CDF Files
This entry is going to be very geeky for about four paragraphs, and then be actually useful to non-geeky people
Do you know what’s fun? Syndication. Syndication is always fun. It’s one of those topics that never ceases to enlighten, entertain, and educate. And golly, were every discussion in the blogsphere as calm and rationalised as those on Syndication standards, wouldn’t the world be such a wonderful place? Gosh golly and wow, it would.
It’s obviously in my interest to promote little-used syndication standards. I created one, after all. So I present the newest addition to the wonderful example of standards-based technology that is Epistula: CDF.
What Is CDF, I hear you cry. Well, CDF is a syndication standard invented by Microsoft for their content-push technology (Remeber, Active Desktop? Netcaster? All this vital information being delivered to your desktop? Wasn’t it wonderful. wouldn’t it be the next big thing? Apparently not.) It was, in a very real sense that Dave Winer would probably disagree with, the forerunner to the modern use of RSS. It even has a distinct advangage over RSS in the standards market, as it’s a W3C submitted standard.
So, Epistula now produces CDF feeds for everything it also produces RSS, RSS2 and ESF for (I love my module system). What use is this to you, I hear you ask. Well, if you are an IE user (And have IE as your default browser) you should be able to click on a CDF file (Like this one) and have it as you what you want to call it. Thereafter you will have a menu called “Aquarionics” in your favourites folder containing my last 10 items.
Actually, that doesn’t work with my computer, since IE6 renders it as a XML document, apparently that overrides windows’ ability to deal with it as a file-type. If your system also does this, you might need to do put this into a run dialog and execute it:
rundll32 cdfview.dll,Subscribe http://www.aquarionics.com/meta/all.cdf
But now at least I have one syndication method available that doesn’t require normal users to install extra crap. You can find all the various syndication methods (including feeds by category) in the Syndicate section.
Attachments
- 2003-06-17 16:47:46
- Updated 1 day on 21st Jun later
- By Aquarion
- From Catrion Towers, Reading
- More Journal Entries
- Filed under Epistula, Aqcom & Intertwingularity
![[RSS Icon]](/assets/images/buttons/rss2.gif){kind=small}
![[ESF Icon]](/assets/images/buttons/esf.gif){kind=small}
![[CDF Icon]](/assets/images/buttons/cdf.gif){kind=small}
Tom Pike:
Wow, that’s very nice. Now we’ll have to see if we can persuade the Mozilla developers to implement this….
Sean:
So, Epistula now produces CDF feeds for everything it also produces RSS, RSS2 and ESF for (I love my module system).
I seem to recall an entry a while back (although I can’t find it, natch) where you talked about doing more things with XSLT[1].
So why use modules when you can use XSLT? Generate as the most metadata-rich format (or use an intermediate one, like your own custom XML format), then transform into other formats from there.
And yes, I am saying this because I can now create ESF from RDF/RSS. Synchronicity is a wonderful thing.
[1] Actually, you mentioned this in the five questions thing, but I’m sure there was something else, to do with CSS and XHTML possibly as well.
Aquarion:
I did.
When I eventually write the new version of Epistula, it’ll be based on an XSLT system. However, that is going to require a really, really major rethink of how I’m storing and accessing everything. Currently, an XML->XSLT generated bit would require an extra – and mostly pointless – step in my generation stuff. Plus, since syndication exporting is currently a seperate section of the site, linking the RSS/CDF/Whatever views (/meta/$foo.$format) to the normal views (/$foo/) would require redirection of all current URLs. I’m already coping with three generations of URL schemas (and redirecting to the new place) and would prefer not to code the new stuff until I know it’s not going to change again.
Karen:
does that mean i can skip the first four paragraphs?