`Serializing' a Weblog
This isn't a bug, but rather a `feature suggestion'. I hope it is ok to put it here.
I'd like the facility to dump my whole Antville Weblog in some `serialized' format. This would allow me to keep a backup of the whole thing for many different purposes.
Of course, it would be extra terrific if a serialized Weblog could also be uploaded, but that is probably asking for too much...
Goldchen
a "serialized weblog" - sounds like a threat not like a pleasure ...
tobi Verwaltung
i think the rss feed is a serialized representation of an antville weblog (at least of what's on the main page at a given time). it sounds pretty technical and the topic rather belongs to the project weblog.
generally, i would describe serialization as the process of generating a storable representation of a value. as a mere theoretical example the text of this comment (which is a value) could be serialized e.g. by putting it in a text file, together with information about its creator, creation time, parent story and so on (however, usually serialized data appears as binary code). vice versa, the serialized comment can be re-transformed into this text.
tobi Verwaltung
it's true, antville should provide a possibility to export a weblog's data as well as import data from other weblog tools. question is just: which format should we use? (btw. i think we rather should discuss this here.)
DNess
I think you express quite exactly what I intended by my question/suggestion. It seems to me that the `answer' to the format question is: `It doesn't matter much, so long as the basic data is ASCII, and thus directly processable by ASCII editors as well as python, perl, etc. Processing programs can probably deal with just about any particular format so long as it is reasonably consistent and not too prolix and obscure.
The important thing for me, just to make the case specific, is that if I use Antville to collect my ideas, then I want, periodically, to be able to `dump' all of the data that has been collected back to my home machine where I can process it etc.
One can also envision `services' built on this foundation such as automating messages that might call the attention of some specific members to contributions made by others without doing all of the work by hand. While Antville might, itself, evolve such a capability, it seems unlikely to me that Antville would want to support _all_ of the different services that various users might want to employ.