[XML-SIG] Useless fun thing for XML - comments or helpers?

[Sean Mc grath]

Mark,

I am very glad to help on the XML side. What is more, if you wish,
I can include the XML application as a Python/XML example in my next book
which I am currently working on. Why don't we do it all here on the
XML-SIG.

At 02:58 PM 9/3/98 +1000, you wrote:
>For no good reason at all, I am toying with the idea of the following little
>mini-project.  If you dont use MSWindows, and/or dont use MSIE, then read no
>further!
>
>MSIE has the concept of "Favorites" (Bookmarks in Netscape speak) built in
>at the Operating System level.  It is really quite trivial - a special
>folder (directory) called "Favorites" exists, and this is filled with normal
>Windows95 "shortcuts".  If this folder contains sub-folders, then these are
>shown as sub-menus on the favorites menu.
>
>It has bothered me for a while that this makes it quite hard to "publish"
>(or even archive) the Favourites.
>
>So my idea for a mini project is:
>* Python code can locate and traverse this "favorites" directory.  It can
>use the Windows "shortcuts" API to determine the underlying URL, and other
>attributes (such as the time the link was last updated, etc).
>* The above code can generate XML - the attributes for each shortcut can
>appear in the XML.
>* Code can be written to format the XML into pretty HTML, so people could
>publish their favorites, as seemed to be common a while ago
>* Later code could be written to parse an existing XML file, and update the
>favorites themselves.  This would allow me to send my favorites to someone
>else, and have them imported locally, for example.
>
>As I said, a fairly useless little tool, but does appear to me to be a
>reasonable starting point to get me going with XML (and at the same time
>beef up Python's Win95 shell integration features :-)  The main benefit is
>some direct XML experience.
>
>Anyone care to help with this?  Im happy to do all the Windows specific
>stuff, but the XML stuff will no doubt cause me to struggle somewhat...Two
>minds are better than 1, even if they are both clueless :-)
>
>Mark.
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>XML-SIG maillist  -  XML-SIG@python.org
>http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/xml-sig
>
>
Sean Mc Grath
http://www.digitome.com/sean.htm
+353 96 47391

"Imagine a world without hypothetical situations..."