OPML outline feed hack
A while back I was racking my brain on how you can be notified of a change to an OPML outline.
Say I subscribe to Steven Cohen’s web2.0 company OPML outline…
Firstly by subscribe I mean, I can include it in my own outline as an “include”, or I could subscribe to it in an RSS Reader like BlogBridge.
Now BlogBridge will tell you when something in an OPML has changed and you can choose to accept or reject the changes.
But if you have it included in your own OPML as an “include” you won’t be alerted of changes…you will see the changes if you recognise them, but you won’t be notified about them.
Or you may not subscribe to an OPML outline, but from time to time you check it out to see the latest, eg. I may check out Steve’s web2.0 company OPML once a month to see additions/deletions.
Superfan for Bloglines lets you know when someone has added a new subscription to their Bloglines account (basically your Bloglines account is an OPML Reading List), by providing an RSS feed for the account (basically an RSS feed for an OPML Reading List).
So how do I get this for other OPML’s whether they are Reading Lists or just text or link outlines?
NOTE: If you write a blog with an outlining tool, then the blog feed will be the outline feed, but what about for outlines that aren’t published as a blog?
Possible Solution
NOTE: Superfan for Bloglines will only tell you of new additions to a Bloglines OPML, it won’t tell you of deletions.
Now imagine if an OPML outline wasn’t a simple Reading List, but it was a link outline or even text or a combination, see Bela’s Reading List manual.
How can I be notified of changes in this OPML outline?
…when I mean changes, I even mean if a spelling mistake has been corrected.
A possible answer is using a webpage monitoring service that outputs in RSS, such Feedwhip.
I haven’t tried this, but if I use Feedwhip to monitor Bela’s Reading List manual’s Raw OPML or Outline version I wonder if it will work, I’m sure it will.
This is great as Feedwhip will notify things like:
- this line was changed from
- this line was changed to
- this was removed
Actually this is a perfect example as this OPML outline was created at OPML Workstation, where you can enable people to edit outlines you have created, just like a wiki
…with this enabled it would be great to keep track of the changes.
Anyone can set up a Feedwhip account and track any page they want, if you are a publisher you can track one of your own webpages and include an RSS icon on the page you are monitoring, that way people can just grab the feed you have made instead of having to create one themselves.
The next step is how do you include the RSS icon (created at Feedwhip) onto your own OPML Workstation OPML outline, this way people can subscribe to it, and be notified of any change…I would do this for the OPML’s I have created at OPML Workstation, but I can’t edit the template.
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John, a couple of clarifications about BlogBridge and the “include” type. It turns out that “include” is part of the OPML 2.0 spec and not yet supported in BlogBridge. So we are not seeing the inclusion *at all* !
We actually notify of any changes in top level or linked to OPMLs.
For now you need to use “link” and as you probably know that requires the URL to end in “.opml”. One clever trick is to change the relevant line as follows:
Anyway…
- Pito
Comment by Pito Salas — May 22, 2006 @ 4:54 am