Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Idea: ids/timestamps for scriptingNews 2?
Author: Jim Roepcke Posted: 6/20/1999; 4:26:49 PM Topic: Idea: ids/timestamps for scriptingNews 2? Msg #: 7610 Prev/Next: 7609 / 7611
One thing I've noticed with the new uber-weblog is that all of the entries from a particular channel get lumped together, even if some of the entries from that channel are older than entries from other channels.It would be great if there would be some way to display entries sorted by when they appear or are modified.
This way, each time a channel adds or updates an entry, only those new entries would jump to the top of the list....
I see two ways to do this -- each easy for one audience but harder for another.
- Easy for content providers, harder for portals:
Nothing changes in the format, but my.userland.com has to become much more complex -- it will have to keep a cache of entries from each channel, be able to figure out when a new entry appears in the channel, and "timestamp" each entry. Then, all entries will be sorted via timestamp...
- Easy for portals, harder for (low-tech) content providers:
Each entry has two new attributes ... creation date, modification date. Portals can use this information to aid it in determining what is new and changed, making it easier to decide what to do with the new info.
If the uber-portal page had this feature, regardless of which way it was implemented, it would become more like a news wire. I would find that very very useful, I could just watch the top of the page for new things, knowing that I wouldn't have seen those new things before. The server could even know when the last time I looked at the wire was, and somehow differentiate the display of old and new entries... like a high-water mark.
It would be harder for low-tech channel providers to get the timestamps in their channel files, but anyone using a CMS or other programmable environment for generating their channel files could incorporate that info pretty easily.
Comments? (I know there's more to this problem than what I've mentioned, and I'm sure there are other ways to tackle this problem... I welcome anyone to do so!)
Jim
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