Tied into Project module XML export?

Boris Mann - March 2, 2008 - 22:33

Curious into how you are replicating the module list. We had done some testing of scraping (which works), but this is not ideal.

We've been looking to put time into the XML version of all projects -- here is the patch queue for that: http://drupal.org/node/157514

Ideally, we'll all work on these solutions together.

DOM parsing

John - March 3, 2008 - 00:33

I use PHP's DOM parsing capabilities. Essentially, the project pages are treated as XML, and the data is extracted as needed. It's a bit tricky, but works well enough for the time being. There's a little more info on the About page.

Of course, real XML would be much nicer :)

Right

Boris Mann - March 3, 2008 - 01:33

So it's screen scraping. Please help with the XML interface. And, for that matter, we really do want to have this functionality on Drupal.org directly. It would be great if you could jump in and lend a hand.

Thanks

John - March 3, 2008 - 02:24

I will take a look at the patch, for sure.

It's my personal belief that the community will be better served by an external project like this. Drupal.org serves its purpose very well as a support forum and issue tracker, but trying to squeeze a rating and review portal into it is probably not the best approach. A dedicated site like this can be much more flexible in the services it offers, and the features it implements.

Much like what ThemeGarden.org does for themes, and DrupalSites.net does for site showcasing, I envision DrupalModules.com as a thriving independent community for module ratings and reviews.

That said, I am very interested in working together with Drupal.org maintainers to help get the data to the people, and I'm happy to discuss collaboration and integration strategies :)