Microformats
STILL IN DEVELOPMENT, IT SHOULD WORK, BUT USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Created by Chris Powers, September 11, 2010
Two Great Tastes, One Great Library
The goal of this Microformats library is to give the developer a series of simple view helper methods to richly markup their HTML documents using both the older Microformats standard and the new HTML5 Microdata standard.
By using microformats, you are opening your data up to Google and other consumers for easy and intelligent consumption. In the future, Google plans on making consumed microdata directly searchable, which yields all sorts of new potential for relevant results.
Installation
Install the Microformats gem as usual:
gem install microformats
Getting Started
To use Microformats, first include the Microformats::Helper mixin into your view layer, like this in Rails:
# in app/helpers/application_helper.rb
module Application Helper
include Microformats::Helpers
end
Usage: vCards and Addresses
You can easily markup a person and/or organization using the vcard helper method. This will use both the hCard Microformat and the www.data-vocabulary.org/Person microdata.
PLEASE NOTE: These two microdata standards do not support the same fields. For example, hCard gives a person telephone numbers and email addresses. The Person microdata only gives organizations a single telephone number and has no support for email.
vCards can embed addresses using the Microformats::Vcard#address method, which gives you a block to run with a new Microformats::Address object.
EXAMPLE (using ERB):
<% vcard do |card| %>
<%= card.photo "/images/me.jpg", :size => '200x300' %>
<%= card.name "John Doe" %>
<%= card.url "Visit my Site", :href => "http://mydomain.com" %>
<%= card.phone "999.888.7766", :type => 'Home' %>
<%= card.phone "111.222.3344", :type => 'Work' %>
<%= card.email "[email protected]", :type => 'Home' %>
I work at <%= card.company "Acme Co." %>
<% card.address(:type => 'Work') do |adr| %>
<%= adr.street "123 Main" %>
<%= adr.city "Chicago" %>, <%= adr.state 'IL' %> <%= adr.zip '60010' %>
<% end %>
<%= card.download_link "http://mydomain.com" %>
<% end %>
This will output the following markup:
<div class='vcard' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://data-vocabulary.org/Person'>
<img class='photo' itemprop='photo' src='/images/me.jpg' width='200' height='300' />
<span class='fn' itemprop='name'>John Doe</span>
<a class='url' href='http://mydomain.com' itemprop='url'>Visit my Site</a>
<span class='tel'><span class='type'><span class='value-title' title='Home'></span></span>999.888.7766</span>
<span class='tel'><span class='type'><span class='value-title' title='Work'></span></span> 111.222.3344</span>
<a class='email' href='mailto:[email protected]'><span class='value-title' title='Home'></span>[email protected]</span>
I work at <span class='org' itemprop='affiliation'>Acme Co.</span>
<div class='adr' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://data-vocabulary.org/Address'>
<span class='type'><span class='value-title' title='Work'></span></span>
<span class='street-address' itemprop='street-address'>123 Main</span>
<span class='locality' itemprop='locality'>Chicago</span>, <span class='region' itemprop='region'>IL</span> <span class='postal-code' itemprop='postal-code'>60010</span>
</div>
<a href='http://h2vx.com/vcf/mydomain.com/page' type='text/directory'>Download vCard</a>
</div>
While these helper methods default to using <span> tags (and <a> tags as appropriate), you can easily customize the tag used for any given piece of microdata by using the :tag option:
<%= card.name "John Doe", :tag => :h1 %>
Also note that you get the download_link method that builds a link to h2vx.com that will automatically let the user download vCards from whatever page url you pass in. Usually you will just want to pass in the page that you are currently on, so this is a quick way to do this in Rails:
<%= card.download_link request.request_uri %>
Usage: Calendars and Events
Calendars with many events can be represented using the Microformats::Calendar and Microformats::Event classes. This employs the hCal and hEvent microformats along with the www.data-vocabulary.org/Event microdata.
NOTE: An Event can use a nested vCard to represent its location information.
EXAMPLE:
<% vcalendar :id => "my_calendar" do |cal| %>
<h1>Upcoming Events</h1>
<% cal.event do |event| %>
<h2><%= event.url(event.name("Happy Hour"), :href => "http://meetup.com/happyhour") %></h2>
<%= event.photo "/images/happy_hour.jpg", :size => "250x150" %>
<%= event.description "Come hang out with us for half price drinks at lots of fun!" %>
<span class='time_range'>
From <%= event.starts_at "October 30, 2010 at 7:30PM" %> -
<%= event.ends_at "October 30, 2010 at 10:00PM", :text => "10:00PM" %>
</span>
<% event.location do |card| %>
<%= card.url(card.company("Frank's Bar", :is_company => true), :href => "http://franksbar.com") %>
<% card.address do |adr| %>
<%= adr.street "784 N Main St" %><br />
<%= adr.city "Chicago" %>, <%= adr.state "IL" %> <%= adr.zip "60016" %>
<% end %>
<% end %>
<% end %>
<!-- More events could be added... -->
<% end %>
Resources
Care to Help?
There are still a lot of standards that need to be implemented into this library, including but not limited to: Events, Products, Reviews, Organizations. I will continue to work on these, but I’d be happy to accept pull requests!