Library clips

Adam Green has picked up on Dave Winer’s enhancements to the OPML spec and the biggy mentioned is OPML outlines within an RSS feed.
I think this means that a new item in your feed will be an outline you can expand to read…

Not sure how you put an outline in a blog post, but I remember posting a while back on OPML blogs, but this was more about the whole blog being an OPML outline, whereas here we are talking about having an OPML outline within a blog post or within a news feed item.

So instead of your blog post or new feed item having a bunch of paragraphs, it’s all in outline form so you have to expand each node to read contents.

Imagine a library blog utilising this so a blog post for a new book could almost be like a library catalogue entry.

Why package a feed item in an OPML outline?

As I mentioned above some blog posts or feed items don’t have to be written as they can already use an existing OPML.

In the example above imagine each record in the library catalogue was packaged in OPML…when the library acquires a new book, they create an OPML record for it, then send that OPML into a blog post or perhaps the catalogue itself has a feed for newly added items.

Anyway the new RSS item would be a neat OPML outline…why write this out again when OPML is so reusable.

I could have a personal favourite books OPML I make at Grazr
…each day I open my Google Reader and read my RSS feed for the latest library books
…if there is a book I want to read I take the OPML from this RSS feed item and drag it into my Grazr OPML.

My Grazr OPML is full of OPML includes, each one being a library book record, and I grabbed each of these records from the latest books RSS feed that the library catalogue generates.

Another example is an RSS feed item that has the latest details about a users profile (address, webpage, email, phone, etc…)
…if this RSS feed item was in OPML, then we could grab this user profile OPML and re-use it elsewhere.

What I mean here is that instead of linking to an OPML, my latest blog post itself would be an OPML of my profile, then after reading this RSS item (which is actually an OPML), you could grab it and put it elsewhere, how’s that, a re-usable blog post.

Tags in OPML

I mentioned on my recent post on Grazr that I’d like to tag my OPML’s so I can organise them.

You can use tags to mean anything, but generally it’s to describe the aboutness of something, so if I want to find my OPML’s on “library”, I just click that tag and get all those OPML’s about “library”.

Imagine that in aggregate (for the whole of Grazr), this makes for great discovery.

What about at the more granular level…with annotated OPML’s.

What I’m refering to is tagging a node in an OPML.

You may have an OPML of your Top 10 feeds, and you may want to tag each feed in this OPML.

Now you can search metadata in nodes within an OPML.

If I find an OPML with 300 feeds, and there are no folders, how do I find feeds on a topic within this OPML.
If each feed was tagged, then I could search the OPML with a tag…or the OPML could have it’s own tag cloud.

What if I had an OPML with 10 OPML includes in it, and each “include” had 100 feeds, that’s 1000 feeds.
If each feed was tagged, then I could search across these 10 OPML includes and find feeds about a specific topic.

Most Reading Lists (OPML’s where the nodes are feeds) come from RSS Readers, where the feeds are organised in folders, now if the value of these folders could automatically becomes the tag describing the feed, then this could happen automatically.
I’m aware this is more for convenience, and not good practice as folders may be used to manage stuff with methods other than by subject.

Related:
Searchfeedr : searching the limits and OPML search
My OPML wishlist
OPML for email groups
OPML email groups again

I’ve been following the Grazr team since the start and they have finally reached a milestone, Grazr has become a deluxe OPML editor.

Since my last post Grazr is nearly a standard OPML editor, you could only edit existing Reading Lists, but now it’s the one stop shop for all your OPML needs.

Create as many OPML’s as you like, and they don’t have to be a Reading List (even though the link does say create a Reading List, in my mind a Reading List is a bunch of feeds wrapped in OPML)

Their fabulous editor allows you to create an OPML from scratch, for a given node, select from the menu:

- folder
- text
- data (RSS, webpage, OPML)
- discover (this brings up a side panel and allows you to drag any node from your other Grazr’s into the OPML you are creating)

Yep that’s right, it’s drag and drop and the performance is spectacular:

- highlight some text on a webpage and click and drag it into your OPML editor
- click on an RSS or OPML icon on the web and drag it in
- click on the icon in your browser address bar and drag it over
- double click on any node to alter the name
- drag nodes to change list order or drag on top of another node to nest it in a folder

You can even create a logo for your OPML’s by searching Flickr from within Grazr.

If you are not interested in creating your own OPML, and you just want to make a widget from an already existing feed or OPML, just skip straight to “create a widget”.

Interesting

I created a new Reading List by dragging in an OPML URL, then I saved.
Grazr did not clone this OPML and host me my own OPML URL, instead it just bookmarked this OPML.

I re-edited this Reading List by dragging a feed into it, then I saved.
Now Grazr is hosting me my own OPML URL.

If then I go back and delete this feed from the Reading List, Grazr no longer hosts the OPML and it’s back to the original OPML URL (like a bookmark).

In another experiment I created a Reading List by adding just one feed, Grazr is not hosting anything here, it’s just bookmarking this feed for me.

Then I added a text node (or another feed, whatever) and saved, now Grazr is hosting me my own OPML URL.

I really like how all this works itself out in the background.

So it seems if you only have one item in the Grazr it will bookmark it, and not clone and host it.

Feedback

If I drag an OPML icon into the editor I can’t see the contents within that OPML (as it’s an editor and not a viewer), but I’d like to be able to drag the OPML icon into a sidebar sandbox viewer, check out the nodes I like and drag them in, as I may not be interested in the whole OPML

…the site I got it from may just have an OPML icon, so I don’t know what’s in it yet, I can’t view it…I suppose I could use a Grazr bookmarklet to view it (this kind of becomes my sandbox viewer, then I can drag in whatever node I like into my new Grazr).

Don’t forget you have a master OPML that holds all your OPML’s.

Another management idea would be to organise my Grazr’s with tags, if this is to be my new standard OPML editor, I plan to make a few…it’s all personal for me, but I guess a public tag cloud could be made where we have a social OPML folksonomy.

Or what about a tree metaphor for all your Grazr’s, be able to edit your outline of all your outlines…whatever happened to Treedia (according to Kosso it seems it’s only going to be OPML’s with enclosures…they are working with Motorola and others).

[via Ouseful]

Marjolein from CleverClogs has taken Grazr to the absolute max with her new endeavour, Podcasting Professionals.

I’ve posted on some of her past Grazr hacks; RSS Tool Vendors : newmastering, grazing, the works!, and
Grazr newsmaster mashup

From the days of a list of feeds, to wrapping them in an OPML Reading List, Marjolein has taken what you can do with a topic list of feeds and mashed it up with the hottest RSS tools to date.

What we have is a Grazr reader to read the latest items from an OPML Reading List, but there are the other things you can do with this Grazr:

1. Click on the OPML icon to get a list of feeds, click on a feed to read contents

2. Click on Recent Headlines to get a river of news (a spliced feed from all the feeds in the OPML)

3. Fetch posts from the content in the Grazr related to any page you are visiting on the web and display these as summaries on your screen (via BlogRovr)

4. Search filter (via MySyndicaat)

5. Get notifications for this search filter by email, IM, SMS, skype (via ZapTXT)

6. Get notifications for this search filter as a desktop alert (via particls)

7. Search through the posts from the Grazr with a browser search box (via search plugins)

A little while ago I announced that Grazr now hosts OPML URL’s, basically you upload an OPML file and it will turn it into an OPML URL.
Changes in the original won’t reflect, so from time to time you can just reload the original OPML file.

A similar feature to adding a file was adding from the web, essentially this is the same thing, but all you are doing is uploading an OPML URL (instead of an OPML file), and hosting it as a Grazr OPML URL. Similar to adding a file, you need to reload the URL so changes are reflected.

It would also let you bookmark OPML’s that already have a URL, any changes in the original would reflect in your bookmarked version.

Anyway, these 3 options were a bit too much:
- add an OPML file to create a Grazr OPML URL
- add an OPML URL to create a Grazr OPML URL
- bookmark an OPML URL

Grazr have agreed with their users and have cleaned things up a bit.

The have gone back to basics with 2 options:
- Add Feed
- Add Reading List

The terms RSS and OPML may seem too techie…Feed and Reading List seem more friendly.

Add Feed

Basically add a RSS URL and create a Grazr page for it, also create a widget and easy add it to a service like an RSS Reader or Start Page.

Add Reading List

A choice to upload an OPML file, or OPML URL (with an option to copy to Grazr)

Upload an OPML file - this will create a hosted Grazr OPML URL (Reading List)

Enter an OPML URL - this will bookmark the OPML (changes to the original will be reflected)

But, if you also select the option “Copy to Grazr”, you are no longer bookmarking the OPML URL, you are now cloning it and making your own OPML URL version (changes to the original will not be reflected).

It is made clear that if you check the “Copy to Grazr” box, then you are no longer simply bookmarking the URL, instead you are making your own version, and changes to the original will not reflect (just like when you Upload an OPML file)

But what isn’t said is, if you do not check the box, then you are simply just bookmarking the URL, and changes to the original will reflect.

Editing

If you do check the “Copy to Grazr” box (when entering an OPML URL), this creates your own hosted OPML URL (the original OPML URL you uploaded is now out of the picture).

What you can do next is a great step forward, you can now edit your hosted OPML…delete feeds, add some more feeds, even delete all the feeds and put fresh ones in, it’s your own OPML now and you have full control of its contents. You can do this by clicking on the “Edit Source” link.

NOTE: When you upload an OPML file, you don’t need to check any boxes, you will be able to later “Edit Source” just the same.

In a nutshell you can now edit an existing OPML…but you are not quite creating an OPML from scratch, there isn’t a “create an OPML” button as yet, you have to upload an OPML first, in order to edit it.

This is a basic techie type editor, I just know they have will have something like OPML Manager soon, ie. more of a GUI editor.

Don’t forget at the bottom of your “My Files” page is your root OPML, this is a kind of mother OPML that includes all the Feeds and Reading Lists you have added.
When you click on your root OPML, called File List (OPML), it’s just like any other Grazr page, you can create a widget, etc…
You can even add your root OPML to your “My Files” section, creating a new OPML, and edit away…it almost sounds like it’s feeding back on itself, but it isn’t.

Grazr is also social, you can view a profile, click on an item, and “Add to My Files”…don’t think you can disable people from adding one of your files, who would want to anyway.

Don’t forget your Grazr bookmarklets

Other OPML helpers.

Also check out the Grazr tools page for Grazr hacks and other RSS and OPML tools.

A while back I mentioned the RSS Preview Blum, a bookmarklet that will discover if the webpage you are on has a feed, and be able to subscribe to it directly into your RSS Reader, it also allows you to graze the latest posts - a good way to check it out before you commit to subscribing.

Well, now you can get this as a FireFox add-on.

Further to this, John Forsythe has put one on his blog as a button, now anyone who visits his website can click this button, graze contents, subscribe to the feed, even check out some microformats…very nifty. Can’t wait to get my own.

This is something Grazr could add to their feature list, I can put a Grazr button on my blog that lists my latest posts, but it lacks the feature to easy subscribe to this feed in your favourite RSS Reader.
Plus the RSS Preview Blum isn’t a pop-up box, instead it’s a groovy ajax overlay box.

At the moment (the FF add-on version) will display an RSS label on any corner of your window if the page you are on has a feed, just like Live Bookmarks does in the address bar.
One thing that it’s missing is discovering OPML’s…I’d like it to display an OPML label when it discovers one and to be able to graze the OPML.

Something similar; what about having the OPML icon appear in the FireFox address bar, just like the RSS icon (live bookmarks), this way you can add an OPML to your live bookmarks, a bit like the idea of taskable.

Similar bookmarklets are OPML Discoverer, Grazr it, and Grazr Nav (these do the same thing)

Grazr Preview (Shift-click) enables you to click on the bookmarklet, then click any link on a page, it will discover feeds and OPML’s in order to graze…very impressive that I can now graze the latest posts of a blogs from a link in one of my RSS items in my RSS Reader.

OPMLify Page Links is a bit different, it scrapes all links on a given webpage and wrap thems in an OPML.