Comments on: Fumbling my way around OPML

By: Jernej

Jernej — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 09:02:47 +0000

Perhaps someone can explain why exactly are OPML reading lists so incredibly useful? Why would you want to subscribe to another 100-1000 feeds someone else is reading (times many, many people)? Ever heard of information overload? Why would reading lists be a better option compared to memetrackers?
Personally I’d preffer someone/thing filter my content for stuff I might be interested in. It seems to me that OPML reading lists are counter productive rather than useful when you’re dealing with many of them.

Or am I missing something? Some other application where they are actually useful?

Oh and btw… Fazal Majid ( http://www.majid.info/ ) has been doing the same thing for several years with his Temboz aggregator.

By: Jernej

Jernej — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 09:01:58 +0000

Or am I missing something? Some other application where they are actually useful?

Oh, btw… Fazal Majid ( http://www.majid.info/ ) has been doing this for several years with his Temboz aggregator.

By: Jared Teems

Jared Teems — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 21:39:44 +0000

Finally, I’m not the only one! It took me about 3 weekends of trial and error to get opml working in my toy outliner.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 20:23:55 +0000

Thanks Dave and everyone for your comments and (indirect) encouragement that I’m not so stupid after all

I linked to the “how to created a reading list” in my post Dave, and that was helpful – although I found that it didn’t give me a valid OPML file, so that’s why I ended up creating my file outside of the editor – plus I was pulling in the feeds for the OPML dynamically with PHP.

I look forward to the efforts of Amy and Lisa and hope that the site/software becomes more newbie-friendly. If there’s anything I can do to help (even in my ignorance of how everything works), let me know.

By: Darrin

Darrin — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 20:10:09 +0000

Pretty much got to echo the previous posts. Also been reading Dave’s blog for some time now and decided to have a play with OPML. Went to the web site and found it a difficult process to work out a. what can I use it for b. what can I use to read opml c. how do I make a OPML file. Ended up not downloading the app and lost interest in it. Then I decided to write a Babel Fish for rss aggregators in perl, one of which uses opml format to store the subscriptions list. So I ended up generator OPML by default through that little project. I think the OPML site needs to be much more structured with clear sections outlining what the heck it is, how it can be used and then outline the geek bits!!. Rachel, great site, I linked here from Dave’s rss blog feed. Cheers Darrin, Melbourne, Australia

By: brian w.

brian w. — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 18:15:29 +0000

I’ve been reading scripting.com for well over a year now, and I have tried the opml editor a few times since it came out. I feel exactly the same way as you – I just wasn’t getting it. I didn’t like feeling clueless, and it seemed like to me that if I really dug in and worked to learn the whole way this stuff works, then maybe I could see the light. But it was so much effort, and my current tools were working so well, and the support sites were so lacking, I just kept on with my current stuff and filed it away as a “check this out again sometime, especially if I hear about usability improvements”.

By: Ernie Oporto

Ernie Oporto — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 17:41:13 +0000

The Feed On Feeds web based RSS reader generates OPML live for your reading lists. You can see an example of my lists here. I’ll have to go through the code as the OPML did not validate for these things:

element needs
“version” attribute
sub-element

element needs
“text” attribute
“type” attribute indicating how the other attributes are to be interpreted

I’m sure it will flag more things once I get those fixed.