I’ve put together a list of the 10 best things I can list about dev.mobi. Its hardly exhaustive, and there are plenty more that I could add in, but I didn’t like the title “42 things you should know about dev.mobi”. It just doesn’t have the same ‘ring’ about it. Read on to find out about our RSS Feed system as well Content Subscription and Content Tracking.
So, in no particular order:
- The Home Page: This wouldn’t be much of a list without mentioning the home page of the site – quick and easy access to everything, from featured articles and blogs, to our forum, training pages, guides and tools.
- RSS Feeds. How to use and abuse the dev.mobi feeds system is explained in a bit more detail below, but just imagine how easy it is to place a feed of the latest Articles, latest blogs, or even the latest blogs of an individual user on your own site! Fantastic stuff 🙂
- Developer Guide: Another must-have on a list about dev.mobi’s must-knows. You need to be a registered user to download it, but its worth its weight in gold.
- Tools: Possibly one of the first turning points for developers after they’ve decided to get into the mobile world and ask themselves that immortal question, “So, what do I do know?”
- Blogs: dev.mobi is a community, a collection of developers and mobile users alike, and above all else it aims to be the gateway to mobile development (the hint is in the domain name). What better way to communicate your thoughts, dreams and aspirations than to blog about them?
- Articles: Of incalculable value are the list of articles and tutorials, created by developers just like you, and made available to the unwashed masses for their personal enjoyment.
- Forums: No online community is complete without a system, where users and developers can come together to communicate in a public forum (see what I did there?). There are already a large number of developers posting regularly on the forums, so why not jump in and say hi, we won't bite.
- Certification: Shameless plug
- I’m saving the (second) best until last… Read on to find out more!
- And last, but certainly not least, you. Yes, it is you that can turn dev.mobi from a great place to be, into an amazing place to be. It is you that can help to drive us onwards and upwards. And ultimately, it is you that will decide what the future of mobile development holds.
RSS Feeds In General
Before I get into the meaty part of this section, let me first tell you what RSS is, and is useful for. Have a quick read of the RSS Wikipedia page before you continue here, but what an RSS feed essentially is, is a list of new or updated content on a site, or section of a site.
So, whenver you see the icon shown to the left, you know that you can link to, or subscribe to, an RSS Feed that is somehow related to the content on the current page.
You’ll find that as you get used to using RSS Feeds, you grow dependant on them. I know I have 🙂
Now, onto the real stuff!
dev.mobi RSS Feeds
For the purposes of this demonstration, I’ll be using iGoogle (I love this tool. Its my default search engine and feed reader all in one. But you may well have your own preferences) to show just how useful our feeds are.
The first thing I’ll do, is find a page on dev.mobi that I find particularly interesting. For me, I love the thought of tracking all of the tutorials on the site, so I’ll direct you to the home page. Have a look at the right hand side of the page, and you’ll notice a number of “blocks” (as they are know in Drupal . See the “Article Topics” and “Article Types” there? Well I’m looking for Articles, of type “DeviceAtlas”. So I’ll click on the DeviceAtlas link.
While we’re at this point, I’ll give you a brief introduction into Drupal, and how we use it on dev.mobi. Drupal has a fantastic system called “taxonomy”, which is essentially just a way of tagging content, and therefore placing it in a particular category, or ‘box’. As we want to look at all pieces of content in the “DeviceAtlas” box, we’re going to view the box with the number 71 on the side (which corresponds to the taxonomy term as seen in the URL we clicked on a minute ago).
Now, armed with our new Drupal taxonomy knowledge, we can see that by clicking on any of the Article Types, or Article Topics from the blocks on the side of the page, we can get a list of different types of content from the dev.mobi site: Feature, Tip, Advertising , Publising, Mobile AJAX, DeviceAtlas and so on.
On each of those pages you will find a pretty little RSS Feed Icon, telling you that you can view this particular content from a feed reader. So lets have a look at the DeviceAtlas page’s RSS Feed page. Obviously, its pretty useless to you to read in its current format, so we’ll take this feed URL and add it to our iGoogle page, as shown in screen shots 01, 02 and after going back to the google home page, we see something like 03.
Advanced Feed Controls
So, you’ve managed to add the DeviceAtlas feed to your favourite feed reader, and you’re looking for something more. Something that’ll help you stick your head above the parapet and scream “I’m a geek!” at the top of your lungs. Well, I have just the thing for you.
Drupal has another little interesting feature surrounding its feed system, which you, the user, can abuse to suit your own needs.
By now you’ll have discovered that if DeviceAtlas corresponds to term 71, then so too must Tutorial correspond to term 74. Aren’t you a clever sausage? Armed with this ground breaking knowledge, surely there’s something that you can do to use it to its full advantage?! Well there is.
Answer me this – How interested are you in hearing every piece of information about DeviceAtlas that is posted on this site? I would imagine that the odds are quite high, that you would rather not hear absolutely everything we preach about it. But maybe, just maybe, you have a keen interest in following the tutorials that relate to DeviceAtlas. (remember again, 71 and 74).
Well have a look at this piece of magicness:
- DeviceAtlas: http://dev.mobi/taxonomy/term/71
- Tutorials: http://dev.mobi/taxonomy/term/74
- DeviceAtlas Tutorials: http://dev.mobi/taxonomy/term/71,74
Do you see what I did there? By thinking of the two feeds as sets in mathematical terms, the subsection (ie: where these two sets overlap, ie: content that is tagged as both DeviceAtlas, and as a Tutorial), is Term1,Term2
You can use this amazingly useful piece of information on any of the feeds that we provide in this way, and so can customise your own feeds, or what you want fed to your own site, quite easily.
One Final Thing on Feeds
Now that you know that a comma (,) can provide the intersection of feeds, how do you view the union (merge 2 of your favorite feeds together) of feeds? The answer is just as simple – use a plus (+) instead!
Content Subscriptions
If you take a quick glance down the right hand side of this page you’ll see a block near the top with your username on it. This is your User-Block (incredibly technical term, I know). In this block you’ll find plenty of links to satisfy your time-wasting needs, but I want to introduce you to one in particular: “My Subscriptions“.
Lets say, for example, you found a <subliminal message>particularly interesting blog<subliminal message> and you wanted to track any comments made on it. Well, below the blog you’ll find a link named Subscribe Post. Clicking this, will add it to your list of subscribed content (the link in your User-Block)!
Content Tracker
As I’ve already said, I’ve saved the (second – you’re the best, remember?) best until last here. It is my (humble) opinion, that this is by far the most useful tool available on dev.mobi. You can use it to keep track of your content, of a friend’s content or of content posted elsewhere on the site. You can also use it to keep informed of updates to existing content.
I am, of course, talking about the incredibly useful Tracker. Take a look at it now by clicking on that link – you can see all of the content that has been posted to the site, the number of responses to it, and when the last response was made to it. You may not see the value of this at the moment, but believe me, it won’t be long before you add it (and, for example, my tracker page to your bookmarks. If you’re a regular contributor to dev.mobi you’ll instantly see the benefit that this has when it comes to keeping track of your (hopefully) frequent posts. And if you’re not a regular contributor, then it can help you see if there has been a reply to your request for help or information, in one, simple page!
I should also note that the Tracker is most useful when you’re already logged in. It will work if you’re not, but you won’t get the full benefits!
Now, all this talk of feeds has made me hungry, so I’m off to find something suitably delicious to devour. Happy tracking!
Daniel
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