen to have the Massive Tool generate the code described here. The only additional options which apply are the "Border", "Height", and "Width" settings. (The "Images" screen can now be increased in size, for previewing larger image/flash files.) Note that LJ is more permissive of these embeds in posts than in comments. Note also that you can paste YouTube URLs or embed codes into the "Image URL:" box and you'll get the simplified code discussed here, as well as the additional options discussed here.
- I found and fixed a minor bug on the LJ → "Post to LiveJournal…" screen. The "Disable Auto-Formatting" checkbox now works correctly.
- The LJ → "LJ User / Links…" screen now supports the
title option in <lj user> tags, using the "text" field. Selecting a user name in your document and right-clicking on the "LJ User / Links" toolbar button will also invoke the title option if the name has been entered in mixed case. - The "Embed Media…" option has been removed from the LJ menu (and the corresponding button has also been removed from the toolbar) since you can now simply paste the embed code from YouTube et al. directly into the Massive Tool. As I explained here, it's no longer necessary to have a special option to surround the embed code with
<lj-embed> tags. (See above for using the "Images…" option for SWF files.) - On the Window menu
(and on the Toolbar) there is a "No Scripts" option which disables any <script> coding in the document. Useful if you're editing a document with scripts (and don't want them executing every time you hit a key and the Preview window is refreshed) or plugging a bunch of code from another site (via "Open URL" or just copy/pasting from "View Source") into the Tool to inspect it. ("No Scripts" also disables any <meta> tags in the editor.) You can set this value for a particular file on the File → "Properties…" screen, or set this value as the default for the Massive Tool on the Edit → "Preferences…" screen.- I have continued to expand the features available in Table Information Template files (see the fourth and fifth bullet items in the last update). Along with the increase functionality of the TIT files, the "File" menu on the "Tables…" window will now remember the previous TIT files you've executed, for convenience when you use the same ones frequently. (Like the Previous Files and Previous Macros options, you can select how many Previous Tables files are saved on that menu on the Edit → "Preferences…" → "Program" tab.
- As always, there are new icons (including some of these) and backgrounds, and modifications to the internal language used for coding macros. I've also included a new macro file,
Embed MP3.rim, which can be used to embed an MP3 (via a Shockwave player) in your LiveJournal posts (but not comments!) An example of the the MP3 SWF embedder is below. (The reason why this is done in a macro rather than in the Massive Tool is that you cannot embed MP3 files directly into your posts or pages – you need to embed an MP3 player in your posts or pages, and the one I'm using here is not the only one, not necessarily the best one, not necessarily the one other people want to use, and may not even be the one I'm using a week from now if I find a better one.)
¹If the "URL/EMail" text box contains an at sign (@) and at least one period, but no slashes (either / or /) then the link is assumed to be an email link; if there is at least one period and/or at least one slash (either / or /) then the link is assumed to be a hyperlink; otherwise, it's an anchor. 99.999% of the time, it'll be a hyperlink (which was previously the default). ²For sites like Wikipedia and TVTropes, the default text for the link is the section name (the part of the URL after the last slash, converted into plaintext). For Google URLs, it'll be the name of the Google site ("Google" for standard search engine URLs, "Google Maps" for anything in the maps.google.com domain, etc.) Only a small number of domains are recognized so far, but I'll probably add more as I think of them. The ones listed herein are some of the ones I use often, so this will save me a step on many occasions. Oh, and the default text for an email address is the part to the left of the at sign (@). EDIT: The MP3 player does not appear to work when there is a space in the URL/filename. | | Thursday, October 1st, 2009 | 9:27 pm [allah_sulu]
 |
More on SWF Embedding In a previous post, I gave you the code for embedding SWF files into your LiveJournal posts. (The next version of the Massive Tool will generate that code for you automatically – I wrote the subroutine¹ for that today.) However, I should point out that, even after LJ had to revamp their embedding rules, they still seem to have two completely different standards for which embeds are allowed in actual posts, and which embeds are allowed in comments. For example, the code below will work in a post (as this post demonstrates); but it will not work in a comment, as I plan to also demonstrate. <embed src="http://www.cesmes.fi/pallo.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" quality="high" height="500" width="500"></embed>
¹We all live in a Delphi subroutine, a Delphi subroutine, a Delphi subroutine… | 2:25 pm [allah_sulu]
 |
More YouTubery When you want to embed a YouTube video, this is the sort of code that YouTube will give you: <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/KtBqIJaW1Ao&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KtBqIJaW1Ao&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
However, you only need to use part of that (the part which I highlighted) for embedding in LJ; the rest seems to be redundant. (Note that I am only talking about LJ here. The full code provided may be necessary for other sites. This may also be another new thing on LJ's part, and subject to change.) <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KtBqIJaW1Ao&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed>
Normally, it really wouldn't make that much of big a deal either way; but if you're including an embedded video in a comment which you're posting in a community or someone else's journal, and you've also written text to go with it (an explanation, lyrics for the song in the video, etc.) then you may find yourself hitting the 4,300 character upper limit for the permissible size of a comment. In cases like that, it helps to know where you can trim some characters and code to get back under the limit. EDIT: Another way this is useful is that if you want to change the colors or other settings, you only have to change them once. | | Friday, September 18th, 2009 | 10:29 pm [allah_sulu]
 |
Embedding a Shockwave Flash Object Let's say you have an SWF (Shockwave Flash) URL like this: http://DammitJa.net/flash/DiscDrop1.swf …and you want to embed it in LiveJournal (or some other site that allows you to embed). Here's the code you want to use: <embed src="http://DammitJa.net/flash/DiscDrop1.swf" width="400" height="300" quality="high" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed>
Obviously, the part in red is the URL of the Shockwave Flash object you want to embed. Replace that with the URL of your choice. You may also want to adjust the width and height values. Assuming you did it right and your site accepts it (they don't all except embeds; even LJ didn't at first and has modified their standards for what is and isn't allowed on numerous occasions), the code above will give you the widget (it's a Pachinko game) below: Playing with this code, I embedded three different SWF files in my own journal here. EDIT: Any SWF file which autoplays, particularly with audio, always belongs under a ( cut tag. ) Q, do not click on this. | | Saturday, August 29th, 2009 | 2:05 pm [allah_sulu]
 |
The <Marquee> Command In a discussion with evilgrins on the usages of the <marquee> command, I came up with this example: |
Here's the code. Note that the <table> command is there simply to provide a (non-scrolling) starfield background and width; everything else is handled within the <marquee> command. I had to add the height to the <marquee> manually; that should be included as an entry field (in both "px" and "%" units) on the appropriate screen on the next update of the Massive Tool. <table background="http://DammitJa.net/lj/bg/bg_098.gif" width="640"><tr><td><marquee direction="up" scrolldelay="85" scrollamount="2" height="320" style="text-align: center; font-variant: small-caps; color: #FFFF00; font-size: 125%;"><big>STAR WARS<br>Episode IX<br>A New Prince</big><p>Now, this is a story all about how<br>My life got flipped-turned upside down<br>And I'd like to take a minute<br>Just sit right there<br>I'll tell you how I became the prince<br>Of the planet Bel Air<p>In Coruscent City born and raised<br>On the playground was where I spent most of my days<br>Chillin' out maxin' relaxin' all cool<br>And all shootin some b-ball outside of the school<br>When a couple of Sith<br>Who were up to no good<br>Startin making trouble in my neighborhood<br>I got in one little fight and my mom got scared<br>She said 'You're movin' with your auntie and uncle in Bel Air'<p>I whistled for a ship and when it came near<br>The license plate said "Fresh" and it had dice in the mirror<br>If anything I can say this ship is rare<br>But I thought 'Now forget it – Yo homes to Bel Air'<p>I pulled up to the house about 7 or 8<br>And I yelled to the cabbie 'Yo homes smell ya later'<br>I looked at my kingdom<br>I was finally there<br>To sit on my throne as the Prince of Bel Air</marquee></td></tr></table>
Other comments on the usage of the marquee command are in the original post. | | Friday, August 28th, 2009 | 2:38 pm [allah_sulu]
 |
| | Monday, August 24th, 2009 | 10:10 pm [allah_sulu]
 |
| | Friday, August 21st, 2009 | 8:55 am [allah_sulu]
 |
Wallpaper Backgrounds For Videos <table cellspacing="32" background="http://DammitJa.net/lj/bg/skulltile2cw.jpg"><tr><td><object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hCHv-k-0nOE&hl=en&showsearch=0&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x222222&color2=0x000000&hd=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hCHv-k-0nOE&hl=en&showsearch=0&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x222222&color2=0x000000&hd=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object></td></tr></table>
| This is the embed code from YouTube or wherever. All you have to do is paste it into your post, and then paste the other code segments before and after it. | | This is the size of the border. "10" is the size of the normal YouTube border, but in this case I increased it to "32" so that you could see the skulls and crossbones. | | This is the URL of the background image to be used as the border. You can use any image, but either tileable ones (or custom frames the proper size to fit around the video) work best. You can find my collection of backgrounds here. |
EDIT: You probably want to make sure that you don't already have the YouTube borders enabled before you do this. | | Wednesday, August 12th, 2009 | 9:26 pm [allah_sulu]
 |
I Must Have Missed This Announcement (If There Was One) Apparently, it's no longer necessary to enclose embedded YouTube videos in those special <lj-embed> tags. I made the mistake of forgetting them, and LiveJournal still embedded the video into my post just fine (it added the <lj-embed> tags for me). So, if you want to embed videos in LJ now (directly or through a client like the Massive Tool) you need only paste the embed code into your document and let LJ do the rest. Well, unless you want to change the border/control colors or other parameters. <object width="500" height="405"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/M-WF0PVi2FA&hl=en&hd=1&showsearch=0&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0xddeeff&color2=0x88ccff&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/M-WF0PVi2FA&hl=en&hd=1&showsearch=0&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0xddeeff&color2=0x88ccff&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="500" height="405"></embed></object>
EDIT: As you can see, now that LJ has made whatever modifications they made, you no longer get a couple of blank lines underneath the embedded video (which made for messy formatting). | | Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 | 5:29 pm [allah_sulu]
 |
A Couple More YouTube Tricks After writing this article, I started paying more attention to the components that make up the YouTube embed code. So, after some experimentation, here are a couple more hints derived by Yours Truly. First of all, YouTube gives you nine different options for border/control bar colors, all of which are simply a darker and lighter version of the same color (dark green and light green, dark blue and light blue, etc.) However, you can specify any two colors you want, and YouTube will use those for the border (if you've enabled it) and the control bar – you just have to specify them in hexadecimal. For the example below, I chose a shade of red for the first color and a shade of blue for the second color. You can see in the code below where those colors are defined. If you want to choose a couple of colors that have some special significance to the movie you're playing, or if you just have a color scheme you like (perhaps you'd like the video borders to fit the colors used in your LiveJournal scheme?), then this is the way to do it. YouTube also gives you only a limited number of choices for the dimensions of the video. If you want to choose a different size, for whatever reason, here's how you do it. First of all, for a standard letterbox-formatted video, like the one below, the ratio of the width to the height should be 4:3.¹ The video below will be presented at a resolution of 640x480, for example. However, if you look at the actual dimensions specified below (highlit in yellow), you'll see that the numbers used are larger. That's because you have to add 25 to the height, to provide room for the control bar, and then add an additional 20 to both the height and width if you have borders enabled (see the parts of the code highlit in green). By the way, I remember seeing the video below when it was broadcast on TV for the very first time back in the 80s.² I've looked for it a few times on YouTube, but this is the first time I've found it. Watch it now, before they pull it down tomorrow for copyright infringement or something. <lj-embed><object width="660" height="525"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/bBS6r2qkU90&hl=en&hd=1&showsearch=0&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0xcc0066&color2=0x3300cc&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/bBS6r2qkU90&hl=en&hd=1&showsearch=0&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0xcc0066&color2=0x3300cc&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="660" height="525"></embed></object></lj-embed>
¹If the video you're embedding is in widescreen, then the ratio of the width to the height should be 16:9. The additional values required for the control bar and borders remain the same. ²Yes, I'm old. EDIT: If you want the border around the video to be a single solid color, rather than two colors fading back and forth into each other, then all you have to do is set color1 and color2 to the same color, like so: <lj-embed><object width="660" height="525"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/bBS6r2qkU90&hl=en&hd=1&showsearch=0&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x00aaff&color2=0x00aaff&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/bBS6r2qkU90&hl=en&hd=1&showsearch=0&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x00aaff&color2=0x00aaff&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="660" height="525"></embed></object></lj-embed>
EDIT: Of course, with a little extra gratuitous HTML wrapped around the video, you can create effects like this. | | Monday, July 20th, 2009 | 4:16 pm [allah_sulu]
 |
[Update] Allah Sulu's Massive Tool version 3.5.4 There is a new version of Allah_Sulu's Massive Tool available, which can be downloaded either in Windows installer format ( setup.exe etc.; good for first-time installers but may not work with Windows 9x/Me) or as a simple ZIP archive of files which can be extracted into your existing Massive Tool directory over the current files (in either event, make sure that you are not running the Massive Tool while you're trying to install/extract the update!) New changes include: - The button on the right side of the "Tags" line on the "Post to LiveJournal…" screen (from the LJ menu) will no longer reset the tags you've already chosen if you go back in to make changes to the list of tags you've already chosen. You can now re-open the "Select LJ Tags" window to make additions/subtractions to the list you've already selected. (Of course, changing the journal/community selection will still clear the "Tags" input.)
- I have finally implemented "Custom…" (friends group filters) as an option for post security on the "Post to LiveJournal…" screen. If you have a username selected and password entered, but no community selected, then when you select "Custom…" on the "Show To" pulldown menu, it will enable the "Groups" input (which works similarly to the "Tags" function – click on the button to select which filters you do and do not wish to apply). Of course, this requires you to have already provided the Massive Tool with a list of your journal's friend group filters (see option below). Note also that you cannot post to communities in "Custom…" or "Private" mode; if you have either of those options selected (or if you select "Custom…" without selecting any filters) the Massive Tool will default to "Friends/Members Only".
- The "Update Icons/Tags" button on the "Post to LiveJournal…" screen now reads "Update Icons/Tags/Groups", as it now has the capability to go into your LJ account and retrieve the current list of friends groups (for "Custom…" security, see item above) as well as the current list of avatars and tags. You must have a journal selected and a password entered in order to use this function (LJ will not divulge your list of filters without your password). Previously, for avatars and tags, a password was not required (although, without a password, you did not necessarily get the full list of tags; only the tags that were used for public entries).
- I also fixed a couple of minor bugs which I'd never encountered before, in little-used parts of the Tool – one of them in the code for loading and saving Table templates. I've also added a new table template to the Tool files. Open the "Tables…" screen on the HTML menu, then select "Open…" from the File menu. If you open
Successories.TIT, you'll get a template for posting captioned pictures in the "motivational poster" format, as seen in communities like successoriesfun. (This will also demonstrate a new "Mad-Libs"-esque feature of Table Information Template files, prompting the user to enter certain values upon opening. This is a whole new feature of the TIT files, which has much potential.) This image was made using the Successories.TIT template, sinply by pasting in the picture URL (found on Google) and text (provided by SethCohen). It's possible to tweak the lettering (font, size, color) and/or the border around the picture just by modifying the HTML, but that image was made by leaving all of the defaults intact. Total time required to create – under a minute. - It's also possible to open/execute Table Information Templates from File → "Open File…" on the Main Menu. Select "All Files" in the "Files of Type" pulldown menu.
- I also made some modifications and expansions to the Wikipedia and BBCode compatibility features, since I've edited a few TVtropes entries in the Tool recently.
- There's a new option available on the "Document" tab of the "Preferences…" screen (accessed from the Edit menu). Previously, the Massive Tool displayed all numeric colors (that is, all colors which are not referred to by name, such as "red" or "lightyellow") in hexadecimal; that is to say, this color was referred to as "#00AAFF". That's the more classic, popular way of doing it (at least in my opinion); but many sites are now going with a decimal format, in which the aforementioned color would be referred to as "rgb(0,170,255)". The two formats are completely interchangeable, and (for whatever reason), sometime this year LiveJournal started converting all hexadecimal codes into the decimal format. So even if you put "#00AAFF" in the code for your post, LJ will render it as "rgb(0,170,255)" when anybody reads your post. I have no idea why they feel it necessary to do this conversion, but they do. Anyway, by using the "Numeric Color Format" setting on the "Document" tab, you can select which format the Massive Tool renders colors into (for those of you who are more comfortable with decimal than hexadecimal, for instance, and find it easier to read or tweak the decimal values). Changing this setting will only change the format of subsequent color operations; it will not change the format of color codes already in your document.
- As per usual, there are several new icons and backgrounds. Also, if you load
Commands.RIM (as described in the second to last bullet-point here), you'll find a couple of new FORTH aliases; including LJ-Latest (which will give you the 250 or so most recently posted pictures to LiveJournal) and YouTubeParams (which I run after pasting in the YouTube embedding code, to add a couple of additional parameters). - I've also expanded the handling of integers in the built-in FORTH language from 32-bit (the "LongInt" type) to 64-bit (the "Int64" type) for the conversion and processing of larger numbers, as discussed here. (I increased the precision of real number handling from "double" to "extended" as well.)
|
[ << Previous 20 ]
|