KONFABULOPML? 

I've just been having a browse through the documentation for Konfabulator (recently bought by Yahoo!) who make a system which provide those nifty dektop 'widgets' for the Mac and now Windows.

I was always under the impression this this was simply a 'wrapper' for Flash, like Screenweaver or Zinc, but NO!

It's a little engine which runs these little bundles called 'widgets' containing XML in their format called .kon files (it's XML), Javascript (and AppleScript for Mac) and the other assets it needs : images, etc.

This engine reads/parses the .kon xml file and creates the interface from that.

This reminds me alot of my SMIL1.0 days, having created a database-driven multi-user SMIL publishing engine, a few years ago

Within this XML file are chunks of Javascript, with extra 'Konfabulator functions' which can do lots of file I/O stuff, network connections, downloads and calls. It even has a built-in set of verbs for iTunes and your WiFi setup!

The script can then animate stuff, load stuff, show, hide, save, read, write, etc. It's up to you and your clever XML and Javascript skills ;) XSLT fans will love this.

Have a look at some of the gallery files. If you download a .widget file, simple rename the extension to .zip (it's a zip file in disguise) then you'll be able to unpack the widget and have a dig around.

Now, surely there's an opportunity for this to hook up (or INTO) the OPML editor? Maybe not now they're owned by Yahoo!, but you see where I'm going?

Alot of people people (including me) grimace at the first sight of Frontier based outliners as 'crude' and 'lo-fi' - some like that - some don't. But I reckon that with the editor's ability to write OPML, run scripts and 'do' stuff on the network, that the thinking behind Konfabulator could be the way forward for making the UI 'richer'. These two products really feel like they have alot in common.

Not forgettting that the OPML editor isn't just about being a neato opml authoring tool and community builder: it's also (to me) about the format itself perfectly becoming the veins and arteries for a whole system and platform.

Now I think I know why Yahoo bought them. Smart cookies. (And cool skins/icons )

I just hope they don't plaster ads all over them like they do with all their other stuff.

CHANGES RSS OFFICIAL URL 

Well found John : http://hosting.opml.org/changesRss.xml I hadn't seen this before.

It's worth noting that my CHANGES RSS link down there links to an OPML file which has the url to the RSS feeds in it, as 'xmlUrl' attributes (and the web address as 'htmlUrl', unlike the 'official' OPML changes file - which I've always found odd.

EVER NEED AN ICON? 

This is a great tutorial explaining how to create cool, semi-transparent dynamic icons for Windows.

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