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Description:
This Perl script downloads the URL for the current comic of
various strips that are available online, and outputs these URLs
to an HTML file. This enables you to view all of your favorite
strips at once, instead of visiting several different websites.
One feature that sets this program apart from the rest is
the ability to operate in 'local' mode. This mode, instead of
writing the addresses to images in the HTML file, actually
downloads the image and saves it locally. This way, you do not
have to wait for each image to download - it's already on your
hard drive. This is most useful when dailystrips is run from
a cron script. (See file README.LOCAL
for more information and examples)
Requirements:
dailystrips requires a reasonably current version of Perl - it was
developed with 5.6.0. The HTTP::Request, LWP::UserAgent, and POSIX modules
are needed. If you want to use --date, you will need Date::Time from the TimeDate package.
See www.cpan.org if you don't have them installed already.
dailystrips was developed on Linux but should be able to run on any *nix
with that has the necessary Perl modules installed. Running on Win32 is
also possible.
For the AvantGo mode, ImageMagick is required.
Installation:
See the INSTALL file.
Usage:
'dailystrips [stripname(s)]' will print to STDOUT an HTML page with image
links to the latest strip. These links are to the strip's webserver.
'dailystrips --help' lists all available options. --list shows the available
strips and groups. Strip names can specified as listed. Group must be
preceeded with an '@' symbol.
Adding new strips:
The strips.def file should be relatively self-explanatory. (see README.DEFS
for detailed information). If you are adding several strips from the same site
that share a common format, please create a class for that site. In addition,
please try to pick a method of determining the most current URL possible (i.e.
don't search if it's possible to predict - we don't want to get old strips if
running early in the morning and a site hasn't updated the static page yet)
Also, when you add a new strip, I'd appreciate it if you could email the defintion
to me at amedico@amedico.dhs.org so I can add it
to the distribution.
Personal definition file:
Users may create a file called ".dailystrips.defs" in their home
directory. Syntax is exactly the same as the main strips.def file. Personal
files will be processed after the main file. This means that classes set in the
main file are available for use in users' files. Also note that any entries
(classes, strips, and groups) in users' files with the same name as entries in
the main will take precedence. Personal definition files can be ignored with
the '--nopersonal' option.
System-wide definitions file:
Administrators may wish to create definitions, classes, or groups available to all users on a
system. This may be done by creating a file /etc/dailystrips.defs and placing
the definitions there. This file is loaded after the default definition file
and so may be use to override provided definitions, if desired. The system-wide
definitions file can be ignored with the --nosystem option.
Definition upgrades:
Since full releases are not made available every time the definitions file
changes, the current CVS copy of the definitions file is available through a
link at http://dailystrips.sourceforge.net/download.html.
Users may either replace /usr/share/dailystrips/strips.def with this updated copy, or if a
package management system is used (Debian dpkg, RPM, etc.) placing the updated
definitions in /etc/dailystrips.defs is recommended.
*Notice*:
Keep in mind that this program is for personal use only, as making
the output publicly available on the internet constitutes copyright infringement
without permission from the strips' authors. If you're running it on a
personal webserver that can be accessed fron the internet (even if it's not
specifically public), make sure you set up restrictions so that only you have
access to it - some publishers (Keenspot, Exclusive Content) seem to be checking
their webserver logs for dailystrips users and will come after you in a rather
nasty fashion if it even looks like you're using dailystrips to make a public
website.
Copyright info:
This program Copyright (C) 2001 Andrew Medico <amedico@amedico.dhs.org>.
All rights reserved. This program is free software; you may redistribute it
and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU GPL, Version 2.
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