mDigger Service Community

Hello,

It would be great if MDigger can add Chinese newspaper channel.

Following are the popular HongKong newspaper webpage:

http://www.mingpaonews.com/

http://orientaldaily.on.cc/

http://www.singtao.com/

 

Hello,

Technically, we have no problem creating Chinese channels. The problem, however, is that we do not read Chinese and we do not know what sections of the website should be mobilized.

Sincerely,
mDigger Team

Hello again,

I would like to suggest a way of creating Chinese channels for mDigger. You may create them yourself by signing up as a Developer. All you need is a basic understanding of what XML is. Our website has detailed instructions and we are willing to help you with instructions, free developers' tools and samples. In fact, if you are interested, you may create your own online community of mDigger subscribers for Chinese content and create your own channels.

Please visit the link below for more information on how to become a Developer (for free).

http://www.mdigger.com/developers.aspx

Sincerely,
mDigger Team

I'm creating one for Yahoo HK News right now, but would like some suggestion: what size should I aim for the mClip? If it's too big, then it'll take up storage space and might use too much data. If it's too small, it'll show too few news articles.

For example, when I include all 5 pages of HK news articles, it's at 700-800KB.

Hello,

In principle 800 KB is not too much. It all depends how often new items appear on the source websites from which the mClips are pulling their information. Our developers will take a look at the 3 source sites you indicated (Yahoo Hong Kong) and we'll get back to you in the next couple of days with some tips concerning the size.

Thanks for your patience!
mDigger Team

Hello again,

We do have some mClips that are even several megabytes. It all depends on how much you (and others who will subscribe to your mClips) want to see included in the mClips.

By the way, we currently update mClips from news sources such as the ones you indicated, on an hourly basis. You can let us know how often you would like the mClips you make to be updated and we will try to accommodate your wishes.

When you are ready, please send us a link(s) to your mClips so that we can include them in our update schedule (and within our catalog).

In the meantime if our developers have any more tips, we will let you know.

mDigger Team

Hello again,

We're just wondering how it's going and if you need any further assistance with your mClips? Please send us links to your mClips so that we may include them in the scheduler to be updated.  Or if there are any other questions you have, please do let us know.

Thank you,
mDigger Team

Here are the links to the 2 mClips I've created:

Yahoo! 新聞 - 港聞 (Yahoo News - HK Local News)

http://www.mdigger.net/en/catalog/channel.aspx?cid=358082ec-7df7-46ad-becd-22fce32a8e2d

Yahoo! 新聞 - 本地娛樂 (Yahoo News - HK Local Entertainment News)
http://www.mdigger.net/en/catalog/channel.aspx?cid=31242d16-a895-4516-b427-c347d871bed3

Email sent to pub@mdigger.com or pub@mdigger.net both bounced as "User unknown".

Hello,

Sorry about that. We are checking into the problem. Thanks for letting us know.

mDigger Team

Hello

Thank you for sending the links to your mClips. They have been included in our scheduler and are being updated every hour. You can start using them now.  By the way, since we do not yet have a catalog for Chinese mClips, for now we will put your mClips in our English language catalog with a note that they are in Chinese. Is there any particular section(s) of our catalog you would like to see them in?

One last comment: no styles are specified in your mClip templates. This means that there might be problems with the formatting.

Here is a description of the formatting requirements:

1.       An mClip must be able to work fully in off-line mode. In other words, the final version mClip pages should not contain images, style tables, frame/iframe elements and other similar elements, which are loaded from external sites.

2.       If possible your mClip pages should abide by XHTML specifications. In particular the use of old tags such as font, center, u, etc. should be avoided.

3.       The mClip pages should use general style tables. You can do this by including the tag <link href="http://resources.mdigger.net/default.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /> in the page header.

4.       If possible, instead of using in-line styles, you should use the CSS classes that are predetermined in the general style table.

5.       An mClip page should include three main parts: a header, contents and a footer. They are highlighted by using the tags div with the identifiers mdheader, mdcontent, and mdfooter.  The header should contain information about the mClip; the footer should contain information about the source; and the contents should contain all the rest of the information.

6.       If possible the tables should not be used for formatting information – only for extracting data.

7.       Headlines for news items and articles should be highlighted by the h1 tag. Subtitles by the h2 tag, h3, etc.

8.       Meaningful elements within the mClip should be highlighted by using classes from the general style table. For instance: date (newsdate), author of the articles (author), list of news items (newslist)  and separate news (newsblock), images (art) and related signatures (artsign), etc.

Thank you!

mDigger Team

How about under the "News" -> "Asian News" section for now?

Thanks a lot.

I'll take a look at the style.

Hello,

The "News"> "Asian News" section is fine. The person that manages our catalog took a look at your channels. He's asked me to kindly ask you to make the following adjustments to them before they are published (these adjustments will help your channels to conform to the format used for the other channels, and helps us preserve a uniform appearance):

1) Please do add our CSS (described in our previous post).
2) Please add headlines (titles) for the items/articles
3) Please add dates to the new items (if possible).

Thank you!
mDigger Team