Now that I can see tagging in action, I changed how tags are displayed. A tag appears as a single-square-bracketed term, in blue. When you hover over it, it's underlined. This is more consistent with the way links work. And single-square-brackets are less intrusive than double, but still convey the idea that where you're going is different from a normal link. Feedback is welcome. I'm also finding bugs in the tag server. Of course, and that's good. #Falling in love with Google Reader and then giving up on open RSS-based news after it was cancelled is like falling in love with The Monkees, and giving up on music when their show was cancelled. Long term the open wholesome tech ecosystem is where the breakthroughs come from. When the users learn to accept that tech companies just harvest these developments, don't manage them or develop them, or care about them, then progress will accelerate, but not until then. The power is strong, but you have to use it.#
Scott Love sent a link to a piece that said Google Reader was beautiful, and something huge was lost when they shut it down. Kind of like American Pie about the death of music, and as wrong. As it turns out, since we now know how it turned out, having Google adopt RSS was a pretty bad thing for everyone, except maybe Google. The tragedy isn't that Google fucked us over so hard, it's that even now, eight years later, people still haven't figured out that companies don't make wholesome tech, they consume it. Leave it like an Amazon rain forest after harvesting. Google Reader should have been called Exxon Valdez Reader. The author's attitude toward people who understand this tragedy is to dismiss us as naïve. Which is ridiculous given the premise. It's like saying that we liked the meal but we insisted on it being served it by Darth Vader. Oh boy he betrayed us! The users have the power, this has always been true, and until now, they have used the power to be idiots.#- There's something new on Scripting News today -- tags. #
- When you see a tag reference, click on it to see a list of refs to the same tag. #
- An example of a tag reference. Click it, see what happens: RSS. #
- When you hover over a tag ref, it should turn blue. #
- When you click on one you should see a dialog that looks like this. #
- If the text in the dialog has tags, you can click on them. #
- The left and right arrows move back and forth through the tags you've clicked on like the arrows in a browser. #
- Here's how it works:#
- When I'm writing, my CMS passes the OPML of today's writing to a new server app called a tag server that scans for tags. A tag is simply text that's enclosed in [[double square brackets]].#
- When it finds a tag, it adds it to a database, with the following info: the URL of the OPML file it came from, the path to the tag in the outline, the created attribute of the headline it came from in the outline, and the screenname of the author (for now, just me).#
- Now we can do a query, such as: Find me all the items tagged by davewiner with the term RSS.#
- And that query can be displayed in a dialog when you're reading the blog.#
- A quick video demo.#
- I'll have more to say about this, but first I wanted to introduce the feature so you can try it out. #
- If you have questions or comments, you can post them in this thread. #
