Right then, a small but meaningful update to the site today. I've added proper Atom feeds for both the blog and status updates, because RSS isn't the only game in town and frankly, some people prefer their feeds served a different way.
What's New
You can now grab the Atom feeds at:
- Blog feed:
https://ewancroft.uk/blog/atom - Status feed:
https://ewancroft.uk/now/atom
These sit alongside the existing RSS feeds, so you've got options depending on your feed reader's preferences or your own particular tastes.
A Bit of Housekeeping
While I was at it, I've also moved the old status RSS feed from /now to /now/rss to keep things consistent. The Atom feed lives at /now/atom, so now everything follows the same pattern. Makes sense, doesn't it?
The status feeds aren't prominently displayed on the website itself—they're more of a behind-the-scenes thing for those who know where to look or prefer to follow via their feed readers. No need to clutter the interface when the main blog feed gets most of the attention anyway.
Why Atom?
Honestly, it came down to providing choice. Some feed readers handle Atom better than RSS, and whilst the two formats serve essentially the same purpose, there are subtle differences in how they present content. Having both means you can pick whichever works best for your setup.
The implementation was straightforward enough—leveraging the same data sources as the RSS feeds but formatting them according to the Atom specification. Nothing groundbreaking, just good housekeeping and making the site a bit more accessible to different workflows.
Technical Bits
For those curious, both Atom feeds pull from the same AT Protocol data sources as everything else on the site. The blog feed grabs posts from my PDS via the WhiteWind collection, whilst the status feed pulls from my custom status update lexicon. Everything stays in sync automatically, which is rather the point of this whole setup.
The feeds include proper metadata, content summaries, and author information—all the bits you'd expect from a well-formed feed. Nothing fancy, just functional and standards-compliant.
That's All
A small update, but these little improvements add up. The site now offers both RSS and Atom feeds for both content types, everything's properly organised, and feed readers should have an easier time of things regardless of their preferred format.
Back to your regularly scheduled programming.