Woo! Microformats!

[the_eggwhite]

Huzzah!

I've just implemented the hCard and the hCalendar microformats in a site. Okay, so it's only a prototype, but hey... They'll probably carry over to other things too.

I'm at the stage where I can get the firefox operator add-on to pick them properly, and if I use Technorati's converter tools I can import them into Outlook. If I don't use the converters, well, I can do whatever operator does.

For hCard contacts this means I can download a vCard import it into my address book of choice.
For hCalendar this means I can add it to my google calendar.

Microformats will start springing up more and more, I think. They're supremely cool, easy to implement and incredibly useful when they exist and you have the tools to support them. I expect many, many browsers to support them natively in the near future.

Edit: There's also a bookmarklet here:
http://leftlogic.com/lounge/articles/microformats_bookmarklet
Make it a bookmark and stick it on a toolbar. Click it and it'll tell you if your current page has any microformat stuff in it.

Comments

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

I haven't looked in detail but it does indeed look rather cool. I will put aside some time to investigate this further and hopefully use and evangelise it :)

[eggwhite.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm going to arbitrarily assume that you're a firefox user and suggest that you grab the add-on that I mentioned above. A lot of "Web 2.0" style sites are already stealthily implementing microformats without telling anyone - and that extension will give you a hint when they're in use...

At the conference I was at last week, there was even discussions about whether microformats should just be implemented in sites by default, without even bothering to discuss it with clients...

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

You're correct - I'll look into it when I have a moment ;)

[duana.livejournal.com]

Is that post in English?!

[eggwhite.livejournal.com]

It's written in much more natural english than the Microformats documentation!

Basically, it's a set of standard ways to write HTML code for certain types of information. If the HTML is written in this way, then software that understands Microformats can go in and grab the information and use it to do things, rather than it just being text on a page.

As an example:

The following is coded up as an hCard (hastily, untidily & without any style). If you have one of the tools I listed in my post installed, you'd be able to just add this straight to your address book.

Eggwhite

Web designer, Eggbox.org.uk

spambucket@eggbox.org.uk

This hCard created with the hCard creator.