A while ago I promised to say how an xsltproc Meddler script would be useful and the general answer is
its useful for hooking up a client application that wants data from the web in a particular XML format and the data is available on the web but in another XML format. The specific case for this
post is a Flickr Search service that includes IE8 Visual Search Suggestions. IE8
wants the Visual Search Suggestions XML format and Flickr gives out search data in their Flickr web API XML format.
So I wrote an XSLT to convert from Flickr Search XML to Visual Suggestions XML and used my xsltproc Meddler script to actually apply this xslt.
After getting this all working I've placed the result in two places: (1) I've updated the xsltproc Meddler script to include this XSLT and an XML file to install it as a search provider - although you'll need to edit the XML to include your own Flickr API key. (2) I've created a service for this so you can just install the Flickr search provider if you're interested in having the functionality and don't care about the implementation. Additionally, to the search provider I've added accelerator preview support to show the Flickr slideshow which I think looks snazzy.
Doing a quick search for this it looks like there's at least one other such implementation, but mine has the distinction of being done through XSLT which I provide, updated XML namespaces to work with the released version of IE8, and I made it so you know its good.
The new Zune software has podcast support which does everything I'd want to do with a
Win MCE recorded TV series so the goal is to shoehorn a TV series into a Zune podcast. An overview of the steps: Create an XSLT that converts Win MCE data to a podcast, run the XSLT as a scheduled
task every few hours per TV series, setup a Web server pointed at the resulting podcasts and the Win MCE Recorded TV directory, and subscribe to the resulting podcasts in the Zune software.
C:\windows\system32\wscript.exe C:\users\dave\bin\xsltproc.js C:\Users\Dave\Documents\trunk\development\mce-zune\mce-to-podcast.xslt
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\eHome\Recording\Recordings.xml --param title "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" --param max 4 --param baseURI "http://groucho/" --param thisRelURI "tds.xml" -o
"D:\recorded tv\tds.xml"
var createNewXMLObj = function() {
var result = new ActiveXObject("MSXML2.FreeThreadedDOMDocument");
result.validateOnParse = false;
result.async = false;
return result;
}
var args = WScript.arguments;
var ofs = WScript.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");
var xslParams = [];
var xmlStyle = null;
var xmlInput = null;
var inputFile = null;
var outputFile = null;
var error = false;
for (var idx = 0; idx < args.length && !error; ++idx)
if (args.item(idx) == "-o") {
if (idx + 1 < args.length) {
outputFile = ofs.GetAbsolutePathName(args.item(idx + 1));
++idx;
}
else
error = true;
}
else if (args.item(idx) == "--param" || args.item(idx) == "-param") {
if (idx + 2 < args.length) {
xslParams[args.item(idx + 1)] = args.item(idx + 2);
idx += 2;
}
else
error = true;
}
else if (xmlStyle == null) {
xmlStyle = createNewXMLObj();
xmlStyle.load(ofs.GetAbsolutePathName(args.item(idx)));
}
else if (xmlInput == null) {
inputFile = ofs.GetAbsolutePathName(args.item(idx));
xmlInput = createNewXMLObj();
xmlInput.load(inputFile);
}
if (xmlStyle == null || xmlInput == null || error) {
WScript.Echo('Usage:\n\t"xsltproc" xsl-stylesheet input-file\n\t\t["-o" output-file] *["--param" name value]');
}
else {
var xslt = new ActiveXObject("MSXML2.XSLTemplate.3.0");
xslt.stylesheet = xmlStyle;
var xslProc = xslt.createProcessor();
xslProc.input = xmlInput;
for (var keyVar in xslParams)
xslProc.addParameter(keyVar, xslParams[keyVar]);
xslProc.transform();
if (outputFile == null)
WScript.Echo(xslProc.output);
else {
var xmlOutput = createNewXMLObj();
xmlOutput.loadXML(xslProc.output);
xmlOutput.save(outputFile);
}
}/* 2> NUL
@echo off
cscript /e:javascript /nologo "%~f0" %*
@goto :eof
Hello World
Says 'Hello world.' when you run it.
*/
var outText = 'Hello world.';
WScript.Echo(outText);C:\Users\davris>helloworld
C:\Users\davris>/* 2>NUL
Hello world.
C:\Users\davris>helloworld
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.7
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Hello world.
Some rights reserved