Associated Press Using Pheed Specification
In the slowly gaining ground while climbing a slippery, uphill route department, we were recently informed that the Associated Press is using the pheed RSS extension to distribute photos to their members. This is great news because it slowly helps establish traction for the pheed spec. Gaining users of a specification, of course, is the most difficult part and until you have a critical mass it is quite difficult to get developers to add support for a format.
[ /PhotoPheed | permanent link ]
Safari 1.3 and XSLT
The macintosh world has been buzzing about the latest update from Apple. It has caused some problems including, a now resolved issue, with our own Pheeder, but it also revealed a new version of Safari implementing some of the functionality from the latest webkit framework.
Dave Hyatt's blog will give you the complete details, but for now I want to point out one of the most exiting new features--client side XLST. We've been waiting a long time for this. XSLT is a transformation language that allows you to turn one XML document into different one. I know! Exciting, isn't it! Seriously though, XSLT allows you put data in one spot and the transform it however you see fit in many different ways. This promotes a healthy separation of data and presentation. You can have one document with your data and a thousand document describing a thousand ways to present it. If you need to change your data, it's a simple edit in one place. This is similar to what CSS allows you to do with HTML, but because XSL can transform the fundamental structure of the document it adds some impressive flexibility and power.
I've put together a little demonstration for Safari users (if you're not using Safari, I make no promises regarding how the following link will render) to show what their new browser can do with a simple RSS/Pheed document. The RSS document is here: http://www.pheed.com/examples/PheedXSL.xml. If you open it in Safari, it should look like a regular webpage, but if you look at the source you will see that it has no HTML--it is simply an RSS document. The HTML only exists after it is transformed by this document http://www.pheed.com/examples/pheed_preview.xsl
To join the two documents and make them work together you only need to include the line <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xml" href="pheed_preview.xsl"?> at the top of the RSS document. This is some really good stuff.
[ /PhotoPheed | permanent link ]
OS X Firefox and XSLT
The Firefox web browser is all the rage. If you've been using a Windows machine with Internet Explorer you, no doubt, understand why people might be a little anxious to switch. But if you are using a Mac with OS X, you are probably pretty happy with Safari. There is a trick, however, which Firefox knows that Safari doesn't: XSLT. Being able to transform XML on the browser has the potential to transform the way we manage information on the web--it represents a perfect separation of data and presentation and holds potential for some tantalizing new uses of XML applications like RSS. It will be interesting to see how the new version of Safari, due out with the release of Tiger, handles XML and XSLT. For now, if you are using Mac and have downloaded Firefox, try pointing your browser at this RSS feed and see its XSLT engine in action: Color still life. Then try it with Safari.
[ /PhotoPheed | permanent link ]
Gallery 1.4.4 Includes Support for RSS Feeds
Gallery now includes support for RSS pheeds from web galleries. Gallery feeds include the Pheed extension.
[ /PhotoPheed | permanent link ]
Back to work
After a move and a summer in Alaska I'm back to working on Pheed as time allows. Our immediate goal is fleshing out the pheed RSS spec and writing for the website. As always, we are open to any suggestions or concerns from the community. With the move we were forced to put some of the dynamic features, including the database features, on the back burner until we can get up and running on a dedicated server.
[ /PhotoPheed | permanent link ]