[uf-discuss] multiple hatom feeds in one document.. can it work?

[Chris Casciano]

On Jun 12, 2006, at 7:08 PM, Scott Reynen wrote:

> On Jun 12, 2006, at 5:01 PM, Benjamin Carlyle wrote:
>
>> A user selects from the feeds
>> thusly:
>> http://example.com/feeds#techjobs
>> http://example.com/feeds#videos
>> A client's user interface can use descriptions of the feed (as
>> specifications emerge) to help the user choose something 
>> human-friendly.
>
> I seems to me a little awkward to be using IDs intended for machine 
> consumption as pseudo-titles for humans to distinguish between feeds.  
> Doesn't the HTML already have H# tags acting as titles for the 
> sections being used as feeds?  Is there a reason those aren't being 
> used as human-friendly feed titles?
>
> Peace,
> Scott
>

After some chatting on IRC a week or two ago I see two core issues that 
need to be discussed and turned into either spec or guidelines:

* What are the holes in the spec that create ambiguous cases? How can 
they be eliminated gracefully. As written now, and acceptable for 
single feed pages, both an id attribute and the hatom'd element are 
optional. Requiring both if there are two feeds might be the most 
direct option to fix it, but I'm still not sure I like the scenarios it 
brings up[1]

* If we have a spec that guards against ambiguous cases do we need any 
rules or guidelines for consuming apps? I'm concerned with (A) initial 
selection of a specific feed, or not (tantek brought up the potential 
of using hatom source) (B) Consumption of a specific feed (this 
shouldn't be an issue) (C) How to deal with changes to the HTML 
document that might impact a subscription.

I haven't had time (a few site launches I'm in the middle of.. not much 
MF related there however) to write all this down in the hatom-issues 
page yet but I did build a set of examples[2] of different currently 
legal cases of multiple feeds in a document so you can see for yourself 
where some things are ambiguous now, and some things are just another 
case to deal with. Short of a real site[3] that has more then one feed 
on it I thought this made the best example for discussion. Please poke 
at them and provide feedback


[1] blog index is marked up as an hatom feed leaving the root element 
out never intending another feed.. then one day a post happens to 
contain a feed of its own... you're "invalid" now on index pages with 
that post.. yeah.. i know.. edge case but.. it makes me weary

[2] http://placenamehere.com/mf/hatom_tests/

[3] http://placenamehere.com/mf/netnewswire/ :: One of the potential 
cases of this is on my NNW plugin page.. .where I currently have a 
short feed with version information.. .were I to have time to redesign 
PNH I'd wrap a larger portion of the page in something one could 
subscribe to, but at that point I'd either have to pull the small feed 
or hope someone subsribing to it doesn't choke on the updated page

-- 
[ Chris Casciano ]
[ chris at placenamehere.com ] [ http://placenamehere.com ]