P Squared Community Forum / Product Forums / Scoop Category / Scoop FAQs

Where are all the Scoop v3 Settings saved - I need to move to another PC

Peter Jarrett — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:19:06 GMT

Scoop Edit v3

Scoop Edit stores all of it's configuration settings in the Registry under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\PSquared key

The key Windows that alter these settings are:

Audio Setup
Audio File Locations
P Squared Directory Settings
Scoop Program Settings
License Code Details

These therefore include the file locations for the P Squared Contacts Directory, the Audiowall Locations, the Scoop Data Location and the other settings listed on the Scoop Settings Window.

All the settings under the Scoop Database Settings Window are stored in the Scoop Database itself in the Scoop Data Location.

The Customise Scoop options are all stored in your Personal Preferences section in the P Squared Contacts Directory located in the P Squared Contacts Directory File Location

Scoop Capture v3

All of the above also applies to Scoop Capture (though at present there is no Customise option in Scoop Capture) with the following additional settings:

The Source Settings for each source are also stored in the registry key above. This is defined as any setting shown on the Source Settings Window, which therefore includes the location of the Config File to use for that source.

When you click the Advanced Source Configuration Button, you are actually then editing the Config file, therefore any settings in this window are stored in that Config File, not in any other location.

If you were to move Scoop Capture to an alternate pc, you would therefore need to take a copy of all the settings shown above for Scoop Capture, but also the Configuration Files as well to preserve any changes you have made to these.

How do I use the Processing Tab in Scoop Capture to process Text from my custom news source

Peter Jarrett — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:09:32 GMT

The Processing Tab in Scoop Capture allows you to configure the Source to retrieve information from locations within a source piece of text - say, downloaded from a website or recieved via email.

Normally, these fields are all pre-populated as supplied by P Squared - for instance for processing stories from Independent Radio News or Sky News Radio, however from time to time you may want to either adjust these or need to create your own processor to read information from another source.

A full explanation of the other options is beyond the scope of this document and you should contact P Squared Support if you need more, but here is a rough idea of how the Processing bit works:

Cell is for when processing table based templates such as Sky News Radio's pages
Line is which line in a piece of text (or text within a cell) to process - i.e. Line 2 on an IRN story
Start is the character within that Line (or cell, or in the whole piece of text depending on if you have set the above) to start with
Prefix is the characters that precede the info you are after - again, either in the line, cell or whole piece, and if you have set a start then after that number of chars.
Length is for fixed length fields
Suffix is if you want to copy in all text from the beginning of the field up to a known end tag. If you have specified a length, then the text is cropped before looking for an end tag

So you could say as simple as start from the 81st character and use 10 chars, or you could go as far as "find the 3rd cell, look for the second line in it, then starting from the 10th char on that line, look for <MYSTARTTAG> and copy no more than 100 characters, but look for <MYENDTAG> to crop the text early if it has one.

Font Sizes are wrong

Richard Payne — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 13:41:37 GMT

If you have a Scoop terminal that is displaying font sizes inconsistantly compared to the other terminals then you need to check the "Text Size" setting in Internet Explorer's View Menu. It should be set to medium.

Where should I store my Scoop Database

Peter Jarrett — Mon, 05 Dec 2005 15:16:44 GMT

In Scoop v1 and Scoop v2, most users stored their Scoop Database on the local Scoop Server (\"Scoop Capture\" in v2 and v3) itself.They also tended to store the audio on the same computer becuase hard drives were expensive and News audio tends to take up a lot of space.The down side to this was the Scoop Edit computers therefore usually had to connect to 2 different computers to run - the Scoop Capture PC and also the main Server (usually Myriad) for the rest of the audio. If either have to be rebooted (say for a software or Operating System update) then the news users have to stop work - not an ideal situation.Scoop v3 uses a totally different type of database that is quite a bit more data intensive. This is because it can now store much more information and this needs to be rapdily searched. Also, because modern servers are much larger, there is now no need to store the audio in another location - it can all be stored on the one main server (if you have one of course!)Because of this we strongly recommend that the Scoop Database is stored on a dedicated File server (usually running Windows 2000 Server or Windows 2003 Server). Running Windows XP Pro or Windows 2000 Pro doesn't count because they are still 'desktop' operating systems and aren't optimised for serving out files the same way as proper Server Operating Systems.If you store the data on the Scoop Capture computer itself, you will also find that when Scoop Capture v3 scans remote Web and FTP sites and processes audio the computer has to work very hard and becomes sluggish. On all but the fastest computers, this means that computers running Scoop Edit briefly pause because they are unable to retrieve all the data they need from the database. Once the scan is complete, the computers all speed back up again.We are therefore unable to provide support for system slowdowns when your database is stored on the same computer that is running Scoop Capture. May users may not notice a problem at all, but it's worth bearing in mind.Please note that none of this affects what operating system you should use to actually run Scoop Capture on - the operating system of choice is still very much Windows XP Pro Service Pack 2 :)More information about our Software Support Policy can be found at http://support.psquared.net/softsupport.htm

Using Email with Scoop Capture v3

Peter Jarrett — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 11:51:38 GMT

When you configure your Scoop Capture v3 to collect email from a POP3 server you may need to alter your mail server settings slightly.This is becuase Scoop will connect to the mailbox, download everything in it and then remove them from the mail server. If this is the only account that you have for recieving emails to your newsteam then obviously you will no longer be able to recieve emails the normal way.We therefore suggest that you create a \"group\" on your server (you will need to check your mail servers manual on how this is done) so that all emails to say 'news@stationname.com' are routed to at least 2 mailboxes. The first is the one that you will use to check for new emails the normal way. The second is the one that Scoop will use to get it's own copy of the emails.

All Scoop Edits quit on startup with a \"Type Mismatch\

Peter Jarrett — Wed, 22 Sep 2004 10:55:49 GMT

Note: This solution is more likely to help you if ALL of your Scoop Edit terminals have the above problem. If it is only 1 computer then it is more likely to be a problem with the configuration of that 1 computer rather than the problem shown belowThis can happen if someone has accidentally created some invalid files in the Scoop Database Location.Typically this can happen if as well as all the 2004xxxxxxxxx.ORG files someone has created some copies in the same folder as these get called \"Copy of 2004xxxxxxxxx.org\"The Index Processor can't understand these filenames so the information it puts into the Index is invalid. This then causes Scoop Edit to crash when it tries to read the indexTo correct this, quit from all Scoop Edit and Capture computers and then go into the folder that your Scoop Database is stored in and check that all the filenames are correct - i.e. if it ends in .org or .str then make sure the rest of the filename is just a long number.Once you have deleted any dodgy files, on the Scoop Capture computer, double click on the indproc.exe program (usually in c:\\program files\\P Squared\\Scoop Capture) and this will then create a new index file without the corruption.You can then restart Scoop Edit and Capture and all should be well.