January 22, 2007
Search OpenLearn Anywhere
Just a quickie - I created a Dappit application to search OpenLearn (OpenLearn Search Dapp) - which took all of 10 minutes - so you can now search OpenLearn and get RSS or XML formatted results.
I also knocked up a simple GrazrScript file to consume the RSS feed output: OpenLearn Search in GrazrScript.
Here's an example (you'll probably have to click-thru if you are reading this in a feedreader):
The folks at Grazr also make it easy to add this search tool to various services such as the Google IG Personal Homepage, Netvibes, etc.
(Dappit also claims to let you add a service to Netvibes, but I couldn't get it to generate a Netvibes panel with a search box for me?)
You can also use the search tool using my grazrNav page.
To use this service in general, prefix the URL (without the http://) of a page that contains an autodiscoverable web feed (OPML or RSS), or the URL of an actual web feed, with http://ouseful.open.ac.uk/grazrNav.
For example: http://ouseful.open.ac.uk/grazrNav/blogs.open.ac.uk/Maths/ajh59/grazrOpenLearnSearch.opml
This also works for things like delicious, where the feed is autodiscoverable (clever old Grazr... ;-):
For example: http://ouseful.open.ac.uk/grazrNav/del.icio.us/psychemedia/feedthru
This service will then load the discovered/actual feeds into a Grazr widget acting as a left hand navigation bar. Clicking through to a page linked to from the feed will load it into the main 'body' of the page.
Posted by ajh59 at January 22, 2007 06:44 PM