(Somewhat) Frequently Asked Questions
What's the pitch?
escaloop is a service that takes up to 20 of your RSS feeds, transforming them into a pretty list/badge/widget/gadget/whatnot for your homepage/website/blog. Said badge is a very short HTML snippet that doesn't change even if you change the list of feeds or the layout settings of the badge.
How does this work?
Actually, it's a quite simple (yet multistep) process.
- You set up a number of RSS feeds.
- You add the escaloop HTML code to your homepage/website/blog.
- When the page is viewed in a browser, a nice-looking and chronologically sorted list of your activities will appear.
- Profit!
Which services does escaloop support at the moment?
First and foremost: escaloop can deal with any RSS or Atom feed. If it doesn't recognize the origin, its items are "just displayed". Nothing will break or anything. If escaloop recognizes the feed, it will add the service icon in front of the item, and maybe display the item a little bit differently. LastFM items, for example, are listed as "Listened to X, Y and Z", instead of "Posted X, Y and Z".
That said, the current list (Jan 6th, 2008) of recognized services is as follows:
- del.icio.us
- Flickr
- Google Reader
- LastFM
- Livejournal
- Magnolia
- Pownce
- StumbleUpon
- Tumblr
- Vox
Where can I register an user account?
You can't. There are no user accounts. When you first set up your escaloop badge, you'll get a so-called "escaloop ID", which can be used to change or adjust your badge's configuration later on. Should you ever decide to come back, that is.
But... Why are there no user accounts? Wouldn't that be easier?
There's a long and a short answer to this. The short one is: I don't care who you are, I'm not interested in your data, and I'm too lazy highly pragmatic.
Wait, that was the long answer... I guess the real short answer would to "too much hassle". ;)
How does the escaloop ID work?
As mentioned, when you set up your badge for the first time, you'll get an unique escaloop ID. Now, this ID is bound to a public token, which is used in the escaloop HTML snippet. Token and ID are not identical. Also, it's not possible to compute the ID from the token.
So that means even though the public might learn your token by looking at the HTML code of your homepage/website/blog, it's useless for them, since they can't do anything with the token. Only s/he who knows the correct escaloop ID for that token can change the settings!
It's magical.
A word to the wise: Store the ID in a safe place, please -- without it you won't be able to retrieve your former settings when you come back and/or make changes!
Why are there two snippets, and not just one?
If you put both snippets in the same place, your page will stop loading as soon as the browser finds the second half of the escaloop snippet. It will load the escaloop files, and only when it's done, it'll continue to load your page.
So by having two snippets, the first acting as placeholder of sorts for the second, you get around that, because the second snippet is only executed when the page was already loaded.
What is escaloop built with?
The site was written in Ruby using the nice Ramaze framework. Most of the badge data collection is done using Yahoo! Pipes.
Wait, the badge is done using Yahoo! Pipes? What's going to stop me from stealing your Javascript and Pipes magic? HAHAHAHAHAOMG
Nothing. Well, nothing but your fear of the inevitable resulting self-loathing and doubt.
Quite frankly, escaloop (the site) works mostly as a frontend and TinyURL-like service for badge configuration -- it's not rocket science.
I've heard you work for Yahoo!, and you're using Yahoo! Pipes for escaloop, so is this an official Yahoo! project then?
No, this is definitely not an official Yahoo! site.
I've built this in my spare time, using free tools and frameworks to follow my great dream of achieving intellectual greatness (and piling up huge amounts of riches).
By my calculations, I'll only have to build a few hundred more sites like this to reach it. Joy!
I have added support for service XYZ to the escaloop badge (CSS and/or JS)! What now?
Wonderful! There's a good chance other people might be interested in it as well, so please let me know!
I'm interested in both service-related Javascript/CSS snippets and badge-related CSS styles.
Why "escaloop"?
Two reasons: Firstly, "escaloopr" sounds odd. Secondly, omitting a vowel and ending the name in "r" would reduce my street cred. Significantly.
Why is the site design so hilariously uninspired?
I'm a doctor, Jim, not a designer.
Incidentally this is also the reason why the CSS looks the way it does.
