It's done!
Rightio, Blog Watcher 1.0 is officially ready :) I'll try and give you brief introduction.
0: Site is to be found hyar: http://padster.webpal.info/xml/blogwatch/checker.php
1: You must have a username / password account with me to log in. Please comment here with your address if you want a username, and I'll give one to you and a default password, and tell you how to change it.
2: Once you've logged in, add your blog watches in the "Add a blog Watch" Page. The blog formats accepted are:
*** atom .xml feeds - so long as the blog has a <title>, and each post has a <title> and <issued> date.
*** .rss feeds - so long as the blog has a <title>, and each post has a <title> and <pubdate> date
Note that these MUST finish with their appropriate extensions (.xml and .rss) This is why live journals /rss is supported, but you should not use this with their /atom feed because it leaves off the .xml
As you can see, probably any xml-based format where the blog and each post have some kind of title tag, plus each post has a date, will be easily added in. If you have another format you want, just leave a comment.
These formats cover most major blog providers: atom .xml is used by Blogger, Blog Drive and LiveJournal, while .rss feeds are supported by MSN spaces, multiply and many other sites. This also means you can probably get most .rss feeds working, they don't have to be blogs.
3: Each time you log in, the default page you visit, as well as one you can go to via "Show watched Blogs" is the list of all the blogs (or feeds in general) you are watching. The ones which have been updated since your last view time should be highlighted (in a rather strange salmon colour, apologies :p).
Provided is also a link to each blog...this is a bit of a nasty hack, which just chops off the feed's location after the last '\'. So, if you don't get the right link, I'm sorry, but it seems to work ok for most feeds, and is meant more as a possible cool addition. Following the link doesn't update your view time for that blog though, so keep that in mind.
4: You will probably want to change the status of your blog watches at times. You can do this by 'Update View Status' which gives you the three options for each blog watch. The first, with highest priority, is setting a blog to being viewed (sets the view time to the most recent post). This should be ticked by default for those which haven't been recently viewed - again, that awful salmon colour :P. Next in priority is the ability to un-view a page...in case you ever want to remind yourself to view a page, this might come in handy. Finally, lowest priority is the delete option, which irreversibly removes a blog watch from your list. Note that if you accidentally do this, you can just add the same blog back in again later. Priority is used incase you select multiple options for each blog - i'm not sure why you would though, but maybe accidentally.
5: Finally, you'll notice that a few things are still to be improved. For example, the change-password site needs to be added into the main section. For now it's at http://padster.webpal.info/xml/blogwatch/changepassword.php, feel free to use it. I'll also hopefully be adding in more stying at some stage, to make it look a bit less ugly and standard. I'll also eventually add a proper registration thingy so people can sign up without asking me directly. If anyone wants to try their hand at this, or have more suggestions, or find bugs even (i know there will be some) I'm looking fowards to any comments here.
Have fun!
0: Site is to be found hyar: http://padster.webpal.info/xml/blogwatch/checker.php
1: You must have a username / password account with me to log in. Please comment here with your address if you want a username, and I'll give one to you and a default password, and tell you how to change it.
2: Once you've logged in, add your blog watches in the "Add a blog Watch" Page. The blog formats accepted are:
*** atom .xml feeds - so long as the blog has a <title>, and each post has a <title> and <issued> date.
*** .rss feeds - so long as the blog has a <title>, and each post has a <title> and <pubdate> date
Note that these MUST finish with their appropriate extensions (.xml and .rss) This is why live journals /rss is supported, but you should not use this with their /atom feed because it leaves off the .xml
As you can see, probably any xml-based format where the blog and each post have some kind of title tag, plus each post has a date, will be easily added in. If you have another format you want, just leave a comment.
These formats cover most major blog providers: atom .xml is used by Blogger, Blog Drive and LiveJournal, while .rss feeds are supported by MSN spaces, multiply and many other sites. This also means you can probably get most .rss feeds working, they don't have to be blogs.
3: Each time you log in, the default page you visit, as well as one you can go to via "Show watched Blogs" is the list of all the blogs (or feeds in general) you are watching. The ones which have been updated since your last view time should be highlighted (in a rather strange salmon colour, apologies :p).
Provided is also a link to each blog...this is a bit of a nasty hack, which just chops off the feed's location after the last '\'. So, if you don't get the right link, I'm sorry, but it seems to work ok for most feeds, and is meant more as a possible cool addition. Following the link doesn't update your view time for that blog though, so keep that in mind.
4: You will probably want to change the status of your blog watches at times. You can do this by 'Update View Status' which gives you the three options for each blog watch. The first, with highest priority, is setting a blog to being viewed (sets the view time to the most recent post). This should be ticked by default for those which haven't been recently viewed - again, that awful salmon colour :P. Next in priority is the ability to un-view a page...in case you ever want to remind yourself to view a page, this might come in handy. Finally, lowest priority is the delete option, which irreversibly removes a blog watch from your list. Note that if you accidentally do this, you can just add the same blog back in again later. Priority is used incase you select multiple options for each blog - i'm not sure why you would though, but maybe accidentally.
5: Finally, you'll notice that a few things are still to be improved. For example, the change-password site needs to be added into the main section. For now it's at http://padster.webpal.info/xml/blogwatch/changepassword.php, feel free to use it. I'll also hopefully be adding in more stying at some stage, to make it look a bit less ugly and standard. I'll also eventually add a proper registration thingy so people can sign up without asking me directly. If anyone wants to try their hand at this, or have more suggestions, or find bugs even (i know there will be some) I'm looking fowards to any comments here.
Have fun!
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