Getting started with BitTorrent + RSS in Radio [BETA]

This document describes how to install bitTorrentIntegration.root, a Radio tool that automates download of BitTorrent enclosures.

If you're looking for a way to publish .torrent enclosures to your blog, you might want to check out WritTorrent.

Update: Bugfix release 0.3 on 6 May 2004 at 10:45pm Eastern time. Fixed a bug where the tool would stop working after restarting Radio.

Comments and Further Reading

Comments, bug reports, fixes etc. go here.

To read further about RSS and BitTorrent, please see this overview article on the Technology at Harvard Law site, or this Wired article.

Installation Instructions

This is beta software. It works with Windows only. I have suggestions for making it work with OS X, but haven't had time to do it. See Stuff we might add below. If you want to make it work and write it up, I'll be happy to include your code in the next version.

1. Enable automatic downloading of RSS enclosures in Radio. This is a two-step process. You must a) check the checkbox, and b) set the Stop downloading at: value to something greater than the Start downloading at: value. Click here to view your RSS enclosure settings in Radio.
2. Download and install the Windows BitTorrent client. The current version as of this writing is named bittorrent-3-4.exe. Note The first time BitTorrent is launched there will be a popup window to ask if you've donated, and wait. This means your first night's downloads won't start until the next morning when you click "Yes". If you want to route around the popup, go here, decide if you want to make a donation, and then create an empty file called "donated", with no extension, in C:\Program Files\BitTorrent.
3. If you're behind a firewall/NAT, consider forwarding TCP on ports 6881-6889 to your desktop machine. The FAQs say this will give you better download speed. I suspect it helps other peoples' downloads as well. See Brian's BitTorrent FAQ and Guide on the topic.
4. Download bitTorrentIntegration.root and put it in your Tools folder, typically located at C:\Program Files\Radio Userland\Tools .
5. Bring the Radio application to the front. This is a little tricky on Windows: In the system toolbar, usually at the bottom of the screen, you'll see Radio's icon, a blue dot in a white rectangle. Right-click on the icon, and choose Open Radio from the popup menu. The Radio application should open and come to the front. It's normally an invisible memory-resident program to make it easy for people to edit their weblog in a browser, but it has a rich graphical environment, with a built-in outliner. (This item copied from #2 of these instructions.)
6. From the Tools menu in Radio, choose the BitTorrentIntegration sub-menu, then choose the Set Up command. Set the hourToStartScan to a value greater than the hour at which enclosure downloads begin. Click here to view your RSS enclosure settings in Radio. Set the hourToStopScan to a value greater than hourToStartScan.
7. Subscribe to a feed that has BitTorrent enclosures. LegalTorrents.Com has a compatible BitTorrent enclosure feed.
8. On the next sweep, the tool will launch BitTorrent for up to maxPerDay new .torrent files. BitTorrent will leave one window on your desktop for each new file. You will have to close the windows manually. The downloaded files will be in your enclosures directory (C:\Program Files\Radio Userland\enclosures\YYYY-MM-DD), having the same name as the .torrent file, minus the .torrent extension.

Design Notes

• Newly downloaded enclosures are tracked with a callback to bitTorrentIntegrationSuite.callbacks.radio.downloadEnclosureCallback that occurs just prior to each download. This callback adds a row to bitTorrentIntegrationData.torrentQueue for each download whose filename ends in ".torrent". [Yes we could use the mime type instead, but other parts of the code assume a ".torrent" extension. We won't be ready to handle files ending in other extensions until we write code to inspect the .torrent file contents.]
• We scan for new torrents from bitTorrentIntegrationSuite.downloadTorrents, which runs every minute between hourToStartScan and hourToStopScan. When a new .torrent file is encountered, this proc checks that maxPerDay hasn't been exceeded, launches BitTorrent on the file and sends the output to the filename minus ".torrent", and then logs the download.

Stuff we might add

• Should we have a browser-based front end?
• We can use file.bytesInFolder() to limit growth of the enclosures folder.
• Support OS X by putting an appropriate call to sys.unixShellCommand() in bitTorrentIntegrationSuite.osspecific.launchBT.
• Better-integrated BitTorrent clients? What is btdownloadheadless?