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

--- In radio-dev@yahoogroups.com, Jake Savin <jake@u...> wrote:

> 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.



I tested this out tonight using Radio 8.0.8 on Windows XP with Mozilla

as my browser. Everything appeared to work with one exception: After I

restored, I had no subscriptions. I looked in the backups folder and

couldn't find anything that appeared to contain them.



After returning to my original Data Files folder, restarting Radio,

and turning Nightly Backups on, all upstreaming attempts failed with

this error: "Can't upstream because '530 Login incorrect. Bad Username

or Password'". To fix the problem, I reentered my password on the <a

href="http://127.0.0.1:5335/system/pages/prefs?page=1.5">FTP

upstreaming</a> preferences page.

The subscriptions should be saved to this file:



backups\prefs\aggregatorServices.xml



After you restore, you'll need to re-enter your passwords since they aren't

saved in the backup files.



Lawrence



> -----Original Message-----

> From: rcade <rogers@...> [mailto:rogers@...]

> Sent: January 30, 2003 8:27 PM

> To: radio-dev@yahoogroups.com

> Subject: [radio-dev] Re: New feature for testing:

> Backup/Restore user interface

>

>

> I tested this out tonight using Radio 8.0.8 on Windows XP

> with Mozilla as my browser. Everything appeared to work with

> one exception: After I restored, I had no subscriptions. I

> looked in the backups folder and couldn't find anything that

> appeared to contain them.

>

> After returning to my original Data Files folder, restarting

> Radio, and turning Nightly Backups on, all upstreaming

> attempts failed with this error: "Can't upstream because '530

> Login incorrect. Bad Username or Password'". To fix the

> problem, I reentered my password on the <a

> href="http://127.0.0.1:5335/system/pages/prefs?page=1.5">FTP

> upstreaming</a> preferences page.

>

--- In radio-dev@yahoogroups.com, "Lawrence Lee" <lawrence@u...> wrote:

> The subscriptions should be saved to this file:

> backups\prefs\aggregatorServices.xml



OK ... my subscriptions were backed up to that file during the nightly

backup.



I thought the Backup/Restore process was using the www\backups folder,

not backups. Should I test restore again using that backup?



> After you restore, you'll need to re-enter your passwords since they

> aren't saved in the backup files.



I didn't try to use my passwords after I restored. I tried them after

removing the restored Data Files folder and returning to my original

Data Files folder. I didn't expect my password to disappear in that

circumstance; does Radio remove your FTP password when you disable

upstreaming and turn it back on again?

Yeah, I forgot the www\ in front of that in my previous email. It's not in

the backups folder in the top-level Radio UserLand folder.



But the password values are stored in Radio.root, so when you restore from

the backup (which doesn't store the passwords) it replaces the stored values

there with the null strings.



I talked with Jake about this and you can restore your Radio.root from the

backup folder so you don't have to re-enter your passwords/serial

number/user.im settings. Note: Anyone else following the backup/restore

testing should also restore Radio.root in Step 7 of the restore

instructions.



Lawrence



> -----Original Message-----

> From: rcade <rogers@...> [mailto:rogers@...]

> Sent: January 31, 2003 5:18 AM

> To: radio-dev@yahoogroups.com

> Subject: [radio-dev] Re: New feature for testing:

> Backup/Restore user interface

>

> OK ... my subscriptions were backed up to that file during

> the nightly backup.

>

> I thought the Backup/Restore process was using the

> www\backups folder, not backups. Should I test restore again

> using that backup?

>

[...]

> I didn't try to use my passwords after I restored. I tried

> them after removing the restored Data Files folder and

> returning to my original Data Files folder. I didn't expect

> my password to disappear in that circumstance; does Radio

> remove your FTP password when you disable upstreaming and

> turn it back on again?

>