The 5 day stats
Well RW Updates is certainly not breaking any records with it’s stats yet, but I must say I am rather happy with what I see at this time. Only 5 days in and RW Updates is enjoying 194 unique visits and climbing. Once it becomes common knowledge that RW Updates is a must-bookmark RapidWeaver resource, then I suspect those numbers will really climb.
RW Updates got slurped!
It’s always an honor when people take notice of your site, especially when it’s unsolicited. One of the best sites for this is the Daily Slurp. They are the best at scouring the web for the latest and hottest site designs and I am often amazed at how fast they get their hands on URL’s that I personally know have only dropped days before. Well September 29 was one of those days for us as RW Updates found itself listed in the Daily Slurp (check it out) not even a week after it’s somewhat low key launch. That’s barely long enough for our first blog posts to get cold! It feels good.
I can't leave well enough alone
Some people are willing to settle with the technology that is handed to them… but not me. I have to break it apart and understand why it works. This has been true with this whole RW Updates project. It started with a RapidWeaver Snippet, then a multi-feed website, then Authors were posted, with links to their site… Keep in mind that I am using php to automate this whole process.
So what was next? RSS Feed for the artificially generated Daily Digest “blog”? I had never really spent a lot of time in an XML file but knew it was a simple enough syntax structure but could I hack some php into that and build an effective (not to mention functioning) RSS Feed?
I was able to find one other guy who had attempted the same but the platform from which he was starting and where I intended to be was so grossly different that I feared I would have waisted too much time trying to “port” my code into his xml layout. So I cracked open an xml file that RapidWeaver generated and just started to apply php in the way I think I would have liked to see it work.
With a bit fussing and farting around I managed to get something near to what I actually want. In the end I ended up using two commands from that other guy. I liked the way he limited the number of items but I think I am going to go back to the aging technique I was using.
Is this still a work in progress? You bet it is. And I am loving every minute of it.
RSS Feed is Live and in effect!!!
We don’t you all mosey on over to the Daily Digest page and look in the address bar. See that cute little blue RSS icon? Yep, that’s right… they don’t call me a geek for nothing. I will be the first to admit it’s far from perfect right now (caching and page anchors kind of combine for the total effect of nothing) but it’s a start and definitely a proof of concept.
I plan to make a few subscribe buttons in a little bit but in the meantime pull the feed from the Daily Digest page address bar and let me know what you think.
RSS Feed soon to come
I couldn’t help myself. I worked out a way to feed the daily digest into an rss feed. I’ll hopefully implement in the coming week. Having a bit of trouble handling all the feeds right now, and the permalink system I had developed earlier isn’t quite as happy to play with rss as I had hoped. It’s pretty close though.
Each RW Update post has it's own id!
HOW COOL IS THAT!!! So I mucked about today on my spare time and came up with a nifty way to link directly to a post on the Daily Digest page. This is useful if I want to bring your attention to a particular entry there. Same goes for anyone linking here. Granted the posts will only exist here for a week (maybe two in the future), but hey, news goes fast!
So all you do is copy the link of the RWU id number and use that in your own site to link back to that post… kind of like this: RWU id: 25SepseyRWURWUpda
Next on the list of cool-ass things to do is build my own RSS feed for the Daily Digest page… at some point.
Clogged tubes
Since Gary moved over to DreamHost things got seriously slow around here (RW Updates is also on DreamHost). So if you are experiencing any slowdowns, blame it in Gary… Just kidding!
Seriously, things do seem a bit slow today. I don’t know if there is a hairball in the tubes or something but I am sure it will get cleared up soon.
In the mean time, tell Gary stop hogging the bandwidth.
Blogger Widget
Thanks to Gary of RapidWeaver Themes turned me on to this nice little mac widget for posting to blogger. I am all about making things closer at hand therefore making things more productive for me so this little widget (though sadly lacking in some of my favorite editing functions) is right up my alley.
Thanks for the tip Gary.
I have to be honest
I’m not trying to sound like I am tooting my horn here but I have to say that since it’s launch I have been back to RW Updates on a near hourly basis to see what’s new. I am a big NewsFire fan and love getting my RSS that way but there is something about the consolidation of the feeds in the Daily Digest that has me relying on it more for my up to date RapidWeaver news. Too cool.
When I launched the site it had as much to do with, “Can it be done” as it did, “Will people use this?” I have to say that I am a believer; I will use this resource. I am just glad I’ve been able to share it with all of you.
Vote for us on Design Snack
Got a spare moment? Head over to Design Snack and vote for RW Updates. You support is appreciated.