The Digital City Rainman Cheat Sheet

What can you do with Rainman?
Create pages in a wide variety of shapes and sizes
Create links to existing online objects such as the following. In each case, your producer must provide the number of an existing object for you to make the link. You are not making any of the objects--you're created a shortcut to them using Rainman.
chat rooms
\create conference (3-8 character alphanumeric ID with first character a letter)
\reference (chat room number)
\headline
\insert link
\position on page (3-8 character alphanumeric ID with first character a letter)

message boards
\create msg_board (3-8 character alphanumeric ID with first character a letter)
\reference (message board number)
\headline
\insert link
\position on page (3-8 character alphanumeric ID with first character a letter)

software libraries
\create soft_lib (3-8 character alphanumeric ID with first character a letter)
\reference (software library number)
\headline
\insert link
\position on page (3-8 character alphanumeric ID with first character a letter)

form-driven mail
\create form (3-8 character alphanumeric ID with first character a letter)
\reference (form-driven mail form number)
\headline
\insert link
\position on page (3-8 character alphanumeric ID with first character a letter)

token/args
\create token/arg (3-8 character alphanumeric ID with first character a letter)
\reference (token) (argument)
\headline
\insert link
\position on page (3-8 character alphanumeric ID with first character a letter)

web pages
\create netaddress (3-8 character alphanumeric ID with first character a letter)
\website (url)
\headline
\insert link
\position on page (3-8 character alphanumeric ID with first character a letter)

newsgroups
\create netaddress (3-8 character alphanumeric ID with first character a letter)
\newsgroup (newsgroup)
\headline
\insert link
\position on page (3-8 character alphanumeric ID with first character a letter)


What is the basic script structure for all objects?
\group 1546.dcsan
\create (object) (3-8 character id, alphanumeric, case-sensitive)
\plusgroup ( )
\headline This is what appears in the window label and in the list box
\insert link
\position on page (3-8 character id, alphanumeric, case-sensitive)


What is the basic script structure for articles without pictures?
\group 1546.dcsan
\create page (3-8 character id, alphanumeric, case-sensitive)
\plusgroup 2341
\format lines
\form 117
\headline Wine-country travelers find a unicorn
\field 3
Unicorn found in N. California Wine Country
\field 1
SAN FRANCISCO--Scientists around the world are marveling today at the discovery on Monday of a magical, one-horned, horse-like creature found running wild in Northern California.
An inebriated specimen was found lolling under a grape arbor, its milky white hide splotched with crushed grapes....
\insert link
\position on page (3-8 character id, alphanumeric, case-sensitive)


What is the basic script structure for articles with pictures?
\group 1546.dcsan
\create page (3-8 character id, alphanumeric, case-sensitive)
\plusgroup 2341
\format lines
\comment the form below chosen from the forms catalog
\form 30025
\headline Wine-country travelers find a unicorn
\field 1
SAN FRANCISCO--Scientists around the world are marveling today at the discovery on Monday of a magical, one-horned, horse-like creature found running wild in Northern California.
An inebriated specimen was found lolling under a grape arbor, its milky white hide splotched with crushed grapes....
\field 11
This photo of the unicorn was taken Monday.
\rawimage 5 C:\photos\unicorn.art
\insert link
\position on page (3-8 character id, alphanumeric, case-sensitive)

Reminder: How the image is processed
You set up your script with the path to the image.
When you process the script with the Rainman Grinder, the grinder looks for the \rawimage or \binary commands.
If you're using art you've already compressed, you use \rawimage and the Grinder peers into your hard drive, grabs the image and converts it as is into a stream of binary code. It removes the path information, because that would mean nothing to the Rainman processor in Virginia and it bundles your script into an .RMP file.
Mail the .RMP file to Rainmansys.
If you're using art that is not compressed, you use \binary and the Grinder peers into your hard drive, grabs the image,compresses it and converts it into a stream of binary code. The output is also an .RMP file, which you should mail to Rainmansys.

Just remember...Rainmansys is in Vienna and it cannot make sense of information about your hard drive in your office, so everything it needs to process the script is in the .RMP file.

Working with links
This part of a script will establish a new link to a page and put it in a listbox. If there is no listbox, users will not see the item at all.
\insert link
\position on page whatever

This would do the same thing:
\insert link 1
\position on page whatever

If you have more than one link, Rainman automatically numbers them, therefore, this:
\insert link
\position on page whatever
\insert link
\position on page whomever

is the same as this:
\insert link 1
\position on page whatever
\insert link 2
\position on page whomever

If you want to change anything about a link, use this script:
\modify page whatever
\context link (number)
\(what you want to do)

REMEMBER: Modifying the link applies to the object IN the list box, not the object that CONTAINS the list box. The link number refers to how many links that object has to list boxes in your area. It does NOT refer to the object's ordinal position in a list box.

To remove an item from a list box and put it somewhere else:
\modify page whatever
\context link 1
\position on page somepage

To change where an item appears in a listbox (move it up or down). We will assume that object whatever is already in a list box on page whomever.

\modify page whatever
\context link 1
\position on page whomever as item # 3

or
\modify page whatever
\context link 1
\position on page whomever as header

To change just the headline on an item in a list box:
\modify page whatever
\context link 1
\headline News Flash...this is fun.

To add a link to an item that already exists, just do this
\modify page whatever
\insert link 2
\position on page overhere

Making your listboxes do tricks
When creating a page that has a listbox, you can make the things in the list box appear in order by using some of these options:

\create page mylist
\form 234
\options alphabetic (that's A to Z)

\create page mylist
\form 234
\options backward alphabetic (that's Z to A)

\create page mylist
\form 234
\options arrival (That's oldest on top, newest on bottom)


\create page mylist
\form 234
\options backward arrival (That's newest on top)

compiled by Will Schermerhorn