Setting up a page to display your rivers

Once you have River5 set up on a public server and creating river files (Javascript files that can be read/displayed by other applications (for example, 1999bloggers.js)), you have some options for being able to display those files. When River5 is running, you can direct people to the public display of the rivers being created. An example can be seen at http://node2.andysylvester.com:1337/, which is my main River5 installation. This install is creating multiple rivers, which are displayed in multiple tabs. If you only had one river, you would see only one tab.

Another option for making your river public without pointing to the River5 app display is to use a separate HTML page that accesses the river files. Dave Winer has created a toolkit for display of River5 river files (https://github.com/scripting/riverBrowser). I am actually using a later version (https://gist.github.com/scripting/be89904f454086103eb5) as the basis for my 1999er river site (http://1999bloggers.andysylvester.com/). To set up your own public display of a River5 river, copy the text in the Github Gist given above and save it to your computer. Next, edit the file near the end to point to the URL of the river being served by your River5 installation. Here is an example:

httpGetRiver ("http://node2.andysylvester.com:1337/getoneriver?fname=1999bloggers.opml");

Replace the text in quotes in the call to httpGetRiver with the URL for your River5 server, and replace the text following “fname=” with the name of your river file followed by “.opml”. On my server, the river file generated in the rivers folder is 1999bloggers.js, so the name above is “1999bloggers.opml”. Finally, upload the HTML file to a server. As long as the River5 server is running, your HTML page will display the latest version of the river. An example is available at http://1999bloggers.andysylvester.com/riverTest/riverTest.html.

OK – now get started making rivers!

Reference: http://node.andysylvester.com:1999/users/AndySylvester99/2016/04/30/0019.html (Creating and Displaying your Own Rivers)