Broadcast Builder Review Page 2 Exporting Feeds In some cases, you may want to use the information in your RSS feed for other purposes. Broadcast Builder allows you to export the data in several different formats. - HTML - Exporting to HTML creates a web page for each news item containing the same article description and links found in the original RSS feed. It also creates an index page with a list of all of the articles and links to the newly created web pages. To export to HTML -- 1) Click "File" in the top menu bar, "Export to" from the drop down menu, and "HTML" from the final drop down menu. This will open the window shown below. 2) Type in the page title you want to use in the appropriate text box and click the "Generate files" button in the lower right part of the window. The files will be saved in an html directory under the broadcast builder directory. The default is c:\programfiles\lionhardt\broadcast\html. - WAP/WML - Simply put, WAP is a standard that allows information to be sent to wireless devices like cell phones. WML is the language you use to create pages for a WAP browser. Thanks to Broadcast Builder, you can make your RSS feeds WAP compatible. To export to wap/wml -- 1) Click "File" in the top menu bar, "Export to" from the drop down menu, and "Wap/WML" from the final drop down menu. This will open a window identical to the one shown above but with "Export to WAP/WML" for a window title. 2) Type in the page title you want to use in the appropriate text box and click the "Generate files" button in the lower right part of the window. The files will be saved in an wap directory under the broadcast builder directory. The default is c:\programfiles\lionhardt\broadcast\wap. - ACCESS DATABASE - When exporting to an Access Database, Broadcast Builder will create an access compatible database with three tables: ChannelInfo - Contains colums with data from the channel Info page on your RSS feeds. FileInfo- Contains RSS version, Date, and what program generated the feed. The last table you name yourself and contains columns of data for each news item. To export to an Access database: 1) Click "File" in the top menu bar, "Export to" from the drop down menu, and "MS access database" from the final drop down menu. This will open the window shown below. 2) Select the name and location of the database in the first text box. 3) Type in a name for the table containing the news item information. 4) Choose the database version (MS Access 97 or 2000) and click the export button. The database will be created and saved in the location you specified above. Blog Editor Broadcast Builder is not only a great RSS tool but a full featured Blog Editor as well. If you've never heard of a blog, it's short for weB LOG and is usually a series of small, frequently updated posts arranged by posting date. Some people use them for online diaries, keeping in contact with friends, publishing literary works, or to display a series of links to other sources. For those who haven't blogged before, it's easy and a great way to share your thoughts with a large online audience. You don't need your own website to post a blog, just go any online blog site such as Blogger or Live Journal and sign up for a free account. Broadcast Builder makes publishing to one or several Blogs easy. To open the editor, click on the "Blog Editor" selection in the top menu bar; the image below shows a reduces view of the main window. The left side of the window contains a column that contains either blog data or the blog menu depending on your selection. You can toggle between the two options using the two buttons located at the bottom of the column shown below. To create a blog, select "New Article Wizard" from the Blog Options of the Blog Menu. A series of windows will open. 1) -Information The first window contains some general information. After reading the page, click on the right facing blue arrow. 2) -Header Enter general information about the blog such as title and any links with descriptions. 3) -Article This is the blog content itself. 4) -Finalize This will complete the blog and open it in the editor. After the blog is finalized, it will appear in the visual editor where you can modify it further using the tools in the menu bar shown below. - TEXT FORMAT - Broadcast Builder allows you to format the position of your text using the standard B, I, U, W buttons to make text Bold, Italic, Underlined or Strike Through. The buttons with lines on them will center text or aligned it to the left or right. The three text boxes allow you to specify the font, font size and font color. - ADD PICTURES - You can liven up your blogs by adding pictures. Although you can't post pictures, audio, flash, or movie files on a blog's server, you can add URL links that point to files you've posted on your own site. If you don't have a web site, you can use the free space that most ISPs offer for personal home pages. Download any images you want to use for your blog to the free space your ISP offers, reference the URL in your blog, and it will appear in the blog. The URL where you store your pictures should be the same as the base URL you specified in the configuration page. Follow this easy procedure to add a picture. 1) You'll notice the menu bar has an icon that looks like a picture: click on it to open the window shown below. 2) Select the picture source from any of your local drives using the browse button. The source path of the image will be modified to the base URL that you entered on the config page followed by the name of the image you selected. You then have to upload the image to the base url location for the blog to find it. 3) The layout boxes specify the location of the image and what thickness you want a border to be. The alignment options are shown in the image above. If you don't want a border around your image, leave the border thickness option blank or 0. 4) The spacing inputs specify how much white space there will be around the image. If you don't care if the text is next to your image, leave these text boxes blank. Below is a reduced image of a blog with a picture set to left and the text set to Arial 14 red. The other options for adding audio and multimedia are covered in Broadcast Builder's excellent help files. - SOURCE EDITOR - If you want to make some further changes, you can do so in the Source Editor. A blog can be thought of as a personal web page on someone else's web site. When you think of blogs this way, you'll realize that regardless of if your using the sites posting tools, Broadcast Builder or any other tool, you're creating part of an HTML page with each blog you post. To show this better, click on the "Source" button on the bottom of the editor window. If a blank screen shows up, double click on the "000001" in the left part of the window and you'll see the HTML code come up as shown below. The window will act as an HTML editor where you can edit your blog in ways that the WYSIWYG editor doesn't allow. For example, if you want to change a font color to one that WYSIWYG editor doesn't allow, you just change the color value in the <Font> tag to the value you want. In the example below, the color was changed from red (#ff0000) to an yellow-orange hue (#fead0d). The code changes are shown above and the resulting text colors are shown below. -POST AND MULTIPOST- Now that your blog is complete, you can easily post it to one or several blogs. 1) Click on the "Post to External Blog" selection in the publish options in the blog menu. This brings up the window shown below. 2) Select the blog you wish to publish to and click the "post and publish" button. 3) If you want to publish the same blog to all of the blogs that you set on the configuration page, click the "multipost & publish" button instead of the "post & publish" button. The multipost option is only available on the Pro and Enterprise Editions. -OTHER OPTIONS- You can also post your blog to usenet or to email as long as you've added your usenet and email information to the configuration page. The technique is similar to the external blog post. If you're a FeedDemon user, you'll be glad to know that Broadcast Builder can automatically be added to FeedDemon's blogthis list. Click on "External Tools" on the top menu bar and click "Add to FeedDemon Blogthis list". This will allow you to automatically import an RSS news item to Broadcast Builder from FeedDemon then post it to a blog. For more information on how this works, see our FeedDemon review. Enclosures Think of an enclosure in RSS as the same as an attachment in email. An enclosure requires three pieces of information to be posted; URL location of the file, MIME type such as (mpg, pdf, jpg, etc),and the size in bytes. Broadcast Builder makes it easy; follow the procedures mentioned above to create a new feed then add an enclosure using the steps below. 1) On the "new feed item" window, you'll see row of text boxes named enclosure, mime type and file size as shown in the picture below. Use the folder icon to search for the file you want to add as an enclosure on your local drive. After the file is selected, the path will automatically be changed to the base URL for audio and video that you specified in the configuration page. The file size box will also be automatically be filled in as well. 2) Click on the down arrow next to the mime type text box and a drop down list of mime type options will appear. Click on the appropriate mime type to select it. Since the example uses a wav audio file for the attachment, the mime type will be audio/mpg. 3) Upload a copy of the file you want to use as an enclosure to the base URL specified on the configuration page. Since the enclosure is never directly attached to the RSS file and will not be seen if it isn't located in the base URL. 4) Add the item to the feed and post it as you normally would. If you look at the Shareware Genie RSS file, you'll notice the enclosure item contains an audio attachment of a bird call. On FeedDemon, the attachment appears as shown in the image below. Clicking on the paper clip will play the bird call. This feature is only available in the Pro and Enterprise versions. Export to Blog Along with RSS, blogs can be a powerful platform for communication. Thanks to the export features of Broadcast Builder, you can create one file and use the data for both. Exporting to a blog is as easy as posting your RSS feed online. Follow these steps after your RSS feed is complete. 1) At the bottom of the RSS editor, clock the "Export options" button then select "Export to blog" from the drop down menu as shown below. 2) The "export feed to blog" window will open. Click the check boxes next to the news items that you wish to blog. Click the "Export" button and the window will expand as shown below. 3) The items are added to your blog database and can be posted to one or several blogs of your choice using the techniques described in the blog editor section. The export to blog and multipost features are only available on the pro and enterprise versions. Conclusion and Registration If you've read this entire review, you've probably come to the obvious conclusion that Broadcast Builder offers a complete RSS solution, an easy interface, and import/export features to allow interaction with other formats. What you may not be sold on is why you need an RSS newsfeed in the first place. here's a few good reasons: 1) Exposure - The constant updates presented by an RSS feed will keep your site current in the minds of your target audience. Yes, email campaigns try to do the same thing but often come across as spam instead of as breaking news. 2) Traffic - Web traffic doesn't appear by itself. Anyone who's ever posted a web page knows this and also knows that if you want people to look at your web site then you better do something to bring attention to it. An RSS news feed should help increase your presence on the web. 3) Convenience - Updating an RSS feed just means adding a new item on the end of an existing feed and not recreating the entire file. Some versions of Broadcast Builder take the convenience a step further by letting you reuse content through database access. Now the information used to create dynamic web pages can create RSS feeds as well. Join the RSS revolution. Broadcast Builder makes RSS easy and also allows you to explore the often untapped resouces of blogs and usenet when publicizing your site. You can download the trial version of the Broadcast Builder by clicking on the button below. You can check on the latest registration fee by clicking on the green "Register Program" button. If you decide to register this program, please support Shareware Genie by using the green button link to register instead of the option in the program. I hope you find the program useful and would like to hear your comments at - The Genie - << PREV | 1 | 2 | News || Reviews || Utilities || Home/Office || Web Tools || Web Utils || Graphics || Security || Games || Other Categories || Program List || FAQ || Forum || About Us || Contact Us || Home Strategy Games || Action Games || Puzzle Games || Card Games ||