Having not posted a progress log for a couple of weeks, people are probably wondering what we have been doing. Well, we have done a lot of work on bringing our code ‘up to standard’ in terms of WordPress coding standards, fixing over 2000 ‘errors’ in the process. That took a while, but it had to be done, and will now be much easier to maintain.
We have also been working on our extensions platform, which should allow people to create extensions in a short period of time, regardless of whether they are using an RSS, OAuth API or standard API data source. We have began compartmentalising the import scripts, which should essentially allow anyone to copy an import structure from another extension to their own extension, for which the data source functions in a similar way. The last sentance will make much more sense when we get round to writing our documentation. It is then a simple matter of pointing some variables at data, and voila. More data in the database. More sharing. More caring.
We have also cracked oembed, allowing API’s which support the standard to display content directly in the activity feeds.
Oh, and we also made a SlideShare extension, which can be used to pull in content from SlideShare, and all the user has to do is enter their SlideShare username.
Over the coming weeks we have two tasks; Make some more extensions for the more popular OER providers (It’s a shame JORUM don’t seem to have their API up and running yet) and produce custom RSS feeds so the data collected from Bebop can be consumed into other services, such as our Staff Directory. This will also provide a way for people to follow content posted by people as it is added to Bebop.
Don’t forget to check out the photos and leave us some feedback.
