Org publish syndication

[Matthew Lundin <mdl@imapmail.org>]

I have been trying to get a better handle on emacs lisp and thought I
might cut my teeth on an add-on for org-publish that would syndicate
xml and/or rss feeds for org-publish projects and/or individual
files/directories.

Because of its rich markup, org-mode has the potential to be a
wonderful platform for creating syndicated content. I'm intrigued by
the ideas behind blorg.el, but am not sure if that project is dead.
(Any updates would be greatly appreciated!)

For now, I simply want to code something that will create
chronological feeds of headings (+ optional content) with the most
recent inactive timestamps, either for the entire project or for
individual pages. (I think this would be a nice way for people to get
quick updates on current projects. E.g., if I flip an item to DONE, it
would pop to the top of the feed.) One could optionally create fields
of upcoming deadlines and scheduled items based on active, rather than
inactive, timestamps.

My own interest in this is to create announcement feeds for classes I
teach. E.g., my students could subscribe to feeds that update them
with news and relevant new content. Another idea: an option of
generating blog-style html pages that aggregate timestamped content
from several pages.

My current plan is to control options through a
org-publish-syndicate-alist that would offer the possibility of
generating different feeds based on specified tags, TODO keywords,
pages, directories, and/or category. (Not sure if I'll have use of
these, but it would be nice, for instance, to be able to create a feed
based on items in the subdirectory "western-civ" with the todo-keyword
FEED, which would be setup to generate a timestamp.)

I think this would also have the potential to aggregate tag content
for an entire site: i.e., a possible option of creating individual
feeds and index pages for all tagged content in a project, with x
number of items per page/feed. 

Any thoughts/feedback? 

- Matt

P.S. Let me warn you in advance that I'm doing this as a way of
educating myself about emacs lisp, so please don't expect any quick
progress.

----
Matt Lundin
http://faculty.valpo.edu/mlundin/