Interactive RSS channels

["james@xmlTree.com" <james@xxxxxxx.xxxx]

I've developed personalised interactive RSS channels, which I am just tidying up. Has
anyone got any good ideas about how they might be used? I have developed search results
for xmlTree as a channel, and was thinking of other uses, such as a forum message poster.

For example only: Network54 could have a channel displaying threads for a particular
forum, together with a seconds personalised channel containing the messages for a
particular thread. This second channel would contain a standard RSS form input element
which would allow a user to post a reply to the messages. All within the channel format.

The link below is a just a proof of concept. Caveats: It uses CSS and so when viewed with
NS4 it looks very odd. Opera is doing something odd with the URL. It tries to set a cookie
to identify the session. It looks great with IE4, IE5, and NS3. NOTE xmlTree is not
competing in the portal space - the display of 'currently subscribed channels' is for
demonstration only.

To see it in action, goto http://www.takepart.com/newsBoy/displayMyChannels.cfm Enter the
email address 'james@takepart.com' Try the xmlTree search channel using a string like
'xsa' or 'sport'

How does it work?

First time through, it looks up in the DB the URLs of the channels that you're subscribed
to with NewsBoy. If the channel content (as HTML) exists in the application cache, it uses
that to display the channel. If the channel content doesn't appear in the cache, it goes
to the channel URL, parses the channel, and then formats it with XSL. It then places this
in the application cache.

So far this is probably normal.

If the user is subscribed to an interactive channel, it looks in the application cache as
before. But if the channel contains a RSS textinput element, the XSL converts the action
of the form to the same page (displayMychannels.cfm) and adds a hidden field containing
the true destination. So when the user hits the search button, the request goes back to
the portal, which calls the true destination, receives RSS content (in this case search
results), parses it, transforms it with XSL, and this time places it in session cache.

I said that the portal is displaying from application cache if it exists, otherwise it
gets the contents of the channel. But actually it is displaying from session cache if that
exists, then application cache if that exists, otherwise it goes off and gets the channel.

What do you think? The decision must be made - whether to store personalised channel
content on the client, on the portal, or on the interactive channel provider. I chose the
portal - but this may not be the most effective choice. The benefit is that the
interactive channel itself can be very simple - it just returns RSS content when accessed
using the name/action pair that it specified.

Best regards,
James Carlyle

james@xmltree.com
www.xmltree.com - directory of XML content on the web