hCalendar Support
I just deployed the newest version of mtbcalendar.com (revision 137 for those of you following at home) which adds the first bits of microformats code support. For those of you not down with the semantic web, microformats are "are a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards." Think of it as HTML that gives your browser/computer hints about what the text actually means. The microformat that I have decided to start with is hCalendar. So now if you go to each detailed event page (like this weekend's CCCX DH #4), the event's dates will be marked up as hCalendar.
What does this mean to you ?
Maybe something, maybe nothing. If you have a microformats enhanced browser, you will be able to recognize the hCalendar events and quickly add them to your calendar (be it iCal, Google calendar, Y! calendar, etc). If you don't, you won't notice anything.
Getting a microformats enhanced browser is easy:
- Download and use Firefox beta 3
- Install the "Operator" extension to Firefox (v2)
- Grab this bookmarklet for IE 6 & 7 (IE 8 will support it natively)
- Use Flock (which has built in support)
- Use the Safari Microformats plugin (which seems to have a few problems with my encoding)
- Use "tails" extension for Firefox
I've Been on a Calendar, but Never on Time
I have the first set of the calendar (iCal) feeds ready. If you click over to any "Events by States" page (say for British Columbia), you will be greeted with two new icons:
The first one is for the before-mentioned RSS feeds (see last post). The second one is for a iCal feed. iCal Feeds allow you to subscribe to the events on the page in your favorite calendaring program and they will refresh your calendar whenever new events are added to the website (for that state). I have currently added an icon for Apple's iCal program (since I rock a MacBook), but I will be adding Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook as soon as I get them tested.
I've used the California feed in my own calendar (so I can sync them to my iPhone) for several months, so I think they are pretty bug free. Look for more RSS, Atom and iCal feed goodness to drop later this week.
My iCal support is enabled by the iCalendar ruby gem, written by Jeff Rose.
The Good and Bad About Feeds 1
Some good and some bad news to report today. Let's start with the bad news: Yes, the RSS and Atom feeds for this blog are, in a word, fook'd. Not sure what the problem is exactly, but I am not the only person experiencing this. I've spent some time this afternoon looking it over and fixed it on my development MacBook, but apparently the bug has much foo, because it didn't fix the server (which you are looking at). After a little bit more hacking, I think I have root caused this at not having swig installed on the server at install / migration / posting time (which was not stated in the docos). Anyway, I have it there now and am thinking about how I correct the problem. On the good news side of the slate, I fixed (and tested the crap out of) the mtbcalendar.com feeds. You can now follow these feeds:
- New events: new events added or updated on the calendar. These are available at http://www.mtbcalendar.com/feeds/index.rss (RSS 2.0) or http://www.mtbcalendar.com/feeds/index.atom (Atom).
- Upcoming events: The next two events on the calendar. These are available at http://www.mtbcalendar.com/feeds/upcoming.rss (RSS) or http://www.mtbcalendar.com/feeds/upcoming.atom (Atom).
- State: This is a bit more complicated but far more valuable feed. This lists the upcoming events FOR YOUR STATE. This requires a bit of knowledge and work on your part. Until I get the link onto the web page, you need to create your own url in the form of
http://www.mtbcalendar.com/feeds/state/[YOUR TWO LETTER STATE ABBREVIATION IN LOWER CASE].rss, like http://www.mtbcalendar.com/feeds/state/ca.rss for California (also available in Atom format). This should work for all fifty US states and most of Canada's provinces, but I am unsure how this will work outside there. I am basically beholden to Google's geocoder here and I have already seen Baja, Mexico come up weird. We'll just have to play it by ear on those.
I will have more feeds finished this week. They are:
- Tag: a feed for any tag on the site, such as norcal or socal.
- Format: a feed for specific types of racing like cross country (XC) or downhill (DH).
I'll drop a line when I get these done.
Hello World!
Welcome to Racing on Rails, my blog about the website mtbcalendar.com, mountain bike racing and Ruby on Rails (probably in that order).
My name is slashk and I'll be your host. I am a dedicated (albeit slow) MTB racer (mostly XC, some Super D and a bit of CX) who resides in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Northern California, which is simply the greatest place to race mountain bikes on earth. Some of you may know me from my other blog, NorCal MTB Racing, which I have written for the past two or three years.
I have put up this blog due to the gentle shaming of an user's email:
mtbcalendar.com is cool, nice work
2 niggles: rss/atom feeds don't work. they send you to the very same page you're looking at. there is no contact info/form for me to send feedback to.
1 suggestion: start a blog, so we can keep up with updates!
(A) thank you Alex for the kind words. I wasn't sure how many people were using it as I haven't really launched it other than mentioning it on NorCal MTB Racing a few times.
(B) you are absolutely correct. The rss/atom feeds are completely b0rked (they were working but I changed some controller logic and I haven't gotten back to fix them yet) and the site is devoid of feedback mechanisms.
However, I have taken your suggestion about the blog (with the quickness). And I am working on bringing back the rss/atom feeds (probably sometime this week as I have some cross-country airtravel planned). And I actually have a bit more functionality built into the current version of the website than I have exposed. Goodies like iCal subscriptions, proximity searching and such are implemented (but untested) and very rough around the edges. I'll be polishing and hoisting them on you gentle blog readers shortly.
And in the meantime, you can either comment here on this blog or email me at norcalmtbracing AT gmail DOT com (replace the AT and DOT with the appropriate symbols).
And thanks for coming.
Hello World!
Welcome to Racing on Rails, my blog about the website mtbcalendar.com, mountain bike racing and Ruby on Rails (probably in that order).
My name is slashk and I'll be your host. I am a dedicated (albeit slow) MTB racer (mostly XC, some Super D and a bit of CX) who resides in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Northern California, which is simply the greatest place to race mountain bikes on earth. Some of you may know me from my other blog, NorCal MTB Racing, which I have written for the past two or three years.
I have put up this blog due to the gentle shaming of an user's email:
mtbcalendar.com is cool, nice work
2 niggles: rss/atom feeds don't work. they send you to the very same page you're looking at. there is no contact info/form for me to send feedback to.
1 suggestion: start a blog, so we can keep up with updates!
(A) thank you Alex for the kind words. I wasn't sure how many people were using it as I haven't really launched it other than mentioning it on NorCal MTB Racing a few times.
(B) you are absolutely correct. The rss/atom feeds are completely b0rked (they were working but I changed some controller logic and I haven't gotten back to fix them yet) and the site is devoid of feedback mechanisms.
However, I have taken your suggestion about the blog (with the quickness). And I am working on bringing back the rss/atom feeds (probably sometime this week as I have some cross-country airtravel planned). And I actually have a bit more functionality built into the current version of the website than I have exposed. Goodies like iCal subscriptions, proximity searching and such are implemented (but untested) and very rough around the edges. I'll be polishing and hoisting them on you gentle blog readers shortly.
And in the meantime, you can either comment here on this blog or email me at norcalmtbracing AT gmail DOT com (replace the AT and DOT with the appropriate symbols).
And thanks for coming.
