Both the version of Pipes running on this server and the FOSS version available on Github have seen a bigger update.

New Data block!

First, we have some exciting new blocks. The block sidebar in the editor now contains a second tab, with so far four new blocks. Those are aimed at working directly with XML and JSON data, instead of like the existing blocks being built around RSS and Atom. This is a big step for Pipes! A concept for working with structured data seemed like a good idea since almost the very beginning, but for the longest time we just didn’t see a good approach. The one added now feels great, and is completely compatible with the prior blocks that output RSS: RSS is XML, so the new blocks can use the existing ones as input, directly in the same pipe. And that’s without having to do any changes on the existing blocks, so existing pipes will continue to run as before.

Regular updates to almost everything…

The development of the new blocks was a good opportunity to modernize some other aspects of Pipes. For example, the editor UI got a cleanup, since it had to be changed anyway. The icon set used was swapped, from FontAwesome to Feather, and from a webfont to SVG, for a crisper look. Other design changes were made for better contrast, on the startpage especially. Plus there were some additional changes on the code, like fixing bugs, updating to current Ruby gems etc.

…and Pipes CE is current now

The best thing: You can now properly look at those code changes yourself by checking out Pipes CE. That wasn’t quite possible before - Pipes CE started as a direct copy of Pipes without the unnecessary bit, but it diverged over the years by not getting all the updates I was able to apply on the server version. Now, Pipes CE is synchronized again with the server version, and I made workflow changes that should ensure future updates directly hit both version (if they aren’t really only relevant to the very few changes made for the server version, like the subscription feature).

Feedback welcome! Write me at support@pipes.digital if the changes don’t work for you, or make a post on the Github issue tracker for bug reports and feature suggestions.