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Utilities (Apple) Businesses Software Apple

Non-Apple Sherlock 3 Channels? 41

Posted by Cliff from the elementary-dear-watson dept.
AnamanFan queries: "I've been a bit curious about Sherlock 3 and the release of the Sherlock SDK. I wondered if there were any new channels out there, but my Googleing came up dry. There are a few nifty developer-related channels by Apple that feature an XPath Finder, as well as JavaScript, HTML, & XQuery interpreters, but I was wondering if anyone out there has made use of the SDK."
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Non-Apple Sherlock 3 Channels? More

Non-Apple Sherlock 3 Channels?

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  • massinova (Score:4, Informative)

    by rajiv ( 22307 ) on Tuesday December 03, 2002 @11:49AM (#4802271)
    massinova [massinova.com] has a sherlock 3 channel. i believe it was the first non-apple sherlock 3 channel. it was created months ago when the first version of the sherlock 3 sdk was posted, before it was pulled. check out the massinova extras [massinova.com].
    • I would highly recommend checking out this sherlock channel, web site, and the preference panel/menu bar item. Massinova is an extremely innovative concept with some clean and slick implementation. The Sherlock channel is still in develoment but shows the potential for developers wanting to create easy and enjoyable web services.
      • whats so great about it? I'm not being sarcastic here, just curious. I visited the website but couldn't get any idea of what they are actually doing. The website is horrible. I had reservations the second I had to click on the big massinova image just to enter. There was nothing anywhere obvious stating what it is they do.

        • why kick ass: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Bizzarobot ( 442358 )
          I completely agree that your last statement about there being nothing obvious about what it is they do needs to be addressed better on the website. This is the concept: A huge library of trance music set up as an online radio station run by listener requests. Imagine the tunes are slashdot comments and what gets played are the ones that get modded up (there is no modding down, it's simple; you like a song, you request it). You can also create favorites lists and retreive information about artists, albums, songs, etc. The user rating system allows you to view most popular songs, least popular songs, recently played, newly added, random, etc. Check out the Sherlock channel and you can see a much better layout (and an idea of what is to come). The fact that the information and functionality is exactly the same regardless what client/interface you use ("web service") is what makes the whole project very interesting. Automated, listener-controlled, online radio.

  • Apparently not (Score:2, Interesting)

    by MrAndrews ( 456547 )
    I've looked at making a channel myself in the past few weeks, but the astonishing lack of a community of developers who would have any knowledge of what I was doing make me rethink things. I wonder if the lack of channels is in any way a subconscious boycott on behalf of Watson...

  • Just a thought... Slashdot channel! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Steve Cowan ( 525271 ) on Tuesday December 03, 2002 @11:59AM (#4802382) Journal
    Wouldn't it be cool if... ...there was a Sherlock 3 Slashdot channel?

  • SDK is terrible, that's why... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sammaffei ( 565627 ) on Tuesday December 03, 2002 @12:20PM (#4802586)
    It wouldn't have to do with the fact that the SDK is probably the most convoluted, kludged thing I've seen in years. XQuery and Javascript? To gag...

    Watson's Cocoa based SDK is much easier to code for.

    I mean it's so fun that Apple hasn't even provided us with new channels. Watson is constantly being improved upon and getting new tools.
    • The only difference is that Sherlock is a much better app since it does it the way it's supposed to.
    • As much as I love Apple, I really have to agree on this one. The documentation sucks, to say the least. There's not one basic example of a channel provided. And JS and XQuery? I honestly didn't even realize XQ existed before this. Perl wuld be the perfect language to develop a channel in. *sigh*, maybe version 3.1.
      • Xquery is actually very nice. There are whole books on it. The "do a Perl hack" approach to everything isn't always that wise. (And there are XQuery implementations in Perl) If you are primarily dealing with XML data then XQuery is really the way to go. Further having Java interfaces is also quite nice. I can't speak to the API itself nor the documentation, but having web services based upon Java and XQuery makes me suspect Apple is doing it right. What they need now is a good O'Reilly book to explain how it all works. . .
        • CPAN tells no XQuery Perl modules exist: No matches [cpan.org].
        • This isn't a perl vs. xquery debate. For those who want to "do a perl hack", why can't apple provide a bridge? This is about letting a channel author choose the best tools for the task.
          Further having Java interfaces is also quite nice.
          WTF are you talking about? There's a huge difference between Java and JavaScript.
          What they need now is a good O'Reilly book to explain how it all works. . .
          Preach it brother!
          • Sorry, I said Java when I should have said JavaScript. And JavaScript isn't that bad. By limiting things to JavaScript it really relieves a lot of headaches for Apple in terms of security and so forth.

            I understand what you are saying about the limited language choices, but it is supposed to be a semi-limited product. If you are already using Perl and so forth why not simply have an application? Why embed it is Sherlock at all? You could whip up a front-end to the Perl with Obj-C and Interface Builder rather quickly.

            Admittedly Perl has nice datamunging functions, however if you read the links, you'd see that Apple has provided numerous extensions to both JavaScript and XQuery. Things like data-match and so forth. Further if you must use Perl, simply write a CGI script and call it with your JavaScript or XQuery. It can get data from any URL, after all.

            • And JavaScript isn't that bad.
              Maybe not in some cases, but it's not a language one would choose to write a plug-in with. JS just doesn't work well for channels. More on this at the end of this post.
              By limiting things to JavaScript it really relieves a lot of headaches for Apple in terms of security and so forth.
              I guess I don't get your point. Other languages can run in "sandbox" mode.
              I understand what you are saying about the limited language choices, but it is supposed to be a semi-limited product.
              That all depends on what you mean by "limited". For a channel, you have to use http to retreive info via the internet (XML or HTML), and then you have nearly every Aqua widget to use. That's not what I would call limited, even if it is "just a plug-in".
              ...Why embed it is Sherlock at all?
              Because Sherlock is Apple's push for web services front-ends. Sure there are plenty of eBay apps availible for Mac OS X, but most people are going to use the Sherlock channel do their "Aquified" auction searching.
              ...however if you read the links, you'd see that Apple has provided numerous extensions to both JavaScript and XQuery
              I have read all the documentation. Just because extensions are availible for the languages, that doesn't mean these languages are right for the job.
              Further if you must use Perl, simply write a CGI script and call it with your JavaScript or XQuery. It can get data from any URL, after all.
              Now you're jumping to a totally different subject. We're talking about channel programming languages, not server side programming.
              From WatertonMan's previous post:
              If you are primarily dealing with XML data then XQuery is really the way to go.
              Maybe, maybe not. I'd prefer Perl, but if XQ is your cup o' tea, more power to you. But wait! There's a lot more to writing a channel than parsing XML. The whole "interface" thing. The whole purpose of channel is to provide an Aqua interface. "But that's where JS comes in," you might be thinking. True, but shouldn't that tell us something when we need 2 languages to write a channel? Perl has the data munging features and an OO interface that would be perfect for programming the UI!
  • There's at least one: Victor Ng's Canadian 411 channel [weblogs.com]

    There are lots of comments on his trials with the new SDK as well.

  • I've got one (Score:4, Informative)

    by Victor Ng ( 18609 ) on Tuesday December 03, 2002 @01:28PM (#4803286) Homepage
    You can find my own Canada411 Sherlock channel with GPL source at:

    source:

    http://homepage.mac.com/vng1

    channel:

    sherlock://homepage.mac.com/vng1/Canada411/Sherl oc kChannel.xml?action=add

    I highly suggest you go to the Apple Sherlock dev mailing list. You can find it at lists.apple.com

  • Google channel (Score:2, Informative)

    by zdryer ( 22042 )
    Well, there is a Google channel [kstaken.org]. Not very good, but it works.
  • Have a look at dotmac's Sherlock Channel [dotmac.info]. It is very well done, as for the entire site by the way.

    And while you are there, go see my pictures [dotmac.info]... :-)

  • Fedex Channel (Score:3, Informative)

    by coty ( 26442 ) on Tuesday December 03, 2002 @05:29PM (#4805481) Homepage
    FWIW, I've hacked together a Fedex Channel [weblogs.com] for Sherlock 3. Even IMO, it pales by comparison to the Watson [karelia.com] Packages plug-in [karelia.com]. That said, Sherlock has the advantage of being built into MacOS X.

    I haven't done any Watson development, yet. (I'd like to give it a shot and compare it with Sherlock 3, when I get the time.) As noted above, Victor Ng has great notes on his experience with the SDK. As Victor notes, the most frustrating bit has to be the complete lack of feedback for even the simplest syntax errors. The developers of Watson have a brief, but informative comparison of the two SDKs [karelia.com], as well.

  • The SDK could be better, but reading the SDK together with the sources for Apple's own channels pretty much gives a developer most of what one could want. Granted, the sources for Apple's channels are not available, but using curl or HTTP GET shouldn't be too hard to get at the sources, especially on a Mac OS X box.

    Not having developed a channel for Watson, I cannot compare the two but it's hard to argue against Apple's choice of standards-based tools in Sherlock: XPath, XQuery and JavaScript (ECMAScript). Being part of the OS is a big win, too. Simply give a Mac OS X 10.2 user a sherlock: URI and they'll be able to access the channel without having to install a commercial third-party utility.

    Here's a multilingual channel into a bibliographic database "Plussa" (the actual libraries are in the Helsinki area.): Libplussa [sherlock]

    /. doesn't parse the URI so here it is again: sherlock://homepage.mac.com/uucee/sherlock3/libplu ssa.xml

  • Post in review: (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AnamanFan ( 314677 ) <anamanfan.everythingafter@net> on Wednesday December 04, 2002 @12:22AM (#4808033) Homepage
    I thought I'd give a review of the comments from this post:

    The common agreement is the the SDK could stand more improvement.

    The following are some of the channels that are available. Clicking will add them to your copy of Sherlock or link to the homepage of the channel:
    Canada 411 [sherlock]
    Google [kstaken.org] (not officially from Google)
    dotmac.info [dotmac.info]
    massinova.com [massinova.com]
    Libplussa [sherlock]
    FedEx Tracker [sherlock] (not officially from FedEx)
  • Wow, these sherlock extras are RAD. I'm actually using this damn thing now.
  • The RealBasic Garage, a repository of all things RB, has a Sherlock Channel [sherlock]. Note, that link is to ADD the channel. If you want to just visit the place, click here [rbgarage.com].

    If you are using Mozilla, then you might have to associate sherlock: with the Sherlock 3 app, just like you had to do with .cal files to iCal. I'm sure there's some super 1337 way of modifying the plist file, but I just started IE5.2, added it to the protocols preference and closed it. Mozilla picks those chnages up after quitting and re-opening the browser.

  • I recently made a sherlock 3 channel for the science/medical bunch. It is called "et al." You can try it at:

    GO HERE FOR LINKS TO TRY OR ADD [inshift.net]

    It searches PubMed (http://www.pubmed.gov) for journal articles released in medical and science journals. Real helpful for a student like me. Give it a whirl, and tell your science/medical/Mac friends about it.

    It is a work in progress, but it works. Look for a nice update in a couple of weeks to improve the interface and searching options.

  • I've created a site with a goal of bringing all 3rd party Sherlock Channels into one place. I put alot of effort into the UI. Check it out at http://sherlock.clan-mac.com/ [clan-mac.com].

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