Why RSS 2.0 is a perfect fit for weblog archives 

There are two reasons why RSS 2.0 works in this application:

1. It's fuller than 0.91 and 0.92. Most of the attributes of a weblog post are already defined in the core of 2.0. There's no need to invent much that's new, because most of it has already been invented.

2. And where the 2.0 spec is incomplete, because it is extensible through namespaces, it's easy to add fields that are not defined in RSS 2.0. This was necessary in writing the code for Radio, and it may well be necessary for other blogging tools. They may define fields that we don't understand. As there is a new namespace for Radio weblog posts, there may be one for Blogger, Movable Type, etc.

The guinea pig site 

The second lightning bolt 

The gritty details 

Brent's app 

Radio code 

Comments? 

Also, if someone were to use existing RDF technologies or develop an new RDF-based system for this (files.xml), would Userland be able to support it? If I recall correctly Radio supports RSS 1.0, but I'm not sure.

I've been hoping to work on something to tie all sorts of RSS feeds together, and recently had been thinking that past data (not just the most recent stuff) should be archived in RSS as well as HTML. I wasn't sure if anyone was already doing this. Looks like you are.

-Jeremiah

Oh wait. :)

--Dethe

You can see my posts over the last month via MJG's renderer:

http://www.phoenixtrap.com/~mjg/?rss=http://blogs.salon.com/0000002/backups/posts/2002/11.xml

I can't test this as I don't have a Mac, but you might be able to see my blog in Brent's browser:

http://blogs.salon.com/0000002/backups/files.xml

Truth is, it's just XSLT with a few lines of PHP glue code.

I was wondering what kind of file format to use for my archive file list. Is files.xml worthwhile for this purpose, and/or is there other prior art I should look at?

Mark, I just went for the most obvious flat format. The only prior art I could find was changes.xml for weblogs.com. We had directory.opml as part of upstreaming, and there's still some support for it in Radio Community Server, but that was one dimension too complex for this app. It's a hiearchy, I didn't feel this one needed to be hierarchic.

I wonder if there's any way for an RSS file to refer to its files.xml file -- that way, given an RSS feed, a blog browser could find the files.xml, and from there find all other archived posts from that feed.

Sounds like another namespace add-on for RSS 2.0.

Your file is not working with Brent's software and neither are either of mine (http://www.kingprimate.com/weblog/files.xml or http://www.kingprimate.com/weblog/files2.xml). Both of them now show a year date, with a drop-down outline menu, and then a bunch of blank outline entries (they are selectable but not viewable). I've been modifying them trying to get them to work and here's my hyptothesis:

I think Brent did a quick code job on his thing and assumed that the blogs would always be under posts/ and then the year.

Looking forward to his return from vacation.

Good idea. I'll give that some thought.

Update: I'm guessing that the problem is that I wasn't putting pubDate elements in the RSS. Can you try it again now?

Jeremiah Rogers mentions somehow merging RSS archives with outlining. Nested RSS files could give an outline like structure to archives by having different levels for the achive as a whole, its years, months, days or even posts. I've been playing with a primitive version of this concept to create OPML archives of my website.

Mark J. Gardner's third lighting bolt is right on target. With modern browsers, there is no need for standalone HTML pages if an XSLT stylesheet declaration is included in each archive file.

Don't give up, you're both right! I'm no expert but I believe that RDF has a LOT to offer in future - don't write it off just because it's "too complex" for the relatively simple applications you're proposing.

Will RSS 3.0 be the answer? Proprietary formats have their place, but not in creating potential building blocks for the web. I don't see hordes of RSS 0.x & 2.x supporters arguing the ground for you where it matters, Dave. Perhaps there are some non-partisan folks at w3c to arbitrate?

For those interested in what RDF has to offer there's a primer at W3C and a good chapter in Wrox Press' Professional XML.

Good developers (like you) realize that people sometimes have to leave their products (like Radio) behind for other products, needless to say it is still surprising to see you excited about the idea of using Formats for Blog Browsers as a transitional format.

I have a love/hate relationship with Radio. It isn't always as stable as I want. Also, I'm developing some other projects in pMachine, so I'd like to focus developing my knowledge of the pMachine backend. Hence moving from Radio to pMachine for my personal blog. I can't wait for this feature because it will make moving my content to pMachines much easier. Now I just need to find someone to write the PHP to import the entries into pMachine.

All that said, I'll still be actively watching the progress of Radio! Keep up the good work Dave!

Joe

Sometimes people want to move their data into Radio.

BTW, can I have a bite of that cheese cake?

Mozilla (I believe) includes native RSS support of some sort. Check out Forumzilla to see an old Mozilla app that was meant to read RSS feeds. Unfortunately the developer's house burned down and he stopped development for a [long] while. The client only works in ancient versions of Mozilla.

He says he's going to continue work on it soon, though...

Just grab yourself a blog at http://wordpress.com/ and their "import" tool will perfectly grab anything from Movable Type, Typepad, or Blogger. It even imports comments from a Blogger accounts! After scouring the Internet for a solution over the last three days I 'finally' found it and it works! I'm so pumped :-)

... Tim