RSS.Style switched from XSLT to Javascript « Tabulator Rave

I originally wrote RSS.Style using XSLT, but Google, as the malevolent friend of the open web, is deprecating XSLT (flamewar on Hacker News). So I switched to JavaScript, which (as far as I can tell) works everywhere.

It is pretty easy to add: just a single line to the XML of your RSS/Atom feed: you don’t need to host the script (though you can if you want to: it is MIT licensed).

I feel that RSS and Atom are being held back by the poor (or non-existant) user experience for new users. Try to put yourself in a new user’s place:

• You are reading an interesting blog post, and want to read more from that author.
• You see an orange icon next to a “follow” or “subscribe” link. That sounds promising!
• You click it.
• You get a wall of XML text. Or worse: a “Save As” dialog!
• You have no idea what to do next.
• You give up and move on to the next cat video.

Or even worse:

• You are reading an interesting blog post, and want to read more from that author.
• You don’t see any “follow” or “subscribe” links.
• You look for Facebook/LinkedIn/etc links, and try to follow them there.
• So much for the open web.

For some reason, technical people just don’t seem to get this. RSS and Atom are not just for technical people. They are for everyone. So the user experience needs to be simple and easy to understand.

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