James E. Lee's Blog / Outlining & OPML

Terms like OPML & XOXO are too technical and specific — let's call them "live outlines"

2006-12-31T01:55:00Z

What?

I propose we use the term "live outline" to refer to dynamic content — such as OPML files that contain lists of feeds — that people create using XML outline formats.

I've seen some discussion about what to call the information organized using these formats, but there doesn't seem to be a convention for referring to them in general. This leads to difficulties sharing ideas related to the formats, and explaining them to people who aren't familiar with them. I really like Dave Winer's idea of a reading list, but that's just one kind of live outline; these formats can be used to create live outlines that can serve various purposes (for example, the one on my blog's sidebar or a travel outline).

"Live outline" is friendlier and easier to talk about (and say!) than "OPML", "XOXO", etc. It's a good general term everyone can use and understand without too much difficulty. It's fine to use "outline" and "outlining" in context; "live" can be omitted when people know what's being discussed.

Audience

This proposal is intended for people creating content and applications using structured outlines based on XML formats, such as OPML, XOXO, and OML.

Why?

To encourage widespread adoption and use of these formats and reltated technologies, we need simple, non-technical terms that convey meaning well. People are much more open to learning something new if it has a name they can relate to, understand, and pronounce.

Live outlines will have a significant and growing role in how people consume, organize, and share feeds:

OPML is already a de facto standard for export/import of feed subscription lists.
Hopefully, Dave Winer's idea of feed readers allowing people to subscribe to reading lists (and other live outlines) will become a reality soon. This is a really good idea!
Tools like Grazr make it easy for anyone to browse, navigate, and share live outlines.

If we want people to get comfortable using structured outline formats, we need to talk about them in terms that won't alienate or put people off. Try telling someone about the cool OPML file you're building, and watch how quickly their eyes glaze over. Changing the language we use can make all the difference, and we already have a familiar example of this: Consider the idea that live outline is to OPML document as web page is to HTML document. People can relate to the idea of writing a web page, and it's easy to talk about web pages; a major reason is the lack of hard-to-pronounce technical acronyms.

People are already familiar with the concept of an outline. They don't have to learn an entirely new concept to understand a live outline, just a new use for something they already know.
People can easily understand that live = dynamic (e.g., feeds). Again, though, "live" sounds better and is easier to say than "dynamic". I know that OPML, etc. are not just for feeds, but I think organizing and managing feeds will be the highest-profile common use for the formats, at least for a while.
Firefox has already begun to popularlize the term and concept of "live bookmarks". We can take advantage of that and extend the idea to live outlines.
Non-technical people who use these outlines aren't going to (and shouldn't) care much about the details of the format in which they're written.. They'll need to recognize names for compatibility, but only until services and applications interoperate well (how many feed readers support RSS and not ATOM, or require a specific version of either?) Recognition can be important for a while when a technology is new, but how many people that use the web care about the language in which web pages are written? In most cases, they don't want to know.

I'm not arguing that we should stop using format-specific terms in technical discussions and documents; they certainly have their place. I just want to promote the use of terms that insulate people from unnecessarily technical, specific acronyms that aren't likely to be relevant to them. Plus, I want a general way to talk about the information structures we build with these formats. "Live outline" conveys meaning without being overly technical or specific to a particular format or technology. I hope the term will help these formats and creative uses of them proliferate more quickly and easily.

What do you think?

I hope this proposal will provoke some discussion. Unfortunately, I've had to disable comments due to spam (and the lack of a good mitigation capability), but if you have thoughts on this proposal, link to this post from your blog. If discussion ensues, I'll add a live search feed of links to this post to tie it all together.

Grazr Tip: Add a "Supersize This Panel" link for comfortable reading

2006-05-08T15:30:00Z

What?

If you're using a small Grazr panel, add a link to display a larger version of the same panel. This makes it easy to quickly "supersize" the panel so it's comfortable for longer periods of reading.

If you're using Grazr in a blog sidebar or as part of a page that has other content you want to keep visible (e.g. Google or Live.com start page), you're probably using a condensed Grazr panel to fit within space requirements. It's easy to add a link in your outline to supersize the panel.

Update: New version of Grazr makes this unnecessary

Shortly after I posted this article, Mike released a new version of Grazr that effectively removes the need for this technique. You can still use it if you want to make things really easy for the reader, but the new version allows the reader to change the font and panel sizes using a built-in configurator. You can detach a panel from the page you're looking at and resize it just like a normal web browser window.

Why?

A larger panel makes reading within Grazr more comfortable.

A small panel is great for quick access to status feeds, bookmarks, headlines, and for exploring & grazing feeds. One of Grazr's strengths is its ability to display information in a compact space. The tradeoff is that it's not so great if you end up reading for a longer period in that compact space.

A larger panel

Reduces the need to leave Grazr (e.g. to read a long article in a feed).

Gives the reader the benefit of Grazr's speed of navigation without the size constraint of a blog sidebar panel.

Makes it quick & easy to switch from a brief glance to extended reading.

I have an OPML "start file" -- a collection of OPML files I've customized for my regular use -- that I access from my Google home page using Grazr. I use this as my primary feed grazing interface, but it's too small for anything beyond a quick check of headlines.

For example, I include my Bloglines subscriptions in my start file (1), so I can peek in on my feeds without changing their read/unread state. Typically, when I found something that I wanted to actually read, I'd either have to switch to Bloglines or use Grazr as a service to open my OPML file in a larger panel. Both of these are cumbersome and time-consuming, and I wanted to make the process more convenient; that's when it occurred to me to add a "Supersize This Panel" link to the panel itself.

You can try this out using the Grazr panel in the sidebar of my blog.

How?

Go to "Get Grazr for Your Page", enter the URL of your OPML file, customize the settings for your supersized panel, then copy the URL and add it to your panel.

Here's an example of the OPML code to create a Supersize This Panel link:

Note: Grazr uses URL encoding for many special characters, but the ampersand is HTML encoded (&).

Disclaimer: I'm learning OPML, and am by no means an authority or expert, so please excuse any errors, syntactic or otherwise.

Tricks

Make the font larger in the supersized panel. After all, this is about comfort!

Put the "Supersize This Panel" link at the top. This way, it:

is immediately, easily accessible
seems like a browser control; that's effectively how it's functioning, and people will look for it at the top once they think of if that way

Consider putting a supersize link at the bottom too, if it's a long list in a small panel.

Also add the supersize link to any OPML files you include (if they're yours), so "branches" can also be supersized.

Re: "branches" - I think there's a great deal of thinking to be done on the appropriate level of granularity for outlines. For now, I'm creating what I consider to be functional modules, but I'm far from having any static taxonomy. I may share some thoughts on that topic in another article.

Firefox users: Open the supersize link in a new tab! If your mouse has a middle button, it just takes a single click to open a supersized Grazr panel in a new tab.

Further Thoughts

Might this be a good built-in capability for Grazr? I could imagine using the real estate on Grazr's back "button" for more than one purpose; perhaps a "supersize" button? I love that it's large & easy to hit, and don't want to clutter it up, but this might be worth it.

It seems to me that most people are familiar with the term "supersize", but I'd love to hear suggestions for a better way to get the point across. I considered various terms before settling on "supersize", but they were either clunky (too many words) or had implications I didn't want to make. For example;

"View Larger Version of This Panel" isn't exactly succinct.
"Expand This Panel" might imply that the panel would expand in place, so I decided against it. I'm not sure if Grazr has the capability to dynamically resize, but if so, I'd love to know! Opod, which uses the Grazr API, does dynamically resize, so perhaps it's possible.

Mike, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the two points above! (Built-in capability idea & dynamic resizing.) Update: Mike responded.

I imagine it's possible to do something similar with other configurable OPML browsers, like Optimal, and Bitty, (both great tools for their respective purposes) but I haven't had the time to try yet. The supersize link doesn't keep you in the original OPML browser even if it's Grazr, but it does work even if you're reading an outline in something other than Grazr, since it just points to a "Grazr-skinned" version of the outline.

(1) I manually export my subscriptions and copy the file to my web server. This isn't terrible, as I don't update my subscriptions that often, but I sure wish I could just point to the OPML file in my account! (Are you listening, Bloglines?)

Use Grazr to "skin" OPML files and feeds

2006-04-03T01:17:00Z

What?

Grazr is a good front-end for OPML files ("live outlines") and feeds. When you publish or share an OPML file, offer a way to see what it contains by using Grazr as a service to "skin" the content.

The typical way I've seen people using Grazr is to embed it into a blog sidebar, but it can also be used as a service, to skin any OPML file or feed you want to publish or share. This means you don't have to embed it to get a lot of value from using it!

I'm going to focus on outlines (OPML files) here, but as Adam Green points out, Grazr works directly on RSS too, making it a great way to share feeds as well. The majority of feeds people publish and share are generated from blogs, so people already see them in human-readable form. OPML files don't have an equivalent; they're typically published "raw", with no formatting.

Why?

This is a great way to share outlines and feeds so they're immediately useful to the reader. Grazr makes it easy to quickly preview the content without having to commit to subscription.

People are starting to publish OPML files, which is great, but:

Many (most?) people aren't familiar enough with this technology to see the benefit of it.
Most of the OPML files I've seen recently don't include a useful way to see what they contain.

Sure, the reader can click and see them as rendered by a web browser, but this is about as valuable to most people as looking at HTML -- fine for those who are learning or know it, but not very useful otherwise.

Seeing OPML rendered in a human-readable form makes it much more useful.

John Palfrey recently wrote about his a-ha moment in "Getting OPML", and provided the example of toptensources.com, which publishes OPML content. Check out how their Science News section looks as a raw OPML file, vs. the same OPML content, skinned by Grazr:

How?

One of the nice things about Grazr is that the developer made it easy to use as a service — something that differentiates it from some of the other current OPML browsers — by providing a simple way to plug in the address of a feed or live outline (OPML file) and see it in a Grazr "panel":

Method 1: Copy, Paste, Publish

Copy the URL of an outline or feed.
Go to the "Create a Grazr" page (hint: click the bottom of any Grazr), paste in the URL, and click the "Display this URL" button. (You can configure your Grazr's font, viewing mode, etc. at this point.)
To publish a link to the Grazr-skinned version of the outline or feed,

Find the "Save your Grazr to a Web Page" section, and click the "Type of Web page" drop-down list.
Select "Generic Web Page".
Find the "Grazr URL" section, click the URL to select it, then copy and paste it.

Method 2: Create a link by hand

URL syntax: http://grazr.com/gzpanel.html?file=http://address-of-your-feed-or-OPML-file

Using either method, you can customize the size of the panel.

Now What?

Publish the Grazr-skinned link alongside the raw OPML file - When you publish an OPML file on your blog or website, add a link next to it that says something like "Graze It!", with a link to the Grazr-skinned version alongside the raw OPML. Don't remove the link to the raw OPML; that's still useful as a separate link.
Here's a "Graze It!" button - I made a button that I plan to use for publishing my outlines. Note that this button is not Grazr-specific. Rather, it's specific to the concept of grazing. For grazing, I happen to like Grazr most among the current OPML browsers I've seen (though others are useful too, depending on what you want to do), but this idea could apply to any that can be used as a service and allow users to link to a rendered version of an OPML file. You're welcome to copy this button and use it on your own site (I'd prefer you do that vs. linking to my copy):

Update: 2006.09.19 - The Grazr team developed their own, Grazr-specific button:

Tag & share it - To share an OPML file, use your favorite social bookmarking service to tag & share the Grazr-skinned version. I've created a "grazr-skinned" tag so I can easily find these links.

What the heck is Grazr?

Grazr is an outline browser that you can use to view OPML files, and graze feeds. It's designed to be embedded in blog sidebars & web pages, but can also be used in standalone mode as a service, to provide a front-end or skin for OPML files and feeds. You can read more about Grazr in the FAQ. Marshall Kirkpatrick posted a list of various ways to use grazr.

Is Grazr meant to be used as a service? Yes!

I don't know if the developer of Grazr meant for the "Try Grazr" interface to be used as a service. You can see from the URL that the sandbox is under "/api", but it's possible he intended for it to simply be a place to preview it so you can choose whether or not to embed it in your own page or blog sidebar. I hope he'll comment and say it's ok to use it this way, because it's a great tool, but also a valuable service!

Update: 2006.04.02
Mike, the developer of Grazr, responded and said yes, this fits with his approach in developing the tool, which "involves allowing people to discover new and interesting uses for Grazr". Thanks, Mike; your attitude will continue to encourage a lot of innovation. And yes, please do feel free to use the button on the Grazr site!

The thing is, plugging an address into a form is easy, and that's all it takes to use Grazr to skin an OPML file or feed. This is much easier than embedding it in a blog sidebar or webpage, and enables people who don't have that option to benefit from Grazr.

In addition to making it easy to share OPML files, this is a great approach for people who want to experiment with creating OPML files. When I first heard about Grazr, I went through the work to embed it into a web page, then point it at different OPML files I was learning to write. I'd have saved a lot of time & effort by just using Grazr as a service.

This also works with other outline browsers

As I mentioned above, you can also do the equivalent of what I described with other outline browsers that can be used as a service. Bitty Browser and Optimal, are two other very useful outline browsers that can do this. I'll leave the details as an exercise for the reader.