Monday, May 22, 2006

Phing, Zend_Search_Lucene, XML_Feed_Writer and OpenSearch

This weekend just past I've been a busy beaver. I've implemented a very basic OpenSearch 1.1 publishing kit: You get results from a search engine, like Zend_Search_Lucene, and add them to an Atom feed.

It's still half full of static urls and completely unusable; but as a proof of concept...

Long story short:

$link = 'http://www.wherever.com/';

$result = new OpenSearchResponse('search key words');
$result->addItem(new OpenSearchResponseItem('Example A', $link, 'Content goes here!'));
$result->addItem(new OpenSearchResponseItem('Example B', $link, 'Content goes here!'));

print $result->toXML();

... is about as much effort as it takes to create a new feed.

And describing it:

$options = array();
$options["ShortName"] = "Valex";
$options["LongName"] = "Valuation Exchange";
$options["Description"] = "Residential Valuations";
$options["Contact"] = "daniel.oconnor@megawhogg.com.au";
$options["Url"]["atom"] = "http://ws.valex.com.au/opensearch/1.1/?searchTerms={searchTerms}&xml=true";
$options["Url"]["html"] = "http://vx.valex.com.au/opensearch/1.1/?searchTerms={searchTerms}";

header('content-type: text/xml');
$osd = new OpenSearchDescription($options);
print $osd->toXML();


Simple!
XML_Feed_Writer - You'll have to fix a few, really minor bugs with this.
Zend Framework - You'll need to grab Zend_Search_Lucene, perhaps, or find your own search engine.
Finally:
OpenSearch-0.0.1.tgz.

Hopefully, I'll get off my ass and rerelease Services_Upcoming, Services_ABR, etc through the work package server, should Robby ever set it up.

Friday, May 19, 2006

Google Maps Australia

We've now got street map coverage. Hit http://maps.google.com/ and type in "Adelaide, australia"

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

PHP Interactive Shell

PHP_Shell looks very, very handy.

If only I could have readline support on windows.

Microsummaries Rock

Go Read

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Firefox, XUL, and sjax

With bug 326273 resolved and fixed by Daren Fisher, you can start building ajaxy applications in XUL again.

This bug basically meant that when you triggered an XMLHTTPRequest that was synchronous (as opposed to async [ajax]), firefox would lock up while you talked back and forth with the server.

You can't build a web application that freezes when you click things; so now we've got a thread manager in place you can simply split off the hard work to another thread.

Check out the test cases to see how it performs in firefox currently, then check back when bug 326273 makes it into production.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Outlook, Evil

Outlook is evil. You cannot right click on a link in an email and copy it. Because of this simple thing, we've had 60 or more people hassle us about being unable to download our invoices.

It doesn't occur to them to choose the 'save' option instead of 'open' if 'open' does not work.

I hate my industry.

Monday, May 08, 2006

Lixi Grizzle

Lixi is the Lending Industry XML Initiative: a standards body for the valuation industry.

I'm not really sure what they mean by non-profit when the standards document costs several thousand AUD to obtain. And when you get it, it's a word document. And the contact details on it are snail mail details.

It's 2006, and SOAP tends to work well on this little thing we call the Interwebs.

*/grizzle*

Friday, May 05, 2006

Debian Doesn't Love You

Apache 2 & Debian team up to provide a really easy module installation tool. When installing mod_deflate, it's easy to fall into the habit of trusting a2enmod - but sometimes you have to actually configure something rather than argue that It's ON, FFS, what, you don't trust debian!?


Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Pirie St Explosion


Pirie St Explosion
Originally uploaded by CloCkWeRX.
EEK!

Gaim + Summer of Code

Summer Of Code - Gaim is back again; but I still don't have a stable release of 2.0.0.

I'd love to see someone pick up the privacy settings UI project.

Woe is me.