Channel reports

Channel reports provide a flexible way to extract information from your channels and using Awasu's powerful template processing engine, you can export it in any format you want.

Managing your reports

Organize channel reports Open the Channel Reports dialog from the View main menu.

To create a new channel report, click on the green plus icon to start the Channel Report Wizard that will guide you through the process. [1]

For quick access, hotkeys can be assigned to channel reports:

Select the report in the list.
Click in the Hotkey box in the top right-hand corner of the dialog.
Press the key combination you want to use.
Click on the button on the right to assign the hotkey.

Your reports will also appear in the Tasks Pane for quick access.

Hint

You can quickly create a report for a folder by right-clicking on it in the My Channels window and choosing New channel report (in the Folders sub-menu).

Configuring channel reports

Configure channel report Bullet The first thing to configure is what will be included in the report.

From a channel filter
Any channels that pass the specified filter will be included in the report.
From channel folders
All channels in the specified folder(s) will be included in the report.
From a workpad
The report will be generated from the items in a workpad.

Bullet Next, choose a template file that will control the the format of the report's output. Many templates are supplied as standard, in a variety of different styles and there are also several special-purpose templates provided:

CompactChannelReport.template
Generates a minimal (links only) HTML page [2].
MyBlogroll.template
Generates an HTML code fragment suitable for inclusion in your blog as a blogroll.
This report uses the predefined My Blogroll channel filter so all you have to do is put the channels you want to be included into the My Blogroll folder and they will automatically be included in the report.
MetaChannel.template
Combines one or more channels together into a single meta-channel.

These templates can be customized to suit your needs [3] or you can write your own and use them instead.

Bullet The generated reports can optionally be stored in a file somewhere (perhaps so that they can be read by another program), FTP'ed up to a web server, or emailed out.

Bullet Reports can also be automatically regenerated at regular intervals. This is particularly useful when used in conjunction with the FTP upload feature since it lets you keep content on a web site up-to-date. For example, you could generate a blogroll report once a day and automatically upload it to your blog to ensure that your blogroll is always up-to-date.

Bullet Reports can also be configured to:

Automatically mark feed items as read.
Automatically remove feed items from workpads.
This feature is useful when you are using a workpad as a holding place for feed items that will be sent somewhere else. Items get added to the workpad as you browse your channels and when the report is run, it gets emailed or FTP'ed somewhere and the workpad is cleared, ready for the next batch of items.
For reports that are being generated from a workpad, automatically run them when the underlying workpad is changed.
This feature could be used if you want to keep a web page synchronized with the contents of your workpad. Every time you add or remove something from the workpad, the report is re-generated and uploaded to your web server.