Status centers
by Little Outliner Thursday, February 2, 2017

This is a short doc that shows how to create and edit a "status center" page like scripting.com/status

  1. First, you create and edit the outline using Little Outliner. Log on to the site. Create a new outline called myStatus.opml.
  2. Add a few top level headlines, and then a few second-level headlines underneath them. It doesn't have to be much. If you want, you can import the OPML from my outline, using the Import OPML command in the File menu. That will give your status center a lot of starting material. 
  3. When you're ready to view it as a status center, make your outline public, by choosing Get public link from the File menu. Click OK to confirm, and then OK to dismiss the dialog that appears with the URL. 
  4. Then choose Status Center from the (new) Build sub-menu of the Outliner menu. It will open a new page with your status center page, ready to be shared with other people. That's it. You can go back and edit the outline and it'll automatically update the status center. 

Embellishments

You probably want to change the title at the top of the page. For that, choose Set title & description in the File menu. A dialog appears. In that dialog, the "long" title appears at the top of the page, and the short title appears in the title of the HTML. 

Note that unlike changes to the outline itself, which are automatic and real-time, these changes require that you re-build the status center outline.

Are you a coder?

If so, here's a view-source link for the template for status centers. It's not open source, because it would take a lot of work to make it open source, and I don't have time. But the code is there as sample code. You are free to use any of it. 

The idea is very simple. It takes an OPML file and converts it to JSON, and then passes it through an outline renderer. You can probably get a lot done just by hacking the CSS, but you're free to change any of it. 

You can use any OPML editor

If you want to make your own OPML, there are a number of outliners out that there that generate it, for example OmniOutliner on the Mac, I'm told is very nice (my friend Brent Simmons is working on it these days). 

You can if you must write the OPML by hand, but I don't recommend it. Sort of spoils the flow. :balloon:

However, if you use your own outliner, you have to modify the source (see above). 

The modification is brain-dead simple. Just replace the URL of my outline with the URL of yours. 

Questions

If you have question, post a comment below. Be sure to include the URL of your status center so we can see what you're talking about. :balloon: