A kind of organic engine (daerr) wrote in lj_nifty,
A kind of organic engine
daerr
lj_nifty

Yet another LJ OPML generator

LJ OPML Generator

Edit 2006-09-13: It's broken now, probably due to layout changes. You should use the improved version that uses the LJ API to pull down it's data:
Improved LiveJournal OPML Generator.

I've written one with the following features:
  • Doesn't need your password The newer one uses your password in a secure manner (it doesn't share it with my server)
  • Includes friends, communities and feeds.
  • Seperates friends, mutual friends, joined and watched communties and feeds.
  • Feed URLs are the actual feed not a livejournal.com URL.
  • Can optionally add auth=digest to all mutual friends and joined communities to facilitate reading friends-only posts in a news aggregator that supports authentication.
  • Ignores suspended users.
What it doesn't do:
  • Pull in the actual journal names.  It just uses the username as the title. Fixed in the newer one
It can only determine community membership if you leave “Hide "Friend of" list” unchecked. Fixed in the newer one

I should also note that all requests to the LJ server are cached for 30 minutes, so if you run it, change your friends list and run it again, you won't see the changes immediately.

There are several other LJ to OPML utilities out there.  First, the one in the memories doesn't exist any morehas moved to here, but is FOAF based.  This Russian one which doesn't handle feeds correctly (IMHO) and adds auth=digest to non-mutual friends.  This uses Greesemonkey and so is Mozilla specific.  This uses a FOAF data source which doesn't include communities or feeds. This Python based script is also FOAF based.  There's also a .NET based one kicking around that wants your password.

Edit: It was written in Mason. Source is here.

OPML (wikipedia) is the standard format for storing subscription lists for news readers/aggregators.

Having the ability to get your friends as an OPML file means that you can easily switch from reading your friends page to using a generic RSS/news reader.

Some news readers that support OPML are: Attensa (Outlook/Windows), Sage (Firefox), NetNewsWire (Mac), Pulp Fiction (Mac).
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