🎒 Roady

Roady adds features to Drummer to make it easier to work with GitHub. The key feature is continuous, automatic backup of your Drummer files to GitHub. This gives you the equivalent of a time machine for your outlines, complete with diffs.

You can also upload individual Drummer files to GitHub, which can be useful for sharing your outlines with others.

Roady is currently at version 0.3.0.

To install the 🎒 Roady menu

Follow these steps to copy the latest version of the 🎒 Roady menu from GitHub into your Scripts menu file

1. File → Open URL… https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PostMonsterG/Roady/main/Roady.opml
2. Select the entire outline, i.e., the 🎒 node that contains everything
3. Copy (⌘C)
4. File → Special Files… → Scripts menu...
5. Paste (⌘V)

You should now have a new 🎒 menu. The backpack is just an emoji, you can name the menu anything you like, including "Roady". You can uninstall Roady by deleting this entry in your scripts menu, or temporarily disable it by commenting it out.

To back up your files

Roady lets you use a GitHub repository to store a backup copy of your Drummer files. Each file is saved as a separate file, there is no zip archive. These are incremental backups, only those files modified or created since the last backup will be uploaded.

Have these things ready before you continue

• GitHub account username
• Private repository to save your backups into, e.g., drummer-private-backups
• Path to a folder in the repository, e.g., mybackups

To configure Roady and connect Drummer to GitHub

1. 🎒 Preferences → Configure GitHub Username…
2. 🎒 Preferences → Configure Backups Repository…
3. 🎒 Preferences → Configure Backups Path…
4. 🎒 Status → Connect to GitHub…

To back up your files

1. 🎒 Back Up Now

Roady logs information to the console about the files it has uploaded. Look for the backpack emoji.

To configure backups

You can tell Roady to skip backing up outlines if all you did was move the cursor or expand/collapse nodes.

• 🎒 Preferences → Exclude Cursor Updates
• 🎒 Preferences → Include Cursor Updates
• 🎒 Preferences → Exclude Expansion Updates
• 🎒 Preferences → Include Expansion Updates

To enable automatic backups

Roady will back up your files to GitHub each time you select the 🎒 Back Up Now command. You can enable automatic backups by copying this command into Drummer's scheduler.

1. File → Special Files... → Scripts menu…
2. Select the Back Up Now node
3. Copy (⌘C)
4. File → Special Files... → Scheduler…
5. Ensure there is a top-level, uncommented, node named everyMinute
6. Paste (⌘V) the Back Up Now item under that heading

You can turn off automatic backups by deleting this item from Drummer's scheduler, or temporarily disable them by commenting it out. Roady logs information to the console about the files it has uploaded. Look for the backpack emoji.

To verify backups status

Roady can show you when it last scanned for changes, and when, and how many, files it last backed up.

1. 🎒 Status → Backup Status…

To restore your files

Roady does not have any special features for restoring files from GitHub. For now, do this by hand.

To upload a Drummer file to GitHub

Roady lets you upload individual Drummer files to GitHub. This is a separate thing from backups—it is for sharing your outlines with others.

1. 🎒 Upload Current Tab…

To select how uploaded outlines appear in Drummer

By default, outlines uploaded by Roady as OPML will appear in Drummer as an "instant outline", with a lightning bolt. Roady can adjust the OPML it uploads so the outline appears with a globe icon.

• 🎒 Preferences → Upload Tabs as Public Outline
• 🎒 Preferences → Upload Tabs as Instant Outline

To configure a file for upload

Roady looks for header elements in the OPML to determine where to save the file and how it is processed.

• rd-repository Set this to the name of the GitHub repository you want to save the file into. For example, hello-world

• rd-path Set this to the path to the file, including the filename.
  For example, directory/sub/file.opml

• rd-type Controls how the file is processed before uploading.

  • opml The OPML file will be uploaded. If you have selected Upload Tabs as Public Outline, Roady will remove the urlUpdateSocket header element.

  • text Suitable for Markdown, the text from the nodes of the outline will be included, but none of the indentation or OPML attributes.

  • indented Suitable for JavaScript, the text from the nodes of the outline will be included, with indentation per OPML indentation level.

To update Roady

The latest version of Roady is available on GitHub. Roady can check to see if it needs updating.

1. 🎒 Check for Updates…

You can see what the latest version of Roady looks like, without having to install it.

1. 🎒 Help → Get Latest Roady

You update Roady by removing or commenting-out the old version, and installing the latest version.

1. 🎒 Help → Get Latest Roady
2. Select the entire outline, i.e., the 🎒 node that contains everything
3. Copy (⌘C)
4. File → Special Files… → Scripts menu...
5. Select the old 🎒node
6. Reorg → Toggle Comment or Reorg → Delete Line
7. Paste (⌘V)

If you have enabled automatic backups, you must also update the scheduler.

1. File → Special Files... → Scripts menu…
2. Select the new Back Up Now node
3. Copy (⌘C)
4. File → Special Files... → Scheduler…
5. Select the old Back Up Now node
6. Reorg → Toggle Comment or Reorg → Delete Line
7. Paste (⌘V) the new Back Up Now item under everyMinute

To uninstall Roady

You can uninstall or disable Roady by removing or commenting-out the items you added to Drummer's scripts menu and scheduler.

To delete the 🎒Roady menu

1. File → Special Files… → Scripts menu...
2. Select the 🎒node
3. Reorg → Toggle Comment or Reorg → Delete Line

To disable automatic backups

1. File → Special Files... → Scheduler…
2. Select the Back Up Now node
3. Reorg → Toggle Comment or Reorg → Delete Line

What Roady does with your data

• Important: Roady uploads your files to GitHub. Roady cannot tell, and will not warn you, if you upload private files to a public repository.
• Roady stores settings and status information in your web browser's local storage. This remains after you remove Roady from your scripts menu and scheduler. Your web browser will have controls for managing this data.
• Roady treats GitHub as a write-only file system. It commits everything to the main branch, and does not understand revisions, history, or the difference between public and private repositories. Roady is not appropriate for use as a general-purpose client for GitHub.

Release history

• 0.1.0 Hello, Roady!
• 0.1.1 Stop doing that — Bug fixes, improvements to performance and logging.
• 0.2.0 Get the now — Check for updates, backup status, help menu.
• 0.3.0 Just looking — Skip cursor moves and expansion updates, upload non-instant outlines.

Notes

• Drummer is a scriptable outliner, created by Dave Winer, and hosted at http://drummer.scripting.com
• Roady is written in Drumkit, the scripting language for Drummer, which is based on JavaScript. The native file format for Drumkit is OPML.
• Roady was created by Gary Teter, who has a blog at http://oldschool.scripting.com/PostMonsterG and is on Twitter @PostMonsterG.