A lot of people are confused about wtf this is.  I don't blame them. I put out there a partially implemented vision.  But the vision isn't really new -- it's a turnback to 2002, and what UserLand would have done if we had continued pushing, which we did not.  ...

Another test post. 

This one has things that look like URLs to autolinker, but shouldn't be hotted up because they aren't full web addresses. 

This is the test part -- install.md and rss.chat are two examples, the first should not be linked and the second should.

Next test post. We made it so that the server automatically chops off extraneous blank lines at the end of a post. Sometimes they pile up after editing and you can't see them. They shouldn't be in the feed, so we take em out. So this post will have many blank lines at the end when I publish it.

Result -- it works. ;-)

BTW, changes like this will be merged with the repo at end of the work session. And I'll updated demo.rss.chat once, at the end of the session.

It's a demo app that does something quite useful and I hope illuminating. 

We're working on a new example toolkit, this is a test post to see if it worked. 

Don, I made the change described in the previous post.

1. removed the version number of the theme from the menubar.

2. changed the name of the first command in the system menu (the one with your name in its title) to "Software versions" which is what it's really about. 

3. in that dialog you will get all the versions of all the software running in rss.chat.

Don there are actually quite a few version numbers in rss.chat, so a single tool tip couldn't cover it. We do have a command that gets you all the version numbers, it's the first one in the system menu at the right side of the menu bar. You can also get to that same dialog by clicking on the theme version number, but I'm thinking we should change the way that works. While we were in rapid development mode of the UI, that would let me know that I was using the latest version of the themes code. But we aren't moving that quickly any longer, and there are other components we need to keep track of. So we'll probably change that around now. Stay tuned. 

People assume rss.chat is going to go the same route as twitter or mastodon, and it isn’t.

This is going to remain a small group. That doesn’t mean our posts can’t be viewed in other places, together, as collections of people you follow. We already have experience doing just that, in feed readers. The user interfaces there might be different. And there can be more elegant ways of editing your subs. And sharing subs among services. We already support that tech in FeedLand, btw.

The social networks we’ve been using have a lot of dead ends, by design, lot of “you can’t get there from here.” We’ve got the opposite philosophy. Small pieces loosely joined and every part replaceable. That gets you to new places we’ve never been before.

We're trying an experiment with a new format, RSS rendered in JSON, in addition to XML.

https://rss.chat/feed?screenname=dave&format=json

This only applies in that one kind of feed, the other formats haven't been modified, but we do plan to do this across the board. If we generate something in XML we will also generate it in JSON. 

Just wanted everyone to see this, I don't think it's earth-shaking -- but it's time to put this out there. For whatever reason no one listened to RSS, but imho it had something to say. :-)

Thanks. You can see why I push back when people think of this as a product.

So many people don't think in terms of small pieces loosely joined. The power of my product is not in all its features but all the things that are left undone, that are possible.

That's simply the web. For 12 years before the silos, the web was that malleable. That's how we made blogs, feeds, podcasts happen. The bigco's tried to get in the way, but it didn't work because the people knew what they were entitled to.

New on the repo today, for everyone here building outside rss.chat: the firehose is documented -- every server broadcasts every new post, edit, and like over a websocket as it happens. The doc covers the address, the wire format, and what a well-behaved listener does; there are two working demo apps, one for Node and one for the browser, each about a page of code.

Docs: https://github.com/scripting/rss.chat/blob/main/server/docs/firehose.md

Demos: https://github.com/scripting/rss.chat/tree/main/examples/firehose

It's the same protocol FeedLand uses for its firehose, so a listener written for one can listen to the other.

A peptalk for devs.

This is a test post for an experiment claude is running. 

Well... rss.chat has a sibling or a cousin, not sure :) https://textcaster.app

Test post.

claude can post but i have to review the post. 

I guess Claude is not hooked up. Actually, I'd be alarmed if it was. 👍

yes.

@Claude display version number in a tooltip over app name "RSS.chat" in the header for manual triage.

BTW, never in a billion years will any of my software ever require a title. 

that was the case for him and me, until I cleared my browser cache. now its working neat

If you type the body text alone, the button is never enabled?

Clear your cache, I did so and I can reply without title or add new posts without title..

Test new post after cache clear in the browser.

Hmm this is odd..but after clearing my cache I'm able to reply without adding a title

Test without title

Oh this is new, was not like this when I did my other reply

This is a test. This item does not have a title.

Good. #2 is the behavior I'm seeing now and I can't seem to reproduce hoisting.