Microformats in practice
One of the things I pushed out in my latest release of my themes (see previous post) is better support for various microformats.
So big whop. This is markup that most users of my themes may never even notice. I’ve been answering queries ever since implementing hAtom after someone suggested it on Andy’s blog (I can’t seem to put my finger on this comment). Comment found, thanks to Adam.
Now I came across this extension for Firefox called Operator, which is an extension that reads microformats on a page and then allows you to do all sorts of things with its toolbar. This little tool (by Mike Kaply) is exactly how to illustrate how microformats can (should?) be used.
This extension allows me to check the various microformats markup in my themes. Within its options, you can switch it to a Microformats view and also enable some non-default functions, such as hAtom-hFeed and hAtom-hEntry.
Pretty slick. It’ll also allow me to grab hCards (in various formats) straight from a webpage. I really thought that marking up the comment authors names in my themes’ comments.php files was a good idea. Have a look at a (randomly selected) sample:
Here’s the use. Comment authors are no longer reduced to being links. They can be people that you store, reference, and refer back to. Frequent commenters, instead of being strangers, and be referenced in your contacts. Etc. Now there’s XFN stuff in the Operator extension as well, which also does a good job of making use of the XFN relationships in blogrolls.
I haven’t figured out the “Bookmarks” function yet. I am assuming this is for the rel="bookmark" attribute, but it doesn’t seem to pick them up. Maybe I’m confused. Which wouldn’t be uncommon.
Anyhow, for more info read the release post on the Mozilla Dev Blog, Introducing Operator.
Jessica Doyle wrote:
Nice. I looked at that image and had to laugh out loud. looks like the majority of my readers are men.
The info is great Scott. Thank you for sharing what an h-card is and how to actually use it properly.
Posted 06 Mar 2007 at 4:22 am ¶
adam wrote:
very cool, i’ll have to check it out. live clipboard sounds fantastic.
that would be mr. messina.
Posted 07 Mar 2007 at 12:44 pm ¶
Scott wrote:
The man himself! Excellent. Thanks for finding that for me. I knew the suggestion had come across there, but couldn’t remember. Jeez, was that really nine months ago?
Posted 07 Mar 2007 at 12:49 pm ¶
adam wrote:
yeah. that makes more than one sandbox skin per month, though.
i can’t find the ‘on switch’ for hAtom… i’ve got my tags, and my hCards, my hResume….
Posted 08 Mar 2007 at 10:06 pm ¶
Scott wrote:
I don’t have the plugin here with me, but it is in there. In its Options, one of the tabs has “Tools” or something. You can click on “New” and then select hAtom-hEntry, or something like that. It took me a while to find it as well.
Posted 09 Mar 2007 at 10:15 am ¶
Jonathan wrote:
You know, there are a bunch of Jessica Doyle’s. I hate it when people don’t put their URI on their comments. I thinking of making it required on my site.
)
Scott, I’ve a question. I’m considering releasing my first theme to the public, and I’m very excited about microformats. If I jack the code you used to get your themes using microformats, and if I add a link to you at the theme URI, would that be kosher?
Posted 30 Mar 2007 at 9:01 pm ¶
Scott wrote:
Hey Jonathan: Yes, of course you can use the Sandbox for your own theme. That’s why it’s been released: to provide a solid, forward-friendly theme for folks. No need for the link, but I would definitely mention it in the enclosed readme. Some people might benefit from knowing from the get-go that the same classes have been used.
Posted 01 Apr 2007 at 1:01 pm ¶
Jonathan wrote:
Gracias!
Interesting, that ping looks almost like a splog. But all the content is scraped comments rather than articles. *snicker* That’ll get ‘em far.
Posted 02 Apr 2007 at 1:22 am ¶
Scott wrote:
Upon closer inspection, I think it was a splog. I hadn’t encountered trackback spam before. But hey, those spam people are in the spam business, so they probably know best.
Posted 02 Apr 2007 at 9:05 am ¶
Felix wrote:
Scott, i’ve tried your blog.txt theme and it adds rel=”category tag” items to Wordpress category links. It seems to me that microformats.org does not define that, only rel=”tag”. Is it defined somewhere else?
Posted 19 Apr 2007 at 5:19 am ¶
Help by Grace wrote:
Oh my god~ It’s Korean! wow can you speak Korean?
anyway I’m using the simplr , which you made. and I love it. It makes me concentrate on writing. thanks scott
Posted 27 Apr 2007 at 11:27 pm ¶
Elly wrote:
I love your theme. But I seen to have a problem with it. Video’s and photo’s are only seen at the homepage, not under categorized and archives. They just disappear.
I work with wordpress 2.3 and flash video player plugin.
Posted 21 Oct 2007 at 1:38 pm ¶