Description:
This Perl script downloads the URL for the current comic of various strips that
are available online, and outputs these URLs to an HTML file. This enables you
to view all of your favorite strips at once, instead of visiting several
different websites.

One feature that sets this program apart from the rest is the ability to operate
in 'local' mode. This mode, instead of writing the addresses to images in the
HTML file, actually downloads the image and saves it locally. This way, you do
not have to wait for each image to download - it's already on your hard drive.
This is most useful when dailystrips is run from a cron script. (See file
README.LOCAL for more information and examples)

Requirements:
dailystrips requires a reasonably current version of Perl - it was developed
with 5.6.0. The HTTP::Request, LWP::UserAgent, and POSIX modules are needed. If
you want to use --date, you will need Date::Time from the TimeDate package. See
www.cpan.org if you don't have them installed already. dailystrips was
developed on Linux but should be able to run on any *nix with that has the
necessary Perl modules installed. Running on Win32 is also possible.

For the AvantGo mode, ImageMagick is required.

Installation:
See the INSTALL file.
	
Usage:
'dailystrips [stripname(s)]' will print to STDOUT an HTML page with image links
to the latest strip. These links are to the strip's webserver.
'dailystrips --help' lists all available options. --list shows the available
strips and groups. Strip names can specified as listed. Groups must be preceeded
with an '@' symbol.

Adding new strips:
The strips.def file should be relatively self-explanatory. (see README.DEFS for
detailed information). If you are adding several strips from the same site that
share a common format, please create a class for that site. In addition, please
try to pick a method of determining the most current URL possible (i.e. don't
search if it's possible to predict - we don't want to get old strips if running
early in the morning and a site hasn't updated the static page yet) Also, when
you add a new strip, I'd appreciate it if you could email the defintion to me at
amedico@amedico.dhs.org so I can add it to the distribution.

Personal definition file:
Users may create a file called ".dailystrips.defs" in their home directory.
Syntax is exactly the same as the main strips.def file. Personal files will be
processed after the main file. This means that classes set in the main file are
available for use in users' files. Also note that any entries (classes, strips,
and groups) in users' files with the same name as entries in the main will take
precedence. Personal definition files can be ignored with the '--nopersonal'
option.

System-wide definitions file:
Administrators may wish to create definitions, classes, or groups available to
all users on a system. This may be done by creating a file /etc/dailystrips.defs
and placing the definitions there. This file is loaded after the default
definition file and so may be use to override provided definitions, if desired.
The system-wide definitions file can be ignored with the --nosystem option.

Definition upgrades:
Since full releases are not made available every time the definitions file
changes, the current CVS copy of the definitions file is available through a
link at http://dailystrips.sourceforge.net/download.html. Users may either
replace /usr/share/dailystrips/strips.def with this updated copy, or if a
package management system is used (Debian dpkg, RPM, etc.) placing the updated
definitions in /etc/dailystrips.defs is recommended.

*Notice*:
Keep in mind that this program is for personal use only, as making
the output publicly available on the internet constitutes copyright infringement
without permission from the strips' authors. If you're running it on a personal
webserver that can be accessed fron the internet (even if it's not specifically
public), make sure you set up restrictions so that only you have access to it -
some publishers (Keenspot, Exclusive Content) seem to be checking their
webserver logs for dailystrips users and will come after you in a rather nasty
fashion if it even looks like you're using dailystrips to make a public website.

Copyright info:
This program Copyright (C) 2001 Andrew Medico <amedico@amedico.dhs.org>.
All rights reserved. This program is free software; you may redistribute it
and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU GPL, Version 2.