I have released a new version of parseMe, my lightweight browser-based RSS/Atom feed reader utility, which main target remains mobile phones and accessibility devices (universal access).

You can find the latest release in the download section, and more information about it in the release log. There is now also a public Subversion repository.

Here’s another update to parseMe (back story), my little GPL’ed PHP-based RSS/Atom feed reader for mobile phones and other web-capable devices.

You can find the appropriate links below:

• Online demo: See this mobile feed reader in action.
• parseMe-20070602-source.class.php.txt: PHP class source (for online viewing).
• parseMe-20070602.tar.gz: 14KB – Full app, tar/gzip archive.
• parseMe-20070602.zip: 16KB – Full app, zip archive.
• SHA1SUM: SHA1 sum for the above files.
• Docs and info: Bundled documentation.

Release notes:

• Moved my CVS repo to Subversion (svn), hence the revision number differences. I considered moving to a distributed revision control system, since they’re gaining in popularity, but I got lazy after the major rewrite. ;) Maybe for the next release.
• This is a quasi-complete code rewrite. In this release, I have moved away from the initial goal of keeping within the 500 lines limit (including comments) and having an “educational” flavour, to focus instead on the code structure, the features, further increased security, etc. The security aspect does account for a lot of the extra lines, when coupled with the new features.
• The parseMe class has now been substracted from the index.php script and has been moved to lib/php/parseMe.class.php.
• One of the most significant features, on the user end, is that you can now request any number of feeds to be parsed at once. Keeping in mind that the main target audience for this tool is the mobile market (usually slow, tiny screens, low RAM, etc), the usual total number of feeds offered does not lead to major performance hits, unless of course the sources themselves are slow to answer the tool’s request(s). You can of course still set your feed selection in the cookie-based preferences, which now allow for multiple choices.
• With the multiple feeds feature, the next logical step was to enable some sort of sorting options. You can sort the entries by feeds, or from new to old (descending) or from old to new (ascending). Your favourite sort order can be saved.
• You can now opt in or out of using the Google Mobile Gateway for destination links, right from the query form, and save your preferred choice.
• On the server end, self-contained caching is now done through PHP data serialization, since there is no point in reparsing the same XML at every page load, after all.
• On the security front, and primarily with the concern that we do have an application-writable directory (cache), there are quite a few improvements. Since the data contained in the cache files is not very sensitive by design (and if it is, I’d suggest using ssl and password protecting the app), this is really more of an exercise in good coding practices. And there is of course the concern of php injection attacks.

  • The cache filenames are now generated as a sha1 sum, with the help of an admin-defined shared secret so that they cannot be easily guessed.
  • All cache files now start with a dot (.) so that most web servers will not even serve them, and to be invisible when directory listing is enabled at the server level.
  • On the other hand, there is still a very strong emphasis on user input sanitazation and usage in the logic itself (EG: no client-defined source URL, source validity tests, etc).
• Fully valid class documentation can be leveraged in IDEs such Eclipse, auto-documentation tool such as phpDocumentor, etc.

Here’s another update to parseMe (back story), my little GPL’ed PHP-based RSS/Atom feed reader for mobile phones and other web-capable devices.

• Moved to object oriented, pretty much for the “fun” of it.
• Now passing a custom user-agent in the http query to avoid problems with sources that require it (Digg, among others).

You can find the appropriate links below:

• Online demo: See this mobile feed reader in action.
• parseMe-20070429-source.phps: PHP source, with comments (for online viewing).
• parseMe-20070429.tar.gz: 14KB – Full app, tar/gzip archive.
• parseMe-20070429.zip: 16KB – Full app, zip archive.
• SHA1SUM: SHA1 sum for the above files.
• RELEASES: Version history.
• INSTALL: Basic installation instructions to get you going.
• COPYING: Software license, GPL.
• AUTHORS: Credits file.

Keeps me from hating my phone until I can afford to get myself a nicer mobile solution.

It’s time for another quick update to parseMe, my little GPL’ed PHP-based RSS/Atom feed reader for mobile phones and other web-capable devices. Pfew [deep breath], that was quite a mouthful, wasn’t it? ;)

• It now loads the destination links without images by default, for performance improvements on most sites. Links still go through the Google Mobile gateway.
• Small screen-related interface improvements for the feed selection form.

You can find the appropriate links below:

• Online demo: See this mobile feed reader in action.
• parseMe-20070213-source.phps: PHP source, with comments (for online viewing).
• parseMe-20070213.tar.gz: 14KB – Full app, tar/gzip archive.
• parseMe-20070213.zip: 15KB – Full app, zip archive.
• SHA1SUM: SHA1 sum for the above files.
• RELEASES: Version history.
• INSTALL: Basic installation instructions to get you going.
• COPYING: Software license, GPL.
• AUTHORS: Credits file.

Hoping you’ll enjoy it as much as I do in the bus, on the way to and from work.

Update: 2007-02-13: An upgraded version is now available.

I have released an upgraded version of my GPL’ed lightweight feed reader for web-enabled devices, parseMe, a couple of days ago.

I have added a couple of interesting new features:

• It now integrates with Google Mobile to provide full content browsing of the destination URLs. This is done by using their nifty (x)html parser, which reformats standard web pages for mobile/accessibility browsers.
• There is now a cookie-based feature that lets users define what their default source and item limit should be when first accessing the app. All cookie manipulation is done via PHP, on the server-side, as to not rely on Javascript, which is rarely available on the targeted browsers.

You can find the appropriate links below:

• Online demo: See this mobile feed reader in action.
• parseMe-20070111-source.phps: PHP source, with comments (for online viewing).
• parseMe-20070111.tar.gz: 14KB – Full app, tar/gzip archive.
• parseMe-20070111.zip: 15KB – Full app, zip archive.
• SHA1SUM: SHA1 sum for the above files.
• INSTALL: Basic installation instructions to get you going.
• COPYING: Software license, GPL.
• AUTHORS: Credits file.

I’m obviously quite a bit biased of course, but it’s still is my favourite mobile app. :) And since I’m not seeing an iPhone (or similar smart phone) in any kind of recent future for me (availability in Canada, price, usage fees, etc), it probably will be for quite a while.