Tag Archives: xml

Playlist formats : m3u, pls, xspf and others

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Last update : June 16, 2012;
M3U is a file format to store multimedia playlists. It was first used by Winamp. PLS does the same, but is a more expressive format than basic M3U, as it can store  information on the song title and length (this is supported in extended M3U only). With PLS version 2, playlists also include a PLS version declaration.

iTunes, QuickTime Player, Real player, Winamp, XBMC, XMPlay, VLC media player and many other programs play PLS files without any extra codecs.

Xiph.Org Foundation, a non-profit organization that produces free multimedia formats and software tools, created in 2004 the XML Shareable Playlist Format (XSPF, called spiff) for sharing the kind of playlist that can be played on every personal computer or portable device. The home of XSPF is the website xspf.org.

XSPF is supported by the DLNA server Seviio. The playlists handle not only audio, but also video or other multimedia files.

Syntext Serna Free : Open Source XML Editor

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Serna XML Editor

Serna Free XML editor is an easy-to-use open source WYSIWYG XML editor and probably the most powerful among free and open source XML editors for WYSIWYG authoring.

Serna free XML editor is available for all major platforms such as Microsoft Windows™ (2000, XP, Vista), Linux, Mac OS X, and Sun Solaris/SPARC. Version 4.2 was released on october 13, 2009.

Serna Free XML editor has been developed by SYNTEXT Inc., a private American software development company, founded in Seattle, Washington, in 1999. The company is focused on the development of state-of-the-art solutions for creating and maintaining complex XML content for various industries such as aerospace, software development, publishing, and others.

The company’s flagship is the Serna Enterprise XML editor which enables fully distributed collaborative XML authoring.

ROR : Resources of a Resource

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ROR (Resources of a Resource) is an independant XML format for describing any object (products, services, reviews, discounts, images, events, schedule, podcasts, …)  in a generic fashion, so that any search engine can better understand that content. rorweb.com is the official ROR website.

ROR promotes the concept of structured feeds (which is related to the concept of structured blogging) enabling search engines to complement text search with structured information to better understand meaning. ROR information is typically stored in a ROR feed called ror.xml placed in a website’s main directory.

The specifications of ROR have been updated last in march 2005. The ROR website provides FAQ’s, sample ROR feeds, a Developer’s corner, a blog,  free tools and lists of ROR providers and terms. It seems however that there are currently no new activities going on at the ROR website.