Content Spiffer v1.4.1 User's Guide
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Content Spiffer is a program that mixes content and adds HTML, BBCode or Wiki Markup for links, images and videos to text files in bulk.  It can also add keywords & other plain text to articles.  Adding links, images, videos and keywords/plain text works by assigning pattern rules ("rulesets") and link lists to a given folder of text files.  Blending content works by simply selecting your article directories and choosing what type of blending to use.  This program works with plain text files, and also works with spun text files.


Licensing
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Content Spiffer verifies that the software has been paid for by comparing your payment details and hardware profile with the information stored on our servers.  When you first run Content Spiffer, you will be prompted to enter you payment email address and payment ID.  Your information will then be verified with our server and updated with your hardware profile.  Upon succesfull completion, your payment info is saved locally and the program should verify automatically the next time you run it.

You are allowed 2 installs per purchase.




Projects
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Projects are used to assign image, video, keyword/plain text and link URL lists & rulesets to directories.  Start by creating a new project or selecting an existing project from the list on the left.  A project can have unlimited directories.  Each directory is assigned 1 image ruleset, 1 video ruleset, 1 link ruleset and unlimited URL lists.  Each directory also has a variable scale for how often to include images, videos and links.  For example, if you set the Images sliding scale to 60%, then the program will randomly choose 6 out of 10 articles in that folder to add images to.

Other project settings are 'Keep Titles Intact' which treats the first line of each text file as the "title" and doesn't modify it, and whether to use HTML, Wiki Markup or BBCode.  Note: When using BBCode, videos will use the [video] tag which may not be supported in all platforms and image alt texts will not be used.  Extra HTML values will also be omitted when using BBCode.

As of version 1.4.1 there is also an option labelled "Ignore Common Abbreviations".  When selected, this option will prevent any of the common abbreviations listed in the config\abbreviations.xml file from being treated as the end of a sentence due to the period used in the abbreviation.

BE SURE TO SAVE YOUR PROJECT AND RULESET SETTINGS.  Project and Ruleset changes do not commit or become effective until you click the save buton!




URL & Keyword lists
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URL lists are simple .txt files that are supplied by the user.  Each line contains 1 entry in the following pipe separated formats:
/imagefolder/imagename.jpg|alt text one|alt text two|alt text three|etc
http://www.yourlink.com/|anchor text one|anchor text two|anchor text three|etc
http://www.youtube.com/v=12345

The URL can be a full or partial URL (or anything else for that matter).  After the URL, use pipes to separate alt/anchor texts to use with that URL (does not apply to video URL lists).  The use of alt and anchor text is optional, but generally recommended.  Note that you can also use spun keywords, for example:

http://www.yourlink.com/|{anchor one|anchor two|anchor three}|{anchor four|anchor five|anchor six}

For Keyword/plain text lists, simply add one plain text entry to each line.  This can be a single keyword or a combination of keywords, or any kind of spun text, HTML code or whatever text you wish to inject into your articles.




Rulesets
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Each rulesets consist of 6 sets of options.  Start by creating a new ruleset or selecting an existing ruleset from the list on the left.


Insertion Method
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The first option in each ruleset is what kind of insertion method to use.  The first option is to randomly insert Images/Vidoes/Links/Keywords according to the rules defined in the ruleset.  The second option is to replace existing placeholders (i.e. #link#).  When this option is selected, the Placeholder Text box will become enabled and the options pertaining to random insertion become disabled.  When entering your placeholder in the Placeholder Text box, keep in mind that the placeholder IS case sensitive.


Number of Images/Vidoes/Links/Keywords (I/V/L/K)
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The 'Fixed Number' option will add exactly the specified number of I/V/L/K's.  The 'Random Within Range' option will randomly choose a number of I/V/L/K's to add within the range specified.  The 'Per Word' option will add 1 I/V/L/K for ever X number of works specified (I/V/L/K's will still be placed randomly in the file, word count is just used to determine how many to use).


ALT Tag/Anchor Text/Video HTML Settings
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For image ALT tags and text links, there are 4 options - 'Always' use them, 'Usually' use them (80% chance of using them), 'Usually Don't' use them (80% chance of not using them), and 'Never' using them.  For images, when not adding ALT text the ALT element is left out of the html completely.  For text links, it uses the URL as the anchor text when not using keywords.  Images will not use ALT text when using BBCode.

Keywords have a similar option for using Bold, Italics or Underlining to emphasize keywords.  Each of these tags has seperate "Always", "Usually", "Occasionally" and "Sometimes" settings.  Note that it will use multiple tags on one keyword - for example, if you set Bold, Italics and Underlining all to be used "Occasionally" then some keywords will use just no tags or just one tag (i.e. "<i>Keyword</i>") while other keywords will use both or even all three tags (i.e. "<b><i>Keyword</i></b>").

Video HTML options include whether to use EMBED or IFRAME tag, video width and height, and the frame size.

Image & Video HTML tags can also have extra custom elements added to the HTML by filling in the "Extra HTML tag values" text box.


Spinning
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When enabled, this option will add multiple URLs/keywords and anchor/ALT text in spintax format.  You can either use a fixed number of URLs in each spun tag, or a random number or URLs within a specified range.


Distribution Settings
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This determines Where you I/V/L/K's are placed in the file.  You can have them distributed randomly in the following ways:
'All Within Top Half' - all I/V/L/K's will be placed in the top half of the file
'Mostly within Top Half' - I/V/L/K's have an 80% chance of being placed in the top half.
'All Within Bottom Half' - all I/V/L/K's will be placed in the bottom half of the file
'Mostly within Bottom Half' - I/V/L/K's have an 80% chance of being placed in the bottom half.
'Whole Article' - placement is completely random within the file.


Placement Settings
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These options allow you to determine wether I/V/L/K's will be placed between paragraphs only, between sentences only or between any two words.  You can also choose to have the first I/V/L/K placed immediately below the title/first line, or to have the last I/V/L/K placed at the very end of the file.





Content Blender
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The Content Blender does not use projects or rulesets.  You simply select folders containing text files, and a blending method and click the "Blend 'em Up" button.  You can also have the articles compiled into a single file (either plain text or spintax format) after the blender has finished processing the articles.  Single File Output includes an option to compile the article titles into a single spun line at the top of the output file.

Articles within a given directory will be mixed together, but each directory is processed seperately.  Content from one directory will not be mixed with content from another direcotry.

There is group of settings for handling titles.  The first option is a checkbox labeled "Treat Existing First Line as Title" - this will handle the first line of each article as a "title".  You can also choose to "Preserve Existing Titles" which will leave the existing first line in tact, or "Import Titles from another Text File" which will replace the existing title with a random title from a text file list that you specify.  You can also import titles with the "Treat Existing First Line as Title" option disabled - this will insert the imported titles as a new line at the top of the article, rather than replacing the existing top line.

There is a setting to preserve the first paragraph in each article, which will prevent any changes being made to the first paragraph.  This can improve at-a-glance readability.

There is also an option for how many files to blend at once.  Each file gets blended with however many files you specify here, chosen at random; the more files you blend at at a time, the more content will get mixed up because each file is more likely to be blended more times.  While blending more files at once will make for a more "thorough" mix, it will also increase the time it takes to process and the memory usage.

As of version 1.4.1 there is also an option labelled "Ignore Common Abbreviations".  When selected, this option will prevent any of the common abbreviations listed in the config\abbreviations.xml file from being treated as the end of a sentence due to the period used in the abbreviation.

Each file is blended with other randomly selected files within the same directory, and each file will be blended more than once in a given run.

A note about the Blender:
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Each line is treated as a paragraph, even if that line only contains 1 sentence.  This means that if you some of your articles contain several one-sentence lines (i.e. a top 10 list) and some are just one huge paragraph, and you blend using the Paragraph Shuffle method - some articles will come out with several very long paragraphs and while others have only 1 sentence.  Be mindful of the articles you choose to blend together, and what method of blending you use.



Spintax Validator
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This is a feature within the Content Blender for ensuring proper spintax in spun content.  After selecting your directories the same way you would to blend content, simply click the "Validate Spintax" button.  This will check each article in each directory specified to verify that each opening spintax bracket has a closing bracket.

This feature has an option (which is selected by default) for moving articles with bad spintax into a "bad-spintax" subfolder of the articles directory.  This makes it much easier to locate and deal with articles that have bad spintax.

It is important to validate spintax both before and after blending spun content.  Having even just one file with bad spintax before blending can cause spintax errors to spread throughout your articles.  Validating before blending helps weed out those broken files, and validating after blending will help you to spot any spintax problems that might not have been picked up before blending.