The feed aggregator I've been talking about is starting to take shape, and I feel like I've gotten to the point where I can share some more info. It's called FeedMuncher, and as previously hinted, the main objective has been to create an Open Source feed aggregator server and client that communicate using a new (soon to be) proposed open API. This API, tentatively called FAAPI (Feed Aggregation API --not very sexy, I know), can allow clients and servers to interoperate and synchronize feed aggregation meta-data, which in turn gives users the freedom to choose and switch between aggregator clients with minimal loss of data.
The current sample client is a single XHTML file (with 3 JavaScript includes) which, once loaded, communicates with the server solely through XMLHttpRequest using FAAPI. Anyway, see extended post for screen shots, and contact me if you would like to be notified when a public demo is available.
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Viewer screen with all the bells and whistles. There's an iTunes-esque column browser which shows feed categories (tags) on the left hand side, and corresponding feeds on right hand side. Also note the view options pane that lets you choose how far back (and how many items) to show.
I wanted the interface to be as simple as possible, so pretty much everything can be hidden. The browser is hidden, the view options pane is gone, and entry contents are also collapsed. All of these things can be displayed again with a single click.
The nice thing about the iTunes-style browser is that you can mix and match pretty much any combination you want. Here, I'm pulling feeds from my "news" and "tech news" categories, and displaying items from the NYTimes (in "news") and Slashdot (in "tech news").
A minimalist UI can still pack features. Clicking on the '<<edit' link next to each item pops up a drop down menu with all the options you'd need without all the clutter.
Feed management screen. The browser still works like you'd expect it to.
The "subscribe" form. Enter URLs (it'll use feed autodiscovery if possible), select the categories/tags, and hit subscribe. Missing: OPML importer.
Feed editting/annotation tools menu.
Feed editting/annotation tools. Simple enough? Missing: batch editing options.
Posted Sun, May 29, 2005 17:22 by Manuzhai@62.195.249.181
I like the idea of an open API thingie, I think that could be really useful. The design/layout on your aggregator is not really to my taste, but I'm guessing it would not be very hard to modify.
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