diff --git a/README.markdown b/README.markdown
index 0d6057d..6e84e74 100644
--- a/README.markdown
+++ b/README.markdown
@@ -8,15 +8,22 @@ generate parts of the datenschleuder website from source `data.xml`:
 
 utilizing XML transformations.
 
+and supporting to manage the `data.xml`.
+
 ## using
 
 simply call `./gen.sh` for generating the target files.
 
-for sorting `data.xml`, call `./gen sort`.
+creating a new entry for `data.xml` is supported with `./gen.sh release` or `./gen.sh release 99` for a custom issue number, here 99.
+to omit the explaining information, simply disregard stderr: `./gen.sh release 2>/dev/null`.
+replicating entry for ds #99 including the datetime: `./gen.sh release 99 1568505600`.
+the release message is whatever are remaining non-numeric arguments: `./gen.sh release 99 1568505600 Die Ausgabe \#100 ist schon einige Zeit fertig und ausgeliefert. Die Freunde der Digitalen Ausgabe wird freuen, dass die Aushabe \#99 nun online ist.`
+
+for sorting `data.xml`, call `./gen.sh sort`.
 
 ## dependecies
 
-* sh
+* sh, coreutils, date, sed etc.
 * xsltproc
 
 ## preview: screenshots
diff --git a/gen.sh b/gen.sh
index 32a1490..8508322 100755
--- a/gen.sh
+++ b/gen.sh
@@ -1,12 +1,14 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env sh
 assert_tools () {
+	err=0
 	while test $# -gt 0; do
 		which $1  >/dev/null 2>/dev/null || {
-			echo "tool missing: "$1
-			exit 2
+			>&2 echo "tool missing: "$1
+			err=$(( $err + 1 ))
 		}
 		shift
 	done
+	test $err -eq 0 || exit $err
 }
 test $# -eq 0 && {
 	dependencies="xsltproc"
@@ -22,6 +24,18 @@ test "$1" = "sort" && {
 	xsltproc --encoding utf-8 -o sorted.xml sort.xsl data.xml
 	mv -i sorted.xml data.xml
 }
+linkcheck () {
+	dependencies="curl uuid"
+	assert_tools ${dependencies}
+	tmpfile="/tmp/"$(uuid); curl https://ds.ccc.de/download.html > $tmpfile
+	for f in $(echo "download.html "$tmpfile); do
+		test -e $f || continue
+		for e in $(cat ${f}|sed 's/<a /\n<a /g'|grep -i " href="|cut -d"=" -f2|cut -d'"' -f2); do
+			status=$(curl --max-time 1 --head --silent --output /dev/null --write-out "%{http_code}" $e )
+			test $status -eq 200 && >&2 echo ${e}" – "${status}" OK" || >&2 echo ${e}" – "${status}" FAILED"  
+		done
+	done
+}
 mirror_website () {
 	dependencies="wget"
 	assert_tools ${dependencies}
@@ -38,10 +52,95 @@ mirror_website () {
 		--no-parent \
 		$url 
 }
+newdataentry () {
+	dependencies="cat grep head cut date printf"
+	assert_tools ${dependencies}
+	err=0
+	fl=""
+	test $# -eq 0 && {
+		>&2 echo "determining entry based on data.xml.\n" 
+		lastentry=$(cat data.xml |grep -i "<schleuder id="|head -1|cut -d'"' -f2)
+		newentry=$(( $lastentry + 1 ))
+	} || {
+		test "$1" = "help" && {
+			echo "prints a new data entry for a release of datenschleuder\n"
+			echo "release [options]\n"
+			echo "option\tdescription\n"
+			echo "number\tprint entry for release with custom number, default is the increment of the top entry in data.xml\n"
+			echo "date\tuse a unix timestamp for a custom date\n"
+			echo "teaser\tinclude teaser xml-message as last argument(s)\n"
+			echo "full example: `./gen.sh release 99 1568505600 Die Ausgabe 99 ist fertig.`"
+			exit 1
+		}
+		test $(( $1 * 1 )) -eq $1 && {
+			>&2 echo "custom entry for data.xml.\n" 
+			newentry=$1; shift;
+		} || { echo "argument not a number."; exit 1; }
+		test $(( $1 * 1 )) -eq $1 && {
+			>&2 echo "custom datetime.\n" 
+			datetime=$1; shift;
+		} || { datetime=0; } # remaining arguments should be teaser xml-message.
+	}
+	echo "<schleuder id=\"$newentry\">"
+	test $datetime -eq 0 && {
+		#~ datetime=$(LANG=en_US.utf8 date -u +"%a %d %b %Y %H:%M") # manual copy of known entries
+		datetime=$(LANG=en_US.utf8 date -u -R |rev|cut -d":" -f2-|rev) # RFC-5322-Format without seconds and TZ
+	} || {
+		datetime=$(LANG=en_US.utf8 date -d @${datetime} -u -R|rev|cut -d":" -f2-|rev)
+	}
+	echo "\t<date>"${datetime}" UT</date>" # custom format universal time
+	fn="ds"$(printf "%03d" $newentry)
+	for d in $(echo "covers pdfs epubs"); do
+		case "$d" in
+			covers) ffn=${d}"/"${fn}".jpg"; cover=$ffn ;;
+			pdfs)   ffn=${d}"/"${fn}".pdf"  ;;
+			epubs)  ffn=${d}"/"${fn}".epub" ;;
+			#~ *) echo "file "${ffn}" not found, in "${d}"." ;;
+		esac
+		#~ echo $ffn
+		test -e ${ffn} && {
+			test "$d" = "covers" && {
+				echo "\t<image>"${cover}"</image>"
+			} || {
+				fs=$(stat -c %s ${ffn})
+				echo "\t<link filesize=\""${fs}"\">"${ffn}"</link>"
+			}
+		} || {
+			mfl=${ffn}"\n"
+			#~ echo "file "${ffn}" not found."
+			err=3
+		}
+	done
+    #~ echo "\t<preface></preface>" # not used on server yet
+	test $# -eq 0 && { teaser="" ; } || {
+		teaser=$@ ;
+		echo "\t<teaser>"${teaser}"</teaser>"
+	}
+	echo "</schleuder>"
+	test "$teaser" = "" && { >&2 echo "\nmissing teaser message."; }
+	test -e $cover || { >&2 echo "\nmissing cover."; }
+	test $err -gt 0 && { >&2 echo "\nmissing files:\n"${mfl}; }
+}
+newinfoentry () {
+	echo "not implemented yet.\n\nwill be similar to `release`."
+}
 # a mirror is useful for local testing with files
 test "$1" = "mirror" && {
-	echo "downloading the website may take quite some time."
+	shift
+	>&2 echo "downloading the website may take quite some time."
 	mirror_website http://ds.ccc.de/
 	
 }
+test "$1" = "linkcheck" && {
+	shift
+	linkcheck http://ds.ccc.de/
+}
+test "$1" = "release" && {
+	shift
+	newdataentry $@
+}
+test "$1" = "info" && {
+	shift
+	newinfoentry $@
+}
 #gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dPDFSETTINGS=/ebook -q -o ds100-smaller.pdf ds100.pdf