Well, after I saw Sprinkles' idea about web services, I started coding.
The idea of this plugin is to easily share information from the net with your contacts. For example, by typing "/xparse quote einstein" some quotes of einstein will be sended automatically.
Inspired by TB's talkers I decided to make it a very flexible plugin. People can make scripts to handle different websites. The plugin creates a Microsoft XML Domdocument object from a given url, and then the script can filter out the necessary information. Instead of talkers, I call these scripts 'parsers'. At the moment I created 4 different parsers:

• News parser, grabs the latest news headers from cnn
  
• Quote parser, grabs the Quotes of the Day from quotationspage.com, or searches for quotes when an argument is supplied
  
• Family guy quote parser, send random quotes from 'The family guy' to your contacts
  
• Msgweb news parser, quite useless maybe, but it gets the latest news from my website
  
• Azlyrics.com parser, search for lyrics
  
• dictionary.com, get the meaning of a word...
  
• Parser for http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/ to get the current time in all big cities

• what you think of this idea.
  
• what features you'd like to see in the final version.
  
• what parsers you think would be useful.
  
• who's interested in developing parsers
  
• what would be a good name for the plugin

code:

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sub info() 'purpose: give the config screen all the parser info
    engine.description = "Share more than 20,000 famous quotes with your contacts"
    engine.help = "This parser gets the quotes from http://www.quotationspage.com. When you don't supply a parameter the parser will show you the quotes of the day. Otherwise it'll do a search for the supplied text."
    engine.syntax = "<search (optional)>"
end sub

sub run()
    if trim(engine.argument) <> "" then
        url = "http://www.quotationspage.com/search.php3?homesearch=" & trim(engine.argument)
    else
        url = "http://www.quotationspage.com/qotd.html"
    end if
    engine.getXML cstr(url), "parse", true
end sub

'There is a regularity in the source code of the website:
'all quotes are between <dt> tags
'all authors are between <dd> tags, and are shown bold (with a <b> tag)
'with this information we can make the follow code:
'note that the xml object is data.xml

sub parse(xml) 'purpose: filter the xmlobject
    i = 0
    for each item in xml.getElementsByTagName("dt")
        if str = "" then
            str = item.Text & vbcrlf & "---" & xml.getElementsByTagName("dd").item.getElementsByTagName("b").item(0).text
        else
            str = str & vbcrlf & vbcrlf & item.Text & vbcrlf & "---" & xml.getElementsByTagName("dd").item.getElementsByTagName("b").item(0).text
        end if
        i = i + 1
    next
    engine.output cstr(str)
end sub

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this plugin would be great!
and what about a world clock?
could you put one on

That looks amazing, seriously... looks like lotsa code will be needed .

looks pretty cool..i like it

thx for your reactions, I just made a parser for azlyrics.com and dictionary.com. I'll now work on the "parser api" documentation and then upload a test version

edit:

quote:

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Originally posted by jameslives
this plugin would be great!
and what about a world clock?
could you put one on

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yea this looks great it looks like a lot of works gone into it.   Is there going to be some form of online database where people can upload there parsers for other people to access.  Then you could maybe have a 'Check for New Parses' button in the plugin.

I'll make a parser database at my website http://www.msgweb.nl

Sounds cool, how will people make the parsers?

quote:

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Originally posted by noelie


edit:

quote:

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Originally posted by jameslives
this plugin would be great!
and what about a world clock?
could you put one on

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Just made one for http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/, it took me only five minutes with the 'api' .  Maybe quite useless to get it from a website, because you could get the times straight from your own computer I guess. But it will be a nice example parser.

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quote:

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Originally posted by traxor
Sounds cool, how will people make the parsers?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dempsey

quote:

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Originally posted by traxor
Sounds cool, how will people make the parsers?

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Well i dont think they'ree need a dedicated program as its seems to be just a simple script, but saying that i spose a little prog to help could make it even easier to make them

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quote:

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Originally posted by noelie
. I was thinking about an extension to easily make them. This could be done by letting the user select the needed info from a treeview (Like FireFox's 'DOM Inspector')

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dempsey

quote:

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Originally posted by noelie
. I was thinking about an extension to easily make them. This could be done by letting the user select the needed info from a treeview (Like FireFox's 'DOM Inspector')

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Yea that would be cool, so would that mean even people without vb/js knowledge could make parses?  or would it just simplify it for those who know vb/js?

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you could maybe just make a tutorial on how to easily make the parsers, it would be simple enough really ...

quote:

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Originally posted by traxor
you could maybe just make a tutorial on how to easily make the parsers, it would be simple enough really ...

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This all looks great!

WOW!!!! Gonna be amazing! ... Looking forward for this!!! Good job, and good luck!!!

Good idea imo. Keep it up.

When will we be expecting the tutorial, or if its that basic and I can learn... Then I would make some parsers for a few sites or something, I'm willing to if you would like or w/e...

yea i'd like to make a few parsers too and also i could host an online parsers database thing if you want?  So new or updated parsers can be downloaded from within in the plugin?

btw what language are you making this in?

I've got a host that I never use and it has loads of space and unlimited bandwith, so, I could host as many as you please also...

Like I said, just need to learn...

Would it be possible to make it multi-lingual somehow?

quote:

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Originally posted by Dempsey
btw what language are you making this in?

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quote:

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Originally posted by traxor
I've got a host that I never use and it has loads of space and unlimited bandwith, so, I could host as many as you please also...

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quote:

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Originally posted by traxor
Would it be possible to make it multi-lingual somehow?

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Originally posted by traxor
When will we be expecting the tutorial, or if its that basic and I can learn...

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if u do want an online db thingee let me know, ive got 12GB webspace, that should be enough

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Originally posted by noelie
Well, as far as the main plugin, it doesn't contain that many text (see screenshot). Also it's a bit unrealistic that all parsers will be written in several languages. So I don't think it would be useful to translate the main plugin.
But of course I could make a parser for a babelfish a like translation site.

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quote:

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If it doesn't contain that much text, it would be easy to translate or w/e... There are a lot of dutch and french users of plus! and many other people that use plus! in different languages, and it may be helpful to have several parsers that are different languages or w/e...

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Seems like a good tutorial to me, but the <textarea>'s shouldn't have the same coloured background, make it a different colour, its a little confusing, other than that .

quote:

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Originally posted by traxor
Seems like a good tutorial to me, but the <textarea>'s shouldn't have the same coloured background, make it a different colour, its a little confusing, other than that .

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quote:

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Originally posted by noelie

quote:

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Originally posted by traxor
Seems like a good tutorial to me, but the <textarea>'s shouldn't have the same coloured background, make it a different colour, its a little confusing, other than that .

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That's because it isn't a <textarea> , just refresh, I changed it

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you can just make vbs files in any text editor

quote:

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Thats much better, so do you need visual basic to do this, or can you do it in notepad and save it as a *.vps or whatever?

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Question: Can parsers contain user entered variables (Thinking back to the cinema example, this wouldn't work unless the user could enter the cinema name (http://www.sprinkles.me.uk/odeonxml.php?cinema=User Cinema))

edit: stupid question, just read the tut

i like the name Web Services, but although it says what it does, i think it sounds a bit boring lol, maybe soemone can think of a better name

quote:

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Originally posted by Dempsey
i like the name Web Services, but although it says what it does, i think it sounds a bit boring lol, maybe soemone can think of a better name

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MEWS is a great name!

I attached an installer for the test version.

This version is only for testing purposes!

(didn't have much time to test it, so don't blame me 2 much if it doesn't work...) Got to go now

Edit: I updated the installer, bit uglier but seems to work fine!

doesnt work for me
get runtime errors when i start msn

Whenever I start msn messenger with the web services plugin installed, I get the following error:



Versions:
Windows Version: Windows XP, 5.01.2600
Messenger Client Version: 7.0.0425
Messenger Plus! Version: 3.40.0112

AWESOME!!!!
Works fine for me but i can't acces your parser tutorial and other pages

P.S. echt goede plugin man!

thx cr@nk yeah the url's aren't set to the right page, thanks for reminding me.
I'll check why the others get the error..

Great Plugin Noelie !
Noelie just sent it to me with a different installer, and it worked fine with that.

this is great it works fine

good to hear it's working now. I still need to repair some things (like share a parser, and the internet links). Tell me when you think there are any features missing. Also I'd like to know whether anyone is willing to make a translation file for French & Spanish, or other languages.

still not working fine for me

EDIT:

just regsvr32'ed the dlls and it works fine now, nice plugin

Updated the installer again
http://shoutbox.menthix.net/attachment.php?pid=379120

Juzzi I can help with the spanish version, PM me.

Updated the installer again, when a parser returns messages too long to fit into a single message, it's split into multiple messages now.

leito, I would be pleased (I pm you tomorrow)

so basically in this sense u can have a block checker ?

lets say you have a common host server website that has the block checking thing on it, then u just insert the email and it will show u if there online or not. this is possible with this web plugin right?

but keep it going!

quote:

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Originally posted by OWNd742
website that has the block checking thing on it

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for crap sakes i still want one, i dont care if it is unreliable it still gives us a 50 50 chance to see if they really are offline....

I can help with French, PM me.

quote:

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Originally posted by OWNd742
for crap sakes i still want one, i dont care if it is unreliable it still gives us a 50 50 chance to see if they really are offline....

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Thank you Cuberdude, don't need any blockchecker talk in this thread...

If you think it's technically possible, make one yourself.
-end of subject-

Nice plug-in.

As for a name how about:
Web Parser Plus.
Parser Plus.

Looks like you have found a name already though.

Again nice plug-in

Oh, didn't happen upon this thread until now. It's great, I'll gotta test it

quote:

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Originally posted by xsRush
Nice plug-in.

As for a name how about:
Web Parser Plus.
Parser Plus.

Looks like you have found a name already though.

Again nice plug-in

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quote:

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Originally posted by KeyStorm
Oh, didn't happen upon this thread until now. It's great, I'll gotta test it

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sometimes when i load msn (since i installed plugin) it comes up with about 5 errors from your plugin and some other plugins then they are all disabled.

You should have the installer find download all the dependencies, like SPNG.

I'd like to know now whether anyone has had problems with the latest installer (you can always pm me), as well as any problems with the plugin itself. This because I'm planning to release it at the end of this week. Feature suggestions are always welcome as well.

Sometimes (hardly ever) when i click a function for this plugin in the plugins menu it doesnt insert the '/'
could be my msn though

Does the azlyrics parser search by artist aswell, or is it just lyrics?
If not, i think there should be one that finds lyrics by artist

it returns the first lyric that it finds with the given keywords. So you can supply artist & lyrics, like: "Eminem like toy soldiers" or "lopez get right" etc. When you only supply an artist name, how should we know what song you want the lyrics for?

Could a currency coverter be possible?

great idea, but place parser ideas
here

Hmm this doesn't really work on Plus! 3.50.0120 (Beta)

The /xmews doesn't seem to work, and the /xparse doesn't work either...

quote:

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Originally posted by SyPhEr
Hmm this doesn't really work on Plus! 3.50.0120 (Beta)

The /xmews doesn't seem to work, and the /xparse doesn't work either...

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You cant download that version, its currently it private beta testing

quote:

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Originally posted by Juzzi

quote:

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Originally posted by SyPhEr
Hmm this doesn't really work on Plus! 3.50.0120 (Beta)

The /xmews doesn't seem to work, and the /xparse doesn't work either...

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Where can I download that version? Anyway, does the plugin show up in the menu, and does /xmewsconfig work (as well as the try command button)?

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XML Document moet een element hebben op het hoogste niveau

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quote:

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-2147417843 Automation Error

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