Re: Some issues when creating my own feeds

Gerrit Kuilder wrote:
> To make it clear, the log logs individual mp3's played and I have a
> script that creates a randomized playlist, a bit like a radio but wiith
> only the music I like (and no comercials).

Oh ok. I'm sorry I misunderstood what you were doing. When I looked at the 
feed all I saw was a list of entries that appeared to be showing the content 
of a full CD.

> I think I have to try and push/pop items in the feed, making sure they
> get a unique id. As I have not looked at cerating feeds for  awhile I
> have not tried it.

I'm still not exactly sure what you want your feed to contain. If it's a 
reflection of what's in your logfile then that should be easy. Just keep 
adding new entries to the top of the feed as they appear in the log. Each 
entry should always have a new unique id - there should never be a need for 
any updates. What an aggregator will see is a list of entries representing 
all the MP3s you have played in the order you played them. A date/time would 
actually be quite useful for this kind of format (assuming each log entry 
has a date/time associated with it).

However if you want your feed to be a reflection of your current playlist 
then that's more complicated. An RSS feed is typically a window onto a 
continuously updating stream of entries. A playlist does not really fall 
into this catagory. What you'd want would be more like a fixed list that's 
replaced in its entirety on every update. While there have been extensions 
proposed to RSS (at least RRS 2.0) that provide this sort of functionality 
I'd be very surprised if there are many aggregators that support such a 
thing.

> In my thinking  the date was more important that the link of an item,

A date is only important if it has a meaningful value. If you have a date to 
go with an entry (such as a file date, or a date from a log), by all means 
include it. However if you're just making up a date for the sake of having 
one, you're wasting your time.

> This brings up the following question (with me at least): Is what I am
> trying to do suitable for RSS, IE: the feed IS the message.

If you're talking about the second option I mentioned above (namely a fixed 
list that's replaced in its entirety every update) then no. I wouldn't think 
it's suitable for RSS, at least at the moment. You aren't the only person 
that wants to do that sort of thing, but I don't believe there's very much 
support for it yet.

Regards
James


 
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