Packt Publishing, the publisher of computer related books, announced the release of its new book OpenCMS 7 Development.

OpenCms is a professional-level open-source Website Content Management System, based on Java and XML. Many companies or organizations have requirements that go beyond what is available in the standard OpenCms application. Thankfully, OpenCms can be used by Java developers to create sophisticated add-ons and customizations that extend the power of OpenCms in virtually unlimited directions.

Targeting version 7 of OpenCms, this book is for Java developers interested in extending and further customizing OpenCms through its Java API.

The Semantic Web brings with it the opportunities for users to get smarter search results, and for site owners to get more targeted traffic as users find what they really want. But these benefits don't just magically appear. This article leads you through the aspects of both information architecture and general infrastructure you need in place to truly take advantage of this burgeoning opportunity.

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I'm looking forward to evaluating the new FeedAPI module for Drupal. Though one feature I haven't seen in any of the aggregators I've seen so far for Drupal...a way to snip the original RSS feed. Some sites provide you the entire post in the RSS feed with no teaser. This may be great for the reader, but I'm not sure everyone is happy to see their entire post on someone else's site.

From time to time, I've hacked the core to get me closer to how I would like the content from an RSS feed to display at my site. There has to be another way and perhaps FeedAPI could by my solution...

Development Seed: FeedAPI 1.0 Released -

After being in development for about seven months, we released FeedAPI 1.0 nearly two weeks ago! This is really exciting for me and everyone else who has been craving a more flexible aggregator for Drupal.

"Recently there has been a flurry of activity around a concept called
“Office 2.0” - another offshoot of the term “Web 2.0” - in which all
traditional office applications can be replaced by online services
accessible through a generic web browser. What’s making this possible
is a set of new technologies including AJAX, RSS and web services, a
set of actual applications such as Google Gmail and Zoho Writer, a web-based word processor, and a great deal of unbridled enthusiasm."

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"Underneath the hood, though, the technologies that make mashups
possible are a profound change in how web sites manage and expose their
data. More and more sites are exposing their data using simple RESTful
APIs and XML feeds, and the new tools in Drupal 6 will make integrating
that data into your sites a lot easier."

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"Microsoft recently announced “FeedSync” (refer to the article cited
below), as the evolution of its previous work known as Simple Sharing
Extensions, or SSE. My initial reaction is that this announcement is
somewhat of a "one off". Microsoft has not articulated any coherent
vision on XML feeds and the end-to-end management of feeds in general
and this announcement does not clarify its strategy."

Complete Story at Collaboration Loop

A post by Nick Lewis, Drupal and XML: Looking Forward, caught my attention. In his post he discusses work on developing the CAP XML format (Common Alerting Protocol).

In preparation for my /Nick Lewis/ trip to Washington D.C. next month, I’ve begun to develop a module that integrates the CAP XML format (Common Alerting Protocol) with drupal’s node, location, google map, category, and CCK modules.

Put plainly, the CAP format seeks:

“[to standardize] the content of alerts and notifications across all hazards, including law enforcement and public safety as well as natural hazards such as severe weather, fires, earthquakes, and tsunami. Systems using CAP have shown that a single authoritative and secure alert message can quickly launch Internet messages, news feeds, television text captions, highway sign messages, and synthesized voice over automated telephone calls or radio broadcasts.”

The United States' National Weather Service provides a listing of current watches, warnings, and advisories in CAP. While I've been curious about the CAP format, I've only used the RSS feeds from the NWS. I have not used the CAP format for two simple reasons:

• I currently don't have a clear understanding to the advantages of CAP over generic RSS feeds. Though if I cared to look into the format, I'm sure there are some advantages to the format for the purpose of emergency management.
• Until recently, there hasn't appeared to be much interest in the open source community to work with CAP.

A Drupal module providing the ability to parse information from CAP feeds would really be a huge benefit for those connected with emergency management.

Ian Ward, Development Seed, not only makes some good points about the inclusion of CSS within an RSS feed, but he also that the "look" of the feed varies from RSS reader to RSS reader. Hopefully, in the future the Internet gods will be kind. I personally don't want to worry about how my CMS looks in a browser and an RSS reader.

Development Seed: Optimizing the look of your syndicated content - Just like the large number of different web browsers that you need to design for (you have Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla, Safari, Mac Firefox, Mac Internet Explorer, etc.), there are also a ton of RSS readers. On top of that, RSS readers can be desktop based or web based – similarly to email with desktop email like Outlook or Lotus Notes and web-based email like Gmail or Hotmail. From a web designer's or content publisher's perspective, a person in these trades needs to be aware that the content they are publishing on their site will look good no matter where a user sees it. [Planet Drupal]