Dancing About Architecture

Easy enough ... just click on this link: FeedFlare Scratchpad.

Copy this XML and paste it into the FeedFlare Unit text area and hit "Go!"

That didn't work because the XML is invalid ... we have to make sure we encode that ampersand before the "body" parameter correctly.

So let's change that encode that ampersand. Paste this version into the text box:

Still no dice ... now it's saying we need the "Text" element.

A look at the FeedFlare Developer Guide tells us that we need a Text element for a static FeedFlare, so let's add it. Paste this version into the text box:

Alright ... now that we have what appears to be a valid FeedFlare Unit, let's test it against an item in a feed. Enter a feed URL (it doesn't have to be a FeedBurner feed) and hit "Go!". For this walkthrough, enter "http://feeds.feedburner.com/publisherbuzz".

After a feed is entered, we go and grab the latest version of the feed and display the items in a drop-down box. Go ahead and select one of the items to see how your FeedFlare will be applied to that item.

After all of that, we have some results. We can now see if a FeedFlare would have been created for this item. If a FeedFlare isn't created, that might mean that one of your variable substitutions or XPath expressions is wrong. You can use the "Atom 1.0" view of the item to help tune your XPath expressions.

If a FeedFlare would be created, then the tool shows you a preview of how the FeedFlare would be rendered in a feed or on a site.

At this point, feel free to play around with the FeedFlare XML ... or choose a different item, or even a different feed. It can serve as a testing tool now.

There is certainly a bunch more that we can do with this tool, and some of the developers here are already teasing me that it's not using AJAX, but it's a start, and I hope you find it useful!