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<meta name="Author" content="Doug Turner">
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<title>Software Notifier - The RDF file description</title>
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<center><font size=+3>Software Notifier - The RDF file description</font>
<br><a href="mailto:dougt@netscape.com">Doug Turner</a></center>
<center>10 August 1999</center>
<h3>Introduction</h3>
<p>
First and foremost, this is a work in progress. This document will describe
what data is needed by Software Notifier to provide software update
notification via the sidebar and "Flash".
<p>
This document is not meant to describe the behavior of Software Notify, but rather
to describe what information is needed and how is should be formated so that Notify
can read it.
<br>
<h3>What is needed?</h3>
<p>
First things first. You are going to have to call your service something. This is a name
which will be displayed above any software packages you provide. For instance, if you are
"Marcie's Website of Updates", you may want to call yourself just that. A large company,
like Netscape, which may have many different services may want to distigush their service.
For instance, maybe their Plug-In Finder website wants to offer a Software Notification
service. The may name themselves "Netscape Plugins" (or whatever) This name is purely
up to you.
<p>
The next piece of information is a bit more structured. We need to know what software packages
your service offers. The following information is needed for <i>every</i> software package:
<pre>
A unique string.
The version registry key.
The version.
</pre>
<p>
This information needs to be assembled into an RDF datasource. This is just a
fancy way of saying that you need to put it into a special format. For more
information about RDF, take a look at the rdf
<a href="http://www.mozilla.org/rdf/doc/">documentation</a>.
<p>
Below is a simple RDF datasource that needs to be compiled. In red are the key
pieces of information that need to be provided. Each will be discussed.
<p>
<br>
<table BORDER COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#CCFFFF" >
<tr>
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<pre><tt>
&lt;RDF:RDF xmlns:RDF="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
xmlns:NC="http://home.netscape.com/NC-rdf#">
&lt;RDF:Bag about="NC:SoftwareUpdateRoot">
&lt;RDF:li>
&lt;RDF:Bag about="NC:SoftwarePackages" NC:title="<font color="#FF0000">Marcie's Updates</font>" NC:url="<font color="#FF0000">http://www.someurl.com</font>" >
&lt;RDF:li>
&lt;RDF:Description ID="<font color="#FF0000">AimUpdate344</font>">
&lt;NC:version><font color="#FF0000">3.4.1.12</font>&lt;/NC:version>
&lt;NC:registryKey><font color="#FF0000">/AOL/AIM/</font>&lt;/NC:registryKey>
&lt;/RDF:Description>
&lt;/RDF:li>
&lt;RDF:li>
&lt;RDF:Description ID="<font color="#FF0000">PGPPlugin345</font>">
&lt;NC:version><font color="#FF0000">1.1.2.0</font>&lt;/NC:version>
&lt;NC:registryKey><font color="#FF0000">/PGP/ROCKS/</font>&lt;/NC:registryKey>
&lt;/RDF:Description>
&lt;/RDF:li>
&lt;/RDF:Bag>
&lt;/RDF:li>
&lt;/RDF:Bag>
&lt;/RDF:RDF>
</pre>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>
<p>
<b>Bag about="NC:SoftwarePackages" NC:title="Replace Me"></b>
<blockquote>
This is where you would put your service's name. Simply replace what is in between
the quotes, with your service's name (ie. "Netscape Plugin Finder").
</blockquote>
<p>
<p>
<b>Bag about="NC:SoftwarePackages" NC:url="Replace Me"></b>
<blockquote>
This is where you would put your service's url. Simply replace what is in between
the quotes, with your service's url (ie. "http://www.someurl.com").
</blockquote>
<p>
<b>&lt;RDF:Description ID="IAmUnique"></b>
<blockquote>
This is a UNIQUE string which must be provided by you. It does not matter
how you come up with it, but it must be unique with respect to all of your
software updates.
</blockquote>
<p>
<b>&lt;NC:version>Replace Me&lt;/version></b>
<blockquote>
This is the version which is stored in the Version Registry. For more information
about the version registry, see: documentation that has not been written. ack!
</blockquote>
<p>
<b>&lt;NC:registryKey>Replace Me&lt;/registryKey></b>
<blockquote>
This is the key stored in the Version Registry. For more information
about the version registry, see: documentation that has not been written. ack!
</blockquote>
<p>
As you can see in the above example that there are two entries. You can have as many
as you would like. Just simply duplicate the structure and add your extra packages.
Mostlikely this file will be generate from a PDMS system.
<p>
Once this file is created, it needs to be placed somewhere on the network. Periodically,
it will be polled, and parsed.
<br>
<h3>What is next?</h3>
<p>
We may have to add additional entries in this RDF datasource. Some of which that I am thinking
about are platform and language. However, these depend on how the website would like to organize
there backends.
<p>
We also need to get documentation about how to add new RDF datasources from customers. For instance,
now you have this great RDF file which describes your offering, how do you get it into the sidebar
notification.
<p>Feedback is welcome <a href="mailto:dougt@netscape.com">here</a>.
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