Posts tagged RSS
A couple of releases
Apr 9th
In the process of catching up with some neglected tasks, I’ve pushed out new releases of both of my PEAR packages.
Services_Technorati receives a version number bump, and little else. The alpha release was never meant to last quite this long given that it’s merely a port of a very stable package, and it’s finally marked beta. My hope is that the beta release will pick up a few more users to put it through its paces.
I had wondered about adding in some extra classes to encapsulate responses, but at the end of the day simplexml does a decent job, is well documented, and doesn’t add any overhead, so I’m happy just returning its objects and letting people work with them.
There are also a couple of bug fixes for the stable release of XML_Feed_Parser, kindly contributed by users. There are still a couple of outstanding tickets, but they’re issues which require more thought so I’m postponing them for 1.0.3 or 1.1.0.
XML_Feed_Parser stable
Dec 26th
I’ve just released the first stable version of my XML_Feed_Parser library through PEAR. I’ve been working on the code for about 18 months now, it’s nearly a year since the first beta, and some time since I last had to make any significant changes, so it seemed like it was time to open it up to a wider audience.
You can get it through the usual channels, either downloading it directly or using the PEAR installer, and PEAR provides a bug tracker should you find any problems or have ideas for enhancements. My time to implement enhancements will be very limited, so I’m also very interested in hearing from anyone who’d like to sign on as a developer to help keep the package moving forwards.
XML_Feed_Parser RC2
Nov 9th
I just rolled and released a second release candidate of XML_Feed_Parser. Mohanaraj Gopala Krishnan had pointed out to me that the parsing of atom text constructs wasn’t quite as flexible as the RFC allows for and was kind enough to supply an initial patch to improve support.
Since HTML_Safe isn’t stable yet my plan is to put clear security advice in the manual and then if there aren’t any new issues with this release candidate to release it as a stable version. Once HTML_Safe stabilises I’ll revise the manual, work in support for that and release a new version.
Feeds in the Blogger Beta Updates
Aug 15th
After TechCrunch posted about the new version of blogger (currently in beta) I decided to give it a look, particularly to see what was going on with their feed support as TechCrunch claim that blogger would be switching to RSS2 for its feeds (revisiting TechCrunch it seems they’re now saying RSS2 will be offered in addition to atom so I don’t know if I misread that or it’s been updated. Personally I don’t see the point of adding RSS2 when you have Atom, and wonder if it might be confusing for some users, but I guess someone must disagree).
Creating a new blog on the beta service was as easy as we’ve come to expect and publishing an entry definitely feels faster, even if a single entry isn’t really a good basis for comparison. It’s nice to see tag support (even if they’ve chosen to call them ‘labels’) and their inclusion will definitely make projects like my Greenbelt Collage much easier to explain to users.
So far, it looks as though blogger is sticking with atom with feeds switched on by default, and finally upgrading to valid 1.0 feeds for both entries and comments. The default setting is for the full text of both posts and comments to be available in Atom 1.0 feeds, with links to those feeds included by default in the templates. Support of Atom 1.0 rather than RSS 2 is very good news for those of us developing tools that aggregate or remix feed content, if for nothing more than its support for unique IDs.
Unfortunately there don’t seem to be autodiscovery links in the page headers and with the ability to edit the HTML directly not yet in place, there’s not even a way to add them manually. As feed support in browsers and OSs becomes more commonplace, it’s definitely to be hoped that autodiscovery links will be included by default to help keep feed support consistent.
Tags: atom, rss, blogger, autodiscovery, techcrunch
XML_Feed_Parser Release Candidate
Jul 27th
The first release of XML_Feed_Parser in six months is out the door, and it’s the first (and hopefully only) release candidate. I’ve had several people email me with questions about the package in the past few weeks, most of whom are using it successfully and wanted to see a stable release soon, so it seemed time to get moving on that.
This release fixes a few small bugs, mostly related to the packaging rather than to its operation, and I’m now bundling the various Relax NG schemas used for validation to save on HTTP requests. There is one open ticket that I’ll need to attend to, and then all should be ready for 1.0.
I’ve had a few requests for improvements to the package, mainly relating to improved handling of extensions, such as those beginning to appear for atom, but I decided to save those for a later (1.1?) release. If anyone would like to join me as a developer to work on those, I’d definitely welcome more involvement.