Hello all,

We've got a new feature for testing: A user interface for doing a full
backup/restore of your weblog posts, templates, stories, preferences
and aggregator subscriptions.

There's also been a change to the file format used for creating backups
of various prefs tables. Instead of using the FatPage format, we're now
saving prefs tables in XML, generated using table.tableToXml [1].

*** How to test

1. Download this file, and import it into your copy of Radio by opening
the file using the Open command in Radio's File menu:

http://jake.userland.com/gems/backupAndRestore05.fttb

2. In the table window that opens after importing the file, there's a
script named install, which should already be selected. Double-click
the wedge next to the name of the script, and click the Run button to
install the new parts.

3. If you've followed previous tutorials on running a full backup of
your Radio installation, you should delete all of the .fttb files in
your www/backups/prefs/ folder. Since the new version will write .xml
files instead, the .fttb files are obsolete.

4. Go to this page in the desktop website:

http://127.0.0.1:5335/system/pages/backup

5. Click the Backup Now button, and when asked for confirmation, click
the Backup Now button on the confirmation page. Radio will begin the
backup process. While in progress, the page will refresh every 15
seconds, displaying its progress. When complete, you should see a
confirmation page saying that the backup and verification completed
successfully.

6. Send a reply to this message and let us know that it worked -- or
didn't.

*** How to test restoration from a backup

1. Turn off upstreaming. Go to this page, un-check the first check-box,
and click the Submit button at the bottom of the page:

http://127.0.0.1:5335/system/pages/prefs?page=1.4

2. Quit Radio if it's running, and make a copy of your Radio UserLand
program folder, and put it in a safe place. ***This is important!***
While we've done quite a bit of testing with the restore operation,
it's possible that there are still bugs, so having a safe copy of your
Radio folder is a good idea.

3. Rename the Data Files sub-folder of your Radio UserLand program
folder to Data Files Original.

4. Launch Radio. When it starts up, Radio will create a new Data Files
folder, with empty .root files, and then it will open the desktop
website home page. You should see no previous posts.

5. Go to the Backup/Restore page and click the Restore Now button, and
when asked for confirmation click the Restore Now button to confirm.
Radio will begin the restoration process, refreshing the page every 15
seconds to display its progress. When complete, you should see a
confirmation page saying that the restore completed successfully.

6. Go to the desktop website home page -- you should see your most
recent posts listed below the text box. Other things to check are your
subscriptions, categories and preferences. All should be as they were
before you made the backup.

7. Once you're satisfied that the restore operation worked, Quit Radio,
delete the newly created Data Files sub-folder of the Radio UserLand
program folder, and rename Data Files Original back to Data Files. This
will return Radio to its original state.

8. Launch Radio, and re-enable upstreaming using the first checkbox on
this page:

http://127.0.0.1:5335/system/pages/prefs?page=1.4

9. Send a reply to this message and let us know if the restore
operation worked as expected. If not, what went wrong -- was there
anything missing? Did you get an error of some sort -- if so, what was
the error?

*** New preference page: Nightly Backups

There's a new preference page for configuring automatic nightly backups:

http://127.0.0.1:5335/system/pages/prefs?page=2.16

There are two options on this page -- a check-box to tell Radio to
automatically back up new and changed data nightly, and a second
check-box to tell Radio whether or not to upstream your backup files to
your folder on the community server.

If for some reason the nightly backup fails to verify properly, Radio
will send an email to you, saying that verification failed, and why.

*** A known bug

There's a known bug having to do with apostrophe characters not being
decoded from their ' XML-entity representation in prefs tables.
This bug will be fixed soon, but I didn't want to have to hold up this
beta release any longer.

Note: Only strings in prefs tables which contain the apostrophe
character are affected -- titles and text of weblog posts are
unaffected, as are stories and templates.


Please reply to this message if you have questions or bugs to report.

Thanks!
-Jake

[1] http://docserver.userland.com/table/tableToXml