This is too much fun 

Adding Wilk's cars. He and Dave are telling little stories in their outlines. I love it! Cars are such a personal thing. I think it's one of those reference points you use when you're trying to recall a point in your life. You (maybe only half consciously) run through a series of little routines in your head, like:

I was living in Western Springs, Templetons still lived next door

Had just moved my Francorp job home

Still had the Audi 4000

Aaron wasn't walking yet

New community server: what happens to images? 

I hesitated to put an image in the last post because I wasn't sure that if it was hardcoded to the full URL it would move with me, but since images are in a different subdomain anyway you can't write a tag with a relative path. Or is there a way to do that? img src="blog/decorations/opmlmanscreen.jpg"

OPML browsers and inclusions 

I noted earlier tonight that the yafob browser either had not updated or did not include the linked OPML files in the cars directory. I was mistaken. I was looking at the version of my file at opml.org where I had not yet included other people's car lists. It is showing the inclusions when I use the browser to look at my file at tagcamp.com, but links out from each owner's name to the raw OPML file, not a rendered file. Don't think I like that.

Let's see how some of the other new OPML tools handle it:

OPML Search was not spidering blogs.tagcamp.com yet, but I submitted my file on Bela's polling page. It was added immediately, so now when I search on Miata I get my outlines on both servers, and Dave's outline, but my outline that has inclusions isn't displaying them.

OPML Manager. I can't figure out how to point you to a particular outline in OPML Manager. It does include the inclusions, but is treating Donavan's file differently from the rest of the inclusions. The items on his car make and model level got promoted somehow. Thinking out loud here, deal with it. There is something different about Donovan's file now I look at it in Dave's World Outline. Did I not include it? I must have, because he's been editing it. I'll check up on that. Only moments later... Now I see. When I saved the ourcars.opml file, Donovan's node was in an expanded mode. That's what made the browsers show detail on just his part of the outline. Well, we're all learning something from this. Using ubersimple example data is one of the ways I'm able to grasp concepts that had been eluding me.

Donovan had a good idea 

He's putting pictures in his cars outline. Maybe he'll sell the MG. I always wanted one of those. I also liked the Karmen Ghia.

Dave had a Miata, too. Wonder what color his was. When I got mine all you could get was red, white or blue. I had the blue.

Colors affect me in a deep-down way. Right now I'm admiring the new Beetle convertible colors. I'm sure they must be chosen for women. They're delicate pale pastels and they take my breathe away. Even the cream is just the right cream. I guess the only other colors I've seen in that palette have been the pale yellow and pale blue. Maybe that's all there is. I'd like to see what they do with pink. I'm not sure I'd have the guts to buy a pink one; I'd just like to see one.

Whatever happened all those mood products that changed color with body temperature? Maybe they could make a car paint that did that with changes in air temperature. That way I might be able to have a car that was only sometimes pink.

All our cars directory is growing 

Five car owner's lists now. Here's how it looks in OPML, and this is how it renders in Dave's HTML outline of outlines. To contribute your own list:

Make the list

Be sure to start with the car make and model as the top level in your file, not your name, I'll put that in.

Tell me where it is by emailing me at amybellinger AT gmail.com

The ourcars.opml directory is working 

Check it out http://hosting.tagcamp.com/amyloo/instantOutliner/ourcars.opml

Or here it is rendered in HTML. Except that it doesn't include Donovan's contribution. Maybe the yabfob browser takes a while to show changes? Or doesn't it do inclusions?

Donovan's cars are in there. He and I both have some details to sketch in later. Which demonstrates the power of this, right? He makes changes. I have to do... what? Nothing.

Come along and put in your cars.

Here's a screencast showing what to do. It's about 7MB. Flash. Rough. Sorry about the mic being so close to the keyboard. I learned something. Wouldn't be so bad if I were not such an emphatic, heavy-handed typist.

I'm not sorry at all about needling the Wilk, whom I abused as an example.

If I've explained anything terribly wrong, please let me know. I probably won't be up for re-recording the audio, but I will add labels to correct anything.

I already found one mistake. You should start with your first level being the car make and model, not your name as I showed in the first cut at it.

No wait 

Looks like nobody's templates were preserved.

You must have to reset your preferences, too, for things like how many days worth of posts on the index page.

My problem 

Losing my blog template could be unrelated to the new server. I'd been having problems with the editor crashing since last night. I re-installed, writing over the old files first.

Then -- because I couldn't think of anything else to try -- nuked everything to install from scratch. I had a backup of the OPML directory in my My Documents but not the one in my Program Files. I guess I forgot that the template and maybe some preferences were stored there?