Some changes to knotes RSS and atom: nice urls; more information

20-June-2005

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We've changed the URL formats for RSS and atom news feeds out of knotes, and also changed the RSS item content a bit. The new URL format is shorter and more human-readable. The item content changes add some DC metadata and give better context-of-item information.

We believe in nice URLs here at KnowNet. Unless users will never need to enter them, URLs ought to be both readable and constructible by human beings - consistent, brief and logical. We went to a lot of trouble to make sure that the URLs in knotes make sense. For instance you can type'weblog.archives/2005/05/3' after a weblog URL and know you will get any entries from that day; drop the day or the day and month from the url 'path' and you get the entries for the less-specific date range. (Steve even made it use the month/day format of the locality of the server :o)

Our RSS and atom URLs had evolved a format which was pretty hard to read by humans, so we have changed it. You can now get the feeds by adding simple words to the URL for a Plone or knotes object:

  • [URL OF OBJECT]/RSS_1 - the RSS v1 feed
  • [URL OF OBJECT]/atom - the atom feed
  • [URL OF OBJECT]/RSS_1?include_discussion=1 - RSS 1 feed including discussion as well as blog entries ( atom feeds take the same argument )
  • [URL OF OBJECT]/atom?only_discussion=1 - the atom feed with only discussion items; no weblog entries ( rss feeds take the same argument )
  • [URL OF OBJECT]/RSS_1?category=development/knotes - the RSS v1 feed for items from a specific category (etc...)

While I'm on the subject, we are very seriously considering what to do about offering RSS version 2 feeds, either in addition to the RSS1 and atom feeds, or replacing the RSS1 feed. There are many reasons to do so - podcasting and other file enclosures for instance - but we want to get the basics right from the start so will not be acting for a week or two.

We hav also made some relativelt minor changes to the item format for the RSS 1 feeds: added a bit more DC metadata (dc:source is the weblog or plone container ancester to an item; dc:subject are the categories). We also write in some entity-encoded html formatting for contextutal information about what kind of item it is and in whatr context it was posted - in reply to another item, for instance (in which case it links to that item in the item content).


Mike Malloch; 20-June-2005 07:59:40; forum (0) help

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