ROME.Mano, a few more feed handlers for the toolbox (echo-uploader, null and sort)

Echo handler echoes (returns back) a feed POSTed to the Mano servlet. An interesting use of the Echo handler is that together with a handler like the File handler it can be used to upload and store feeds for further retrieval (a *Feed Management System* anyone?).

Null handler discards the feed from the response and returns no content.

Sort handler sorts entries by title or published date, in ascendent (default) or descendent order.

The ROME.Mano toolbox has now 11 handlers. Some of them ready for real use, others are a proof of concept to show possibilities (a proper implementation is needed for serious usage).

The handlers in the toolbox follow the same philosophy of Unix commands, they do one thing, usual something simple, and the real power is when you combine them. It is not an accident that the way of invoking them looks like Unix commands piping, it was a deliberate design decision.

ROME.Mano, tracking feeds views and clicks

The ROME.Mano toolbox has a new handler (and pairing servlet), TrackingFeedHandler.

When the tracking handler is in the handler chain it rewrites the feed site URL and the entries link URLs to point to a tracking servlet. Then, when a user clicks on the links from within his/her reader application the tracking servlet logs the click action (plus some user information and the original URL) and redirects the user to the real URL. Pretty much what java.blog does when displaying the feeds, the difference is that this is done in the feed itself when served by Mano.

For some serious use some of the methods in the Tracking handler and servlet should be rewritten.

I've added to the documentation a small section explaining this and one of the examples, at the bottom of the documentation uses this new handler.

More handlers coming soon.