Technorati Tags: aggregator, endo, events, hCalendar, ical, microformat

review

“endo 1.0.21 is a good choice for feed addicts with a lot of subscriptions, especially those who are also bloggers or who download lots of media files. I have never used a better RSS news reader.”

Technorati Tags: aggregator, endo, macworld, review

Plugins are packages with the "endoplug" extension and the following directory stucture:

An "endoplug" package must have an "Info.plist" at the root level, with keys as in the following example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
  "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>CreatorName</key>
  <string>Adriaan Tijsseling</string>
  <key>CreatorEmail</key>
  <string>endo@dot.com</string>
  <key>CreatorWebsite</key>
  <string>http://blog.kung-foo.tv</string>
  <key>ComponentWebsite</key>
  <string>http://infinite-sushi.com/endo</string>
  <key>ComponentComments</key>
  <string>This plugin creates subscriptions for Technorati tags and cosmos.</string>
  <key>ComponentCopyright</key>
  <string>http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/</string>
  <key>ComponentVersion</key>
  <string>1.0</string>
</dict>
</plist>

You can download the XCode project for a sample plugin. This sample illustrates the plugin protocol by showing how to get a feed from the World of Warcraft home page. This page has no feed, so we use our plugin to extract from the HTML contents. It's just for demo purposes. The code is heavily commented and should be transparent. To adapt this code to your own plugin, please make sure to rename ALL occurrences of "PluginSample", in particular the class and plugin name. This includes occurrences in the Target and Build settings. The plugin's name is defined in the build settings for the active target and is referred to in most places by $(PRODUCT_NAME). You also must conform to the plugin protocol defined in the PluginInterface.h file.

If you have questions about the code, feel free to ask in the comments. Based on user input I can probably write a more elaborated documentation. For now, please play around with the sample code.

Technorati Tags: documentation, endo, plugin, sample code

The "Use site's css" option is checked. Any article displayed in endo's main viewer uses my blog's style-sheet. For this to work, the style sheet has to define an "aggregator" ID. This is the ID of the main DIV element in endo's HTML template for articles. Using this name, "aggregator", is general enough so that any other aggregator that supports external style-sheets can use it. It's always nice to have a standard after all. The rest of my CSS tries to match my blog's look as much as possible. I also define styles for INS and DEL, which are used by endo to mark changes in an article (you need to turn that on in Preferences).

#aggregator { margin:1em; }
#aggregator #item {
  padding: 1em 2.6em 2.6em 2.6em;
  background-color: #fff;
}
#aggregator #item p {
  margin: 0.8em 0 0.8em 0;
  font-size:1em;
  font-weight:normal;
  line-height: 1.33em;
  text-align:justify;
}
#aggregator #content { margin: 0; }
#aggregator h1 { border-bottom: 1px solid #999; }
#aggregator h1 a { color: #ad5000; text-decoration: none; }
#aggregator h2 {
	text-align: left;
	font-size: 0.8em;
	margin: 0.2em 0 0.3em 0;
	color: #999;
}
#aggregator img { border: none; }
#categories {
	text-align: right;
	font-size: 0.8em;
	margin: 0.3em 0 0.3em 0;
	color: #999;
}
ins.diff { background: #aaffab; text-decoration:none; }
del.diff { background: #fddacb; text-decoration:none; }

If your blog or website supports the #aggregator ID, drop me a line. Once I've got a list compiled, I will link them here.

Technorati Tags: aggregator, css, endo

Technorati Tags: design, endo, icon

Take a look at the info page and the screenshots or just download endo and give it a whirl. endo has documentation built into it, accessible via the Help menu.

endo is only available for 10.4, since it uses a lot of new features that Apple introduced in 10.4. That doesn't just include Spotlight, but many under-the-hood changes made by Apple.

This website will soon have sections for plugins, styles, and group icons. In the meantime, you can send your creations to adriaan at infinite-sushi.com. Documentation for writing plugins is forthcoming. A how-to on creating a custom style is included in the download and in endo's Help book.

If you have questions, suggestions, or bug-reports, please use the contact form. I hope you'll like endo!

Technorati Tags: 10.4, aggregator, endo, macosx, universal