CNN Breaking News and Headline news.

Using CNN Headlines code to create dynamic HTML pages

Okay gang.
Here is what I am trying to do. I have got the CNN Headlines working perfectly withing Homeseer (and subsequently in MainLobby as well). But I am unsure how to properly modify the CNN Headlines code to take the link for the news article (and the necessary code to make it show the 'Printer-Friendly' Version, which works really well) and create a simple redirect html page saved on the local computer.

For Example:
Headline 3 (w93) contains:
"Fierce fighting rages in Somali capital"

I understand the coding enough to make a modification to create the 'printer-friendly' url
Headline URL 3 (x93) contains:
http://cnn.law.printthis.clickabilit...785/index.html

As you can tell from the '?', '=', '&' and the '~' Mainlobby doesn't respond well to this being directly inputted as a default page. However the workaround would be to have a local page that redirects to the above URL, and then there wouldn't be the same problem.

So any ideas how to, or at least what code is necssary to create a text file and save it as an html file from notepad within the CNN Breaking news code?

Any ideas/suggestions/comments much appreciated.

Thank you so very much in advance

Russell Albright

[electron]

I didn't think you were criticising me, sorry if I sounded grumpy

[jon00]

Electron,

There was no intention of criticising your script...it works very well. I was just suggesting another way of getting breaking news alerts!

I do not use Outlook or any email client for Homeseer but use my CheckEmail script (using a freeware Freepop COM object) to check my mail server regularly. This announces any new email messages when they arrive. I have the option NOT to announce emails from certain email addresses and I use this to mask email alerts from the BBC and USAtoday (to prevent them from being spoken). After the checking has been done, I run the BBC & USAtoday alert scripts which search the CheckEmail database for these email addresses. If new information is found, then it will trigger a news jingle music and then reads the email message body once.

Sounds complicated but works very well.

[electron]

99% of the times, the CNN breaking news script will be much faster than the CNN mail alerts, that's why I decided to pull the info from the CNN site, and at the same time, I won't be forced to configure outlook just to announce some breaking news. I guess it isn't as big of a deal if you have Homeseer scan your mail already.

[jon00]

I know this is not suitable for you guys across the pond, but I subscribe to the BBC breaking news email alerts. I have a script which announces this and update a virtual device. I find this much better as the 'provider' pushes the information and it is not necessary to keep polling their website. As I regularly check my mailboxes via Homeseer, this is not a problem. It works with my Checkpop scripts only.

I know CNN and USAToday both have breaking news email alerts. I did write a script for the USAToday alerts (again for my Checkpop script) but they only send when it really is breaking news (about 7 a month). Perhaps someone should write a generic one for CNN mail alerts? Just an idea!

[independentpete]

I guess that's not what breaking news is for. Eventually, the breaking news stories make it to headlines and so having it read headlines when I get home would probably be just as good.

I see what you want.. So as soon as you come home it can speak the last reported..... Yes that would be a nice feature.

[independentpete]

Yes, I have both events and both devices. Was just wondering what breaking news was suposed to do, and you have answered that question. I'll dig around to see if someone has figured how how to hold the messages until something happens (i.e., house is occupied). If someone has the quick answer, I'd love to see it.

CNN breaking will only announce and reset. Thats it. Then make another Event to run CNN headline news. It will ask to make another virtual device. You then go and make a virtual device with the Code you specified in the Headline script. This will show like 5 big headlines of the day.

[independentpete]

I have it set to run every 15 minutes. So, after it anounces it clears the device string and only stores the breaking news in the ini file (for as long as I specify), right? So, there is no way to see what breaking news happened when I was not home, unless I look in the config file, right?

It would be nice to delay announcing breaking news until I arrive home. I'm sure there's a post here somewhere for how to do that.

The CNN breaking news would announce based on the timing of your script check. The cnn breaking news you have to set for a reccurring time of say 5 mins. After it announces the breaking news it would reset. Then setting the Headline news would display the news of the day. If you look in your HS config and find the cnnbreaking news .ini file I believe it will list the last noticed news it found to see if it got it...

[independentpete]

OK, so I downloaded the CNN scripts from here yesterday - http://board.homeseer.com/showthread...&highlight=cnn. Are these the latest? BTW... I'm using HS 1.7.44.

I followed the intructions and it seems to work. Although, I have questions about the cnn.txt script. I guess it's the one that's the "Breaking News" script. The documentation refers to custom_cnn.txt, but the file I got is named cnn.txt. Is it supposed to only announce the breaking new as soon as it happens and then clear the device status? I saw a breaking news from work today and when I got home, that device was already empty and off. Also, when I run in test mode using cnn.txt("main","test") it works once and then does not announce anything if I run the event again. Is that correct?

And then there is the other script (CNNHeadline.txt). In the instructions it says to "assign that house & unit code to the virtualdevice variable in this script". Do I need to do that, or does the voice guided config do it for me? If I need to do it, exactly where? The script seems to work fine, but how do you guys separate out the different headline stories? I get all of them in one long device string. ...Just looking for some suggestions/pointers here.

Sorry if this is too many questions for one post.

Got it workin! Thanks

Thanks Rupp, I see many posts for each could you point me to the most current version of each? Or what the current versions of each should be...

[Rupp]

HS.SetdeviceString is how you set a device string to a particular string of text.
CNNHeadlines grabs the headlines (no longer from CNN but elsewhere)and posts them as a virtual device.
CNNBreakingNews grabs breaking news from CNN's web site and speaks it and sends email.