RSS Constructed. Gee, That Didn’t Take Long.
Posted August 14th, 2008 by Howard Tayler
Schlock Mercenary has finally embraced the promise of its premise and stepped into the twenty-first century. There is a Schlock RSS feed, which includes the strip, footnotes, and navigation buttons, and which can be consumed just about any way you want to consume it. As an avid LiveJournal reader let me point you at this link here where you can “friend” Schlock Mercenary and use LiveJournal’s comment system to discuss the strip.
The feed comes just in time, too. On August 28th Schlock Mercenary will be celebrating strip number 3000 after 3,000 consecutive days of no missed updates, no fillers, and no guest strips. That’s just two weeks from now.
I needed SOMETHING to brandish jubilantly, and an RSS feed will do. Although now that I do the math, I may have advance copies of Schlock Mercenary: The Teraport Wars to brandish as well. Throw in a few party hats and I’ll be all set.
And now, the FAQ:
Explore posts in the same categories: Site News, Internet, Merchandise, AdvertisersQ: What about ad revenue? There are no ads in the feed!
A: There is a “buy Schlock stuff” button under the comic. That ad pays really, really well.Q: No, seriously. Aren’t you going to lose ad revenue from this?
A: I’ll let you know. I don’t think so, though.Q: What isn’t included in the feed?
A: Well… it’s got the strip, it’s got footnotes, it’s got five buttons and two links to get you to appropriate places on the site… I’d say it has everything, but I know I’ve forgotten something.Q: Why did this take so long? What were you waiting for?
A: I thought that RSS had to be built in to my updater engine. This thought was shared by both of the two engineers I challenged with the project. This made it look daunting, to say the very, very least, and progress was glacial. The updater is scary. Fortunately a bright guy named Mark Shieh came along and volunteered. He pointed out that the whole thing could be built independently. Then he went and DID it. When I dared to say that it was great, he could stop, and I’d wait for updater engine changes before getting my “perfect world” feed, he rolled up his e-sleeves, dug back in, and made my “perfect world” feed. It didn’t take long. It took about three days. But we waited about three YEARS before properly starting the project.Q: Is Blogunder Schlock included in the feed?
A: No. The blog has its own feed at http://www.schlockmercenary.com/blog/index.php/feed/, including a comments feed at http://www.schlockmercenary.com/blog/index.php/comments/feed/Q: When will we see attorney drones again?
A: Right now, if you go re-read the archives in the correct places.Q: When will Schlock Mercenary: The Teraport Wars be available for pre-order?
A: At the end of this month. I’m waiting until I have advance copies in my hands.Q: You’re just making up questions now, aren’t you?
A: I’m trying to anticipate you people. It’s harder than it looks.
August 14th, 2008 at 9:46 am
3000 posts without a glitch? Way to taunt Murphy, Howard.
August 14th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Dunno if its just me; I’m having the last 50 pixels or so of each strip cut off to the far right. (using Firefox 2.0.0.16 on XP)
August 14th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Shivers: That’s not the feed. That’s the feed page, which is pre-formatted by feedburner. Once you start consuming the XML in another app you should be fine. Check it out on LiveJournal, for instance.
August 14th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Here’s the XML feed:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/SchlockRSS?format=xml
August 14th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
There have been glitches richv. He’s just found ways around them.
For example, posting the strip on his LiveJournal. :)
August 14th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Bravo for, and many thanks to Mark!
You do tend to attract devoted fans, Howard.
D.
August 14th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
I love how the comic is always in color, but of these almost 3000 strips so far, there are actually 12 days (that I can find) in black and white.
Oct 22-27, 2001: Diamond Beetle view on the Princess Tyola
Oct 7-12, 2002: Holovision re-enactment of the mutiny, it was a mood thing. The 2 Sundays bracketing it have color in it, so I’m not counting those.
And even when the comic is in black and white, it fits, yay for Schlock Mercenary!
August 14th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Okay… Now that the comic feed includes footnotes, I’ve subscribed to it, the blog feed and the comments feed. I was already subscribed to Schlock’s Twitter feed, so that makes four. I wasn’t previously subscribed to more than two feeds relating to any one site.
While reorganising my bookmarks, I discovered that the Archive Synopsiser hasn’t caught up to the fact that Book 1 is available now.
AlexS: Now I’m imagining Howard cosplaying as Vaarsuvius, saying:
August 15th, 2008 at 4:44 am
It felt really weird reading an announcement of a feed in a feed.
I know, I know - the original announcement was the other day, when I subscribed… but it still felt weird :)
August 15th, 2008 at 7:25 am
Many congrats on the upcoming 3000 days!
August 16th, 2008 at 5:41 am
Bug in the latest items in the feed: The items for the 14th, 15th & 16th have all been pointing to the front page instead of the comic page in question.
I like having the feed link to the comic page for 2 reasons: I always load the page in my browser so I can load the ads to support the site & see the full post and it is handy if I miss a day or two (or longer) I can just click on the oldest unread item and catch up.
August 16th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Hmm… I’m not seeing that. All the feed pages point to their dated pages on the website. More info about how you’re doing this?
August 16th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
The way the feed is configured, today’s page should point at the front page until 5PM PST. At 5PM, reloading the feed should result in an updated feed item that points to the dated comic page instead of the front page.
I was afraid this might happen, and I suspect it’s because the feed reader isn’t updating its earlier results. Can you tell me more about the feed reader you’re using, and whether you had checked schlock every day?