Feed Preprocessor (major release)

After all the development (and not as much testing ;)), I desided to open up preprocessing configuration tool.

This part of the interface allows you to control how feed items get processed for you and there are currently 6 modification modules:

  • Link from description (regex) – useful when feed owner is putting a link to some intermediate page but feed item always containg destination link.
  • Remove part of the descriptio (regex) – useful when blog owner annoys you with some content that is not really useful.
  • Feed Friends toolbar – all links get wrapped into a frame with “share” button on it so you can easily share the item with Feed Friends. Uses my first CPAN module – HTML::LinkChanger (Enabled by default).
  • Header and Footer – simple modules adding arbitrary HTML on top and at the bottom of the items just in case you want to write something over there.
  • In-feed Controls – module, I was writing about some time ago which adds links to popular services that can do something with item link/title like del.icio.us, Digg and Feed Friends of course. (Enabled by default)

There are also a couple of modules that filter out some news items by Title or Description regex in case you don’t want to see all of the news in the feed.

Feel free to change some configurations, e.g. add/remove some In-feed controls – you’ll see the results next time your feeds will get updated, fetched and preprocessed. You can also disable a module by clicking “Disable” next to enabled module as well as revert configuration to global defaults, if you changed it, by clicking “Reset”.
P.S. This is essentialy a core of Feed Preprocessor and I’m open to suggestions for more preprocessing modules which will be much easier to add.

P.P.S. Please keep in mind that Feed Preprocessor only affects feeds that you added to a feed list and reading by you feed reader – it preserves original items intact when you share them.

P.P.P.S. Load and other issues might force me to remove some of the modules in the future. Let’s consider it BETA.

First video

ROBOT

Download

Artist: Chernyshev family productions

Duration: 00:00:05

Created: Sun, 06 Aug 2006

Location: NJ, USA

Category: Cartoon

License: All rights reserved

Director: Alex Chernyshev

Producer: Nickolas Chernyshev

Actor: Robot

Chernyshev family brings you new super-blockbuster, starring magnetic parts from Magnetix kit, “ROBOT”!

Tags: video cartoon

Code update (invisible)

In preparation to next development phase (remember that preprocessing configuration interface?) I rewrote large chunk of code in more object-oriented way then it was originaly done (release early makes it’s evil deed).

So it’s quite possible that some functionality got broken even though I tested the code after the change.

Please let me know if you notice some sudden problems with the service.

P.S. I’m also preparing a new hosting for the service so I hope for significant performance increase.

More In-feed controls

I’m working on configuration manager for Feed Preprocessor to give you more control over your feeds.

Some time ago I’ve added an interface for global configuration (I never posted about it because only I can see it) and today I changed how one of preprocessing modules work and changed some global preprocessing configuration that you’ll start seeing in your feeds (that’s why I’m posting about it now).

Shortly, I rewrote a module that inserts “In-feed controls” (sister project for Feed Friends and Feed Preprocessor) directly into new items so now in addition to “Share” button (that changed it’s appearence to Share Share with Feed Friends), you can see so common Add to del.icio.us Add to del.icio.us, Digg it Digg it and Search on Technorati Search on Technorati links.

Now you don’t need to depend on blog author to insert these links into posts – you can use Feed Preprocessor (which is part of Feed Friends’ feed management) to add them to all feeds you’re using.

P.S. interface to configure preprocessing is on it’s way and you’ll be able to do more preprocessing for your feeds relatively soon.