It's been a long time coming, but I'm finally taking off the Release
Candidate label and calling Feeds.App 3 a final. From all the tests
and feedback I've received, pretty solid.

Read more about what Feeds.App can do and download it here:
http://appnel.com/code/feeds-app

I just put together a comparing it with Feeds.App Lite:
http://appnel.com/kb/feeds-app/feedsapp-lite-vs-feedsapp

More documentation can be found here:
http://appnel.com/docs/feeds-app

Not to break from tradition, the documentation is mostly there, but a
bit incomplete.

Feedback appreciated. Enjoy and thanks.

<tim/>

--
Timothy Appnel
Appnel Solutions
http://appnel.com/

I just released Feeds.App 3 Release Candidate 3 through my site. I
hope will be the last, before (finally) going gold with this one. I
tried to out distance GMail for longest beta ever, but they have more
endurance then I thought. ;)

The updated wizard found in Feeds.App Lite 1.02 has now been
integrated into the commercial plugin for MT4 users. This release also
adds in a couple of dependencies that got dropped from the
distribution, fixes a bug in the encoded text handing of titles and
similar items and the typo that caused the menu problems for MT4 users.

Download: http://appnel.com/code/feeds-app
Docs: http://appnel.com/docs/feeds-app

<tim/>

---
Timothy Appnel
Appnel Solutions
http://appnel.com/
http://appnel.com/code/

This is two months later then I had anticipated.
Once I started testing I unearthed a number of
complex bugs and design flaws. I've ben forcing
myself to write unit tests for as much of the
system as possible. Its added a lot of time and
effort to development (MT didn't have a testing
framework so I developed my own), but I feel like
this code I'm releasing is really solid which is
quite satisfying to me as a developer. Hopefully
it will also show with fewer undetected bugs.
There still are bugs and some flaws in this
release that I am aware of. I'm releasing a beta
of this plugin because I felt its reached the
point where I need to release something to get
your feedback.

Here are some links for those of you who like to
run with scissors:

Known Issues (Links to the software is here)
http://appnel.com/kb/feeds-app/feedsapp-3-known-issues

Installation
http://appnel.com/kb/feeds-app/installing-feedsapp-3

Upgrading
http://appnel.com/kb/feeds-app/upgrading-feedsapp

NOTE: MT 3.31 is required.

Remember this is beta software. There are bugs and
there will be issues to iron out. If you are the type of
person who gets frustrated easily, testing out
this plugin right now is probably not for you.

All bug reports and issues can be posted to mt
mt-feeds-discuss mailing list. Please check the
Known Issues page before posting. I'll be
monitoring it as I continue to work on the code. I
will also be updating the Known Issues pages as
needed.

Thanks for your patience and support.

<tim/>

--
Timothy Appnel
Appnel Solutions
http://appnel.com/

I just wanted to get the word out here about Feeds.App and MT 3.3.

As you know the new version of MT will be here at any moment. Some of
you have been kicking the tires by trying out the betas. It's been a
pretty short, though successful, beta testing cycle I must say. Trying
to get my head wrapped around all of the great new features has been a
challenge. Ideally I would have had new version of Feeds.App ready for
the launch of the new version. I've been putting in my best effort to
that end, but I'm here to concede that it is not going to happen. I'm
"a bit" behind, but working hard to catch-up with Feeds.App v3.0.
Happily it seems Feeds.App v2.01 has no issues running in MT 3.3.
Still I want to get something out to you as soon as possible.

Besides a rapid beta testing period, another thing that has made this
release cycle a busy one was putting together Feeds.App Lite for
inclusion in the 3.3 release. I'm honored to have been given a chance
to contribute a this functionality to the MT platform. The difference
is Feeds.App Lite lets you syndicate titles and links. Feeds.App is
everything else and then some.

Not every person needs the power of Feeds.App that I created the Lite
version for Six Apart. Besides providing some thing useful, my hope is
that the Lite version helps spread the use of feeds as an essential
tool in blogging.

As I've mentioned here, Feeds.App v3 is a major overhaul that I've
been working on for many months now. The new version focuses on ease
of use and installation in addition to setting the foundation for the
future direction and growth of feeds. The big features are what you
don't see. The core has been rewritten so that no compiled modules are
required. All feeds are cached in the database -- no more setting up a
cache directory and getting permissions right. The plugin has also
been integrated with the new Task Manager so setting up the agent to
run through cron is no longer needed. I've also taken some of the
controls out of the templates and given them an interface in addition
to integrating with the Wizard Manger like what debuted in Feeds.App
Lite. There are a lot more features and refinements, but I'll stop
here. Feeds.App v3 will also be a free upgrade for all licensed users.

Expect a public beta of Feeds.App in the next week or so.

If you have any additional questions or comments, please drop me a
line. Thanks for your patience.

<tim/>

--
Timothy Appnel
Appnel Solutions
http://www.appnel.com/

The latest version of Feeds.App has been posted to
http://code.appnel.com/feeds-app.

Feeds.App v 2.01 is a maintenance release that fixes a few known bugs,
adds preliminary Atom 1.0 support and includes all external modules
that don't require compilation.  In other words, installation should be
easier, but you still may need to install Storable and XML::Parser. In
the future I hope to do away with both of these modules with some
alterations to the underlying architecture of the plugin.

In related news, Ben Hammersley and I presented 45 Syndication Hacks at
the O'Reilly Open Source Convention last week to some positive
reviews.[1] The seat-of-our-pants presentation can be found on
O'Reilly's conference site.[2] Besides a mention of Feeds.App, there
are a number of quick ideas for putting this plugin to work. For
instance, user DL Byron recently applied the Indeed.com hack from this
presentation to the Blog Business Summit site[3] to implement the
weblog jobs roll you see in the right-hand column.

<tim/>

[1]
http://eclipse-projects.blogspot.com/2005/08/getting-information-
across-part-ii.html
[2]
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/presentations/os2005/
ben_hammersley.pdf
[3] http://www.blogbusinesssummit.com/

---
Timothy Appnel
Appnel Internet Solutions, LLC
http://www.appnel.com/

Just a point of information. There is a typo in the documentation were
is says XML::Parser v2 or greater is required. That should read 2.32 or
greater. Any copy of the module that has been install in the past 3
years should be fine, but I've been made aware that some users are on
server where that is not the case and they are having issues getting
the plugin to operate. With XML becoming so popular thanks to Web
Services and syndication formats, most ISP do have that module
installed. If they do not or are running an older version you will need
to request that they upgrade that module. You'll soon find out how good
an ISP they are. ;)

In a future release I plan on offering a distribution with all of the
CPAN modules included except for a few. XML::Parser sits on a compiled
library call expat that many other applications (FireFox) utilize.
While it does it job really fast and with little overhead, its more
involved to install and requires permissions that some ISPs don't grant
their users -- like shell access for one. I've looked into alternative
extensively, but could not find a better solution. They were all either
prone to lots of bugs and shortcomings (XML::Parser::Lite) or are even
more difficult to install then XML::Parser or both (XMl::LibXML). This
is regrettable, but reality. Syndication feeds are XML and the state of
XML in Perl could be vastly improved.

Hope every is going well with the plugin. This list has been quiet. Not
sure if that is good or no one is using it.

<tim/>
---
Timothy Appnel
Appnel Internet Solutions, LLC
http://www.appnel.com/

Finally, after a prolonged beta testing period, the official release of
(the slightly renamed) Feeds.App 2.0, my syndication plugin and first
commercial product is here at last.

http://code.appnel.com/changelog/2005/06/000004.html

In other news I launched a reorganized code repository of my MT code
here: http://code.appnel.com/. Included is this plugin and a few other
new releases.

http://www.appnel.com/2005/06/code_launched.html

Your patience, support and feedback is appreciated.

<tim/>

---
Timothy Appnel
Appnel Internet Solutions, LLC
http://www.appnel.com/

MT-Feeds 2.0 RC3 is available here:
http://www.timaoutloud.org/code/mt/MT-Feeds-2.0RC3.tar.gz
http://www.timaoutloud.org/code/mt/MT-Feeds-2.0RC3.zip

This release fixes a few significant late breaking bugs that were found
by Bobb Menk, Steffen Boelaars and Jacques Distler.

Users may also want to download and install the latest version of
XML::RAI found in CPAN. Kevin Frost, a CPAN developer, found a bug
where the timezone was being incorrectly accounted for during timestamp
normalization resulting. The effect of this bug to MT-Feed users is
that it may jumble the order of entries in latest feeds.

Hopefully this will be the last release before the official 2.0
release. Thanks.

<tim/>
---
Timothy Appnel
Appnel Internet Solutions, LLC
http://www.appnel.com/

Almost there. I've posted release candidate 2 of MT-Feeds v2.0. This
release handles a number of small bugs that were found since the last
release. I expect this to be the last release before the official
(gold) release.

http://www.timaoutloud.org/code/mt/MT-Feeds-2.0RC2.tar.gz
http://www.timaoutloud.org/code/mt/MT-Feeds-2.0RC2.zip

Please post any feedback, problems or other support issues to the
mt-feeds-discuss list.

Thanks.

<tim/>

---
Timothy Appnel
Appnel Internet Solutions, LLC
http://www.appnel.com/

I've posted Release Candidate 1 of MT-Feeds v2.0 for your pleasure.
Downloads are available here:

* http://www.timaoutloud.org/code/mt/MT-Feeds-2.0RC1.tar.gz (Mac/Unix)
* http://www.timaoutloud.org/code/mt/MT-Feeds-2.0RC1.zip (Windows)

This release contains a bunch of bug fixes and the option to select
link relationships in Atom feeds. For more info consult in the included
Changes file.

I appreciate the feedback. Please be sure to keep it coming on the
mt-feeds-discuss mailing list.

<tim/>
---
Timothy Appnel
Appnel Internet Solutions, LLC
http://www.appnel.com/

The dashes got dropped from those URLs I just sent out. Sorry.

http://www.timaoutloud.org/code/mt/MT-Feeds-2.0b2.tar.gz
http://www.timaoutloud.org/code/mt/MT-Feeds-2.0b2.zip

I've uploaded Beta 2 of MT-Feeds. It can be found here:

http://www.timaoutloud.org/code/mt/MT-Feeds2.0b2.tar.gz
http://www.timaoutloud.org/code/mt/MT-Feeds2.0b2.zip

This release fixes a number of bugs including the "config" and the
"&MT::log_msg/
warning" errors many of you were receiving. There are a couple of minor
enhancements --
clearing the cache has a confirmation step, the configuration app is now
password
protected and a few others ones hardly worth noting here.

The majority of the work was dumping the built-in configuration methods for my
own
(sort of). This makes the release MT 3.0D compatable. It still does not support
MT2x. (Not
sure if it every will really.)

IMPORTANT NOTE: Because of this switch in the configuration manager you need to
redo
your configuration after installing Beta 2.

PLEASE post bugs or requests for help on the mt-feeds-discuss[1] list. Thanks.

<tim/>

[1] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mt-feeds-discuss

Today I'm releasing MT-Feeds as a public beta.

This is a long time coming of course and I am deserving of criticism for taking
so damn
long. (Though not too much, please.) However when you are a consultant whose
livelihood
depends on paying work its hard to find the time to focus on such things. This
plugin
required a great deal of focus since syndication has become far more complex in
the past
2 years. It's here now.

See this post on my personal weblog:
http://www.timaoutloud.org/archives/000371.html

Thanks for your interest. I hope the wait was worth it.