Yeah, I guess it has been a little while since I last looked at the RSS protocol handler. There have been a number of reasons. Let me list them for you, I can tell you're dying to know.
- Real Life.
- Work.
- The release of WDS 2.6.6
- The release of Visual Studio 2005 SP1
- The release of IE7, and therefore the RSS Platform, which might mean a breaking change to the beta SDK I was going to be using
- The feeling that I needed to reset my VPC and start again. I'd just fiddled with too many registry settings.
I mean, who relishes the thought of having to do that much VPC maintenance? I intended to get round to it, but we all know about good intentions and roads being paved, etc. But I've had an email (thanks Sanin) that's given me a prod, so I'm updating my VPC even as we speak.
Adding more fuel to my laziness, the MSDN docs have been updated. The 3.x docs are still pitiful, but the 2.x ones are much more interesting. I expected them to be pretty much a copy of the old MSN docs, but there's more stuff. There's more info on querying the index (including the WDS Browser Helper Object, which allows a website to perform a query via script).
And then there's a whole heap of interesting goodness about "Developing Protocol Handler Add-ins". Not masses of new information, but a couple of useful snippets that mean changes to what I've already covered, such as:
Note
When you want to add a new data store, you'll need to select a name to identify it that does not conflict with current ones. We recommend this naming convention: companyName.scheme.
Which of course makes sense, but means I've got to go back and change it. This really isn't helping. But the real kicker is in the section on installing and registering protocol handlers. This version of the docs details what registry keys to write. It doesn't mention using the COM object to register at all. I don't know why, but I have a sneaky suspicion it's because the COM object doesn't register the protocol handler in HKLM, only HKCU, so other users won't get it. And looking into that was going to be awkward, seeing as I'd already registered.
See what I mean? Lots of little housekeeping jobs to do.
And perhaps more importantly, I was beginning to bore myself with those articles. They were just a little bit dry and preachy. I needed to write some code. I needed to make use of that lovely syntax highlighter plugin for Windows Live Writer. More than that, I needed a Plan.
I think I've got one now. But first, that housekeeping.
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