Making feed subscribing easier...
Here's my quick hack for the week. As a little diversion from nntp//rss, I thought I'd create a way to make it easier for people to subscribe to my RSS feed. There are various initiatives to make this process easier (e.g. Syndication Subscription Service, custom URI scheme), but I thought I'd take a different approach.
So, let me introduce to you quickSub - a quick (and some might say dirty!) way of making subscribing easier for your visitors. Just roll your mouse over the XML icon on my blog's main page, and you'll be instantly presented with a series of customized subscription links for popular aggregators. Click on one, and, voila - you're subscribed. No dependencies on particular browsers, and no need to introduce a custom URI scheme (and the handlers to support that). Not that I'm saying those approaches are bad, just that this is something you can use today, until a better solution comes along.
I'm very open to feedback - any suggestions, enhancements, comments, whatever - post a message on the quickSub forum. If you're an aggregator writer and I've missed you off the list, just send me an email, and I'll add you in the next version.
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Jason Brome implemented an easy way for people to subscribe to his RSS feed: So, let me introduce to you quickSub - a quick (and some might say dirty!) way of making subscribing easier for your visitors. Just roll your mouse over the XML icon on my blo... Read More
Via Luke Hutteman: Jason Brome has cooked up a cool way to make it easier to subscribe to news feeds. I hope that FeedDemon can make it onto the list soon. Read More
Jason Brome is mad cool. Not content with putting RSS into Usenet applications, he's doing wacky stuff with JavaScript to make subscribing to feeds easier. Out yesterday! Blimey! Two RSS and one FOAF postings in a row. Help me someone.... Read More
Making feed subscribing easier… by Jason Brome (adding to my ToDo list)... Read More
From Jason Brome, author of nntp//rss (which I use daily by the way), a nice HTMLet to present the visitor a choice of links to subscribe quickly to the feed in his/her chosen aggregator. It is called quickSub . One day we ... [Blogging, 527 chara... Read More
RSS Consumer tool for converting OCS to OPML and QuickSub Read More
It is becoming very important to account for these interactions. In other words, there is a rising expectation / desire that people who visit a website will take something away from that website to use in some other context / mechanism. Read More
If I wanted to subscribe to Jason Brome's weblog which entry would I choose. The options are not intuitive.
I like the idea and certainly its easier than rightclick->copy shortcut, paste into SharpReader.
Alternatives might be to update SharpReader to support dragdrop, then I could drop any http...rdf/rss link into the reader.
Is the javascript mozilla compatable?
Ed,
I think there's certainly some fine tuning to be done on quickSub - but, as you say, it definitely makes the subscription process a little easier.
I believe there are some newsreaders out there that support drag/drop, but there really needs to be a consistent process across newsreaders and aggregators (both client and server side). There are active discussions taking place in the syndication and aggregators groups at Yahoo groups, so hopefully we'll see an resulting specification.
... and yes, the JavaScript is Mozilla compatible.
Sharpreader already has drag-and-drop support for newsfeeds. You can drag an RSS url to the address bar and it will load it, so you can see if you like it and then subscribe, or if you are already sure, you can drag the RSS url directly to the tree view on the left where you want it, and you are immediately subscribed.
In addition, it supports autodiscovery, so you can also drag a web page's url (if it has the appropriate link tag in the head) to the address bar, and SharpReader will find the RSS link and use that.
Since the 'autodiscovery' link tag is nothing but standard (X)HTML, I personally think that's the best candidate for a mechanism for subscription that should work across newsreaders. It doesn't matter then if they use drag and drop or some other mechanism, as long as they are able to find the link(s).
Good idea.
I'd like to see it also address the user who doesn't know what a newsreader or aggregator is.
David
Genius. Thank you! :)
David,
Thanks! I'll be adding a 'What is this?' link to one of the next releases that'll go to a page for a user new to the world of RSS/ATOM syndication.