Lotus
This gem implements federated protocols which let your website connect and interact with any website implementing a federated space. Users of a federated service can communicate, produce and consume with users of all sites within that federation as one large community while also allowing them to host such websites on their own servers or choice of hosting provider. Specifically, this gem deals with handling the data streams and the technologies that are related to Lotus/pump.io such as ActivityStreams, PortableContacts, Webfinger, PubSubHubbub, and Salmon.
One such application of this library (in its older form) is rstat.us, which is a Twitter-like service that you can host yourself.
Usage
Currently, only the immutable interface is available.
require 'ostatus'
= Lotus::Author.new(:uri => "https://rstat.us/users/wilkie",
:email => "[email protected]",
:name => "wilkie")
blog_post = Lotus::Activity.new(:activity => :post,
:title => "Lotus gem",
:actor => ,
:content => "Long blog post",
:content_type => "text/html",
:id => "1",
:uri => "http://blog.davewilkinsonii.com/posts/ostatus_gem",
:published => Time.now)
feed = Lotus::Feed.new(:title => "wilkie writes a thing",
:url => "http://blog.davewilkinsonii.com",
:rights => "CC0",
:hubs => ["http://hub.davewilkinsonii.com"],
:authors => [],
:published => Time.now,
:entries => [blog_post])
To generate an Atom representation:
feed.to_atom
To generate a collection of Lotus objects from Atom:
Lotus.feed_from_url("https://rstat.us/users/wilkieii/feed")
Object Documentation
Feed
The Feed is the aggregate. It holds a collection of entries written by a set of authors or contributors. It's the container for content.
Usage
= Lotus::Author.new(:name => "Kelly")
feed = Lotus::Feed.new(:title => "My Feed",
:id => "1",
:url => "http://example.com/feeds/1",
:authors => [])
Fields
id => The unique identifier for this feed.
url => The url that represents this feed.
title => The title for this feed. Defaults: "Untitled"
title_type => The content type for the title.
subtitle => The subtitle for this feed.
subtitle_type => The content type for the subtitle.
authors => The list of Lotus::Author's for this feed.
Defaults: []
contributors => The list of Lotus::Author's that contributed to this
feed. Defaults: []
entries => The list of Lotus::Activity's for this feed.
Defaults: []
icon => The url of the icon that represents this feed. It
should have an aspect ratio of 1 horizontal to 1
vertical and optimized for presentation at a
small size.
logo => The url of the logo that represents this feed. It
should have an aspect ratio of 2 horizontal to 1
vertical.
categories => An array of Lotus::Category's that describe how to
categorize and describe the content of the feed.
Defaults: []
rights => A String depicting the rights of entries without
explicit rights of their own. SHOULD NOT be machine
interpreted.
updated => The DateTime representing when this feed was last
modified.
published => The DateTime representing when this feed was originally
published.
salmon_url => The url of the salmon endpoint, if one exists, for this
feed.
links => An array of Lotus::Link that adds relations to other
resources.
generator => An Lotus::Generator representing the agent
responsible for generating this feed.
Activity
Something that is done by a person. It has a verb, which suggests what was done (e.g. :follow, or :unfollow, or :post) and it has an object, which is the content. The content type is what the entity represents and governs how to interpret the object. It can be a :note or :post or :image, etc.
Usage
entry = Lotus::Activity.new(:type => :note,
:title => "wilkie's Daily Update",
:content => "My day is going really well!",
:id => "123",
:url => "http://example.com/entries/123")
Fields
:title => The title of the entry. Defaults: "Untitled"
:actor => An Lotus::Author responsible for generating this entry.
:content => The content of the entry. Defaults: ""
:content_type => The MIME type of the content.
:published => The DateTime depicting when the entry was originally
published.
:updated => The DateTime depicting when the entry was modified.
:url => The canonical url of the entry.
:id => The unique id that identifies this entry.
:activity => The activity this entry represents. Either a single string
denoting what type of object this entry represents, or an
entire Lotus::Activity when a more detailed description is
appropriate.
:in_reply_to => An Lotus::Activity for which this entry is a response.
Or an array of Lotus::Activity's that this entry is a
response to. Use this when this Activity is a reply
to an existing Activity.
Author
This represents a person that creates or contributes content in the feed. Feed and Activity can both have one or more Authors or Contributors. One can represent a great deal of information about a person.
Usage
= Lotus::Author.new(:name => "wilkie",
:uri => "https://rstat.us/users/wilkie",
:email => "[email protected]",
:preferredUsername => "wilkie",
:organization => {:name => "Hackers of the Severed Hand",
:department => "Software",
:title => "Founder"},
:gender => "androgynous",
:display_name => "Dave Wilkinson",
:birthday => Time.new(1987, 2, 9))
Fields
:name => The name of the author. Defaults: "anonymous"
:id => The identifier that uniquely identifies the
contact.
:nickname => The nickname of the contact.
:gender => The gender of the contact.
:note => A note for this contact.
:display_name => The display name for this contact.
:preferred_username => The preferred username for this contact.
:updated => A DateTime representing when this contact was
last updated.
:published => A DateTime representing when this contact was
originally created.
:birthday => A DateTime representing a birthday for this
contact.
:anniversary => A DateTime representing an anniversary for this
contact.
:extended_name => A Hash representing the name of the contact.
:formatted => The full name of the contact
:family_name => The family name. "Last name" in Western contexts.
:given_name => The given name. "First name" in Western contexts.
:middle_name => The middle name.
:honorific_prefix => "Title" in Western contexts. (e.g. "Mr." "Mrs.")
:honorific_suffix => "Suffix" in Western contexts. (e.g. "Esq.")
:organization => A Hash representing the organization of which the
contact belongs.
:name => The name of the organization (e.g. company, school,
etc) This field is required. Will be used for sorting.
:department => The department within the organization.
:title => The title or role within the organization.
:type => The type of organization. Canonical values include
"job" or "school"
:start_date => A DateTime representing when the contact joined
the organization.
:end_date => A DateTime representing when the contact left the
organization.
:location => The physical location of this organization.
:description => A free-text description of the role this contact
played in this organization.
:account => A Hash describing the authorative account for the
author.
:domain => The top-most authoriative domain for this account. (e.g.
"twitter.com") This is the primary field. Is required.
Used for sorting.
:username => An alphanumeric username, typically chosen by the user.
:userid => A user id, typically assigned, that uniquely refers to
the user.
:address => A Hash describing the address of the contact.
:formatted => A formatted representating of the address. May
contain newlines.
:street_address => The full street address. May contain newlines.
:locality => The city or locality component.
:region => The state or region component.
:postal_code => The zipcode or postal code component.
:country => The country name component.
:uri => The uri that uniquely identifies this author.
:email => The email of the author.
TODO
- General cleanup and abstraction of elements of Atom et al that aren't very consistent or useful.
- Add a persistence layer and allow this to be mixed with Rails and Sinatra style models.
- Add rails/sinatra aides to allow rapid development of Lotus powered websites.
- Add already written osub/opub functionality to allow this gem to subscribe directly to other Lotus powered websites.
- Add Webfinger user identity and verification written in the Salmon library and pull the remaining logic out of rstat.us.
- Add JSON backend.
- Write a PuSH hub to aid in small-scale deployment. (Possibly as a detached project. Lotus talks to the hub via a socket.)