Getting Started

Download RoboMaker 6.3

2007-10-26T20:29:00Z

Make a mashup of any website using RoboMaker's
easy-to-use point and click visual development environment.

For users upgrading from RoboMaker 6.2 please note:

The product name has changed from RoboSuite to Mashup Server.
This install will not overwrite your existing 6.2 install.
Before uninstalling RoboMaker 6.2, please copy your robots from your project library to the 6.3 install library. Your project libary is located in <robomaker install path>/Project/Library.


Available Installers:
	Windows	Download (138MB)
	Linux	Download (165MB)

Windows Instructions:
After downloading, double-click setup.exe

Notes: You do not need to install any other software. A Java virtual machine is included with this download.

System Requirements:

Linux Instructions:
After downloading open a shell and, cd to the directory where you downloaded the installer.
At the prompt type: sh ./setup.bin

Notes: A Java virtual machine is included with this download. It will be run automatically when you run the shell script.

Create Robots

2007-02-19T18:41:00Z

How to get started

Getting started with creating your own robots is very easy. In order to create robots you need to download the development environment RoboMaker and install it locally on your computer. With point-and-click you then create your robots in RoboMaker, there is no need to do any programming of any sort. Once you are done with creating your robot you publish it on openkapow.com from inside RoboMaker. Then you can run your robots from openkapow’s servers and you can share your robot with the rest of the community. Each published robot gets an unique URL that you can use to call the robot from within Yahoo! Pipes, your RSS Reader of choice, from your site, from your program or from your mashup.

What is an openkapow robot?
A robot in openkapow is a small program that automates what a person can do in a browser. Do you want to go and read news on a site, log in to a site and check your private messages or maybe check the latest results for your stocks or favorite team? Make that automatic in a few minutes and then use the robots from within your news feed reader or your own programs.

RoboMaker

RoboMaker is the visual development environment used to create robots. In RoboMaker a robot is created by putting together steps and configuring those steps. This is done using a point-and-click interface that includes a browser view that allows the developer to see the page the robot interacts within the same way as if it was in a normal browser such as Internet Explorer or Firefox. RoboMaker is a client program that is downloaded and run on the developer’s local machine. When a robot is complete it can be published to openkapow.com from within RoboMaker.

Cool things with RoboMaker
It gives you the power to do what you need to do:

Full control over the process flow, including conditions and loops. Handle if-scenarios, or-scenarios & and-scenarios without problems.
Flexible error handling. Use the built-in debugger to test your robots.
HTTP, HTTPs, cookies, logins, headers, Javascript etc is all handled and completely under your control.
Access web pages through a browser view, DOM view, HTML source view or using the HTML tag path.
The robot executes while you are developing it! That gives you full control over the current state of the robot.

Tips: Download RoboMaker now and check it out for yourself

Different types of Robots

There are 3 different types of openkapow robots that you can create:

RSS/Atom feed robots
An RSS robot is a robot that creates an RSS feed or an Atom feed. The RSS feed can then be read using a special RSS Reader, a browser that supports RSS or a mail program that can read RSS. An RSS robot is run on a schedule defined by the robot developer. For example it can be run once an hour, which means that once an hour the feed will be updated with the new information the robot might have found.
Read more:

REST robots
A REST robot is a robot that is run as a REST service, this is a web service that is available from a normal URL. The robot then outputs the result of its work in for example XML, HTML or JSON. REST robots are normally used to create an API-like interaction with a web site and the REST robots are usually called from within a program (written in for example PHP, Ruby on Rails, C# or Java). This makes REST robots the perfect base for mashups!
Read more:

Web Clip robots
With Web Clip robots it is possible take one piece of functionality from one web site and display it on another. Using a Web Clip robot it is possible to take a complete site, a part of a site, or just a part of a page and use it outside the original site. Inside the robot it is possible to change the HTML, the stylesheets etc of the original site.
Read more:

Tutorial about how to create a basic Web Clip robot

Publish and Use Robots

2007-02-19T11:41:00Z

On openkapow you can either create your own robots or use other people’s robots. You can also download other people’s robots to see how they work, and build your own robots based on others creations. This article describes the basics of how to do this.

Publish your own robots

When you have downloaded RoboMaker and created your robot it is time to publish it to openkapow. This is done from inside RoboMaker (choose “Publish” from the “File” menu). Before publishing you need to categorize the robot, write a small description and tag it so that other users can find it as well. Then you simply click the “Publish” button and your robot is uploaded to openkapow. A unique URL will be created for the robot. This URL can be used to execute the robot from your own programs or mashups.

Find and use robots

In the robot section you will find all the robots made by openkapow users. They are all categorized and tagged so that you can find robots either in the category that you are interested in, or by searching or by the tag cloud. Once you have located a robot you are interested in you click the “Try it” button for that robot. If the robot requires input parameters you will get to a page where you can configure those before executing the robot. If the robot does not require input parameters it will be executed straight away. Each robot has an unique URL that you can use to call it from other programs (for example your RSS Reader or one of your mashups).

Edit other user's robots

If you find another users robot you like, but you want to change some detail, or maybe you just want to see how it works, then just click “Edit” to download it to your computer. Then open it in RoboMaker just as you would with one of your own robots. Now you can edit it and test it out best you want. Once you are done doing the improvements and changes you wanted you can publish your own version of the robot from within RoboMaker.

Use robots in mashups

A mashup is a website or web application that combines content and functionality from more than one source. The combination of content and functionality from several sources creates new value by letting users see combinations and data that were not directly clear from the original sources alone. A classical example is to display housing ads from Craigslist.org on a Google Map. Mashups can be built in different mashup builder tools, for example Coghead and Teqlo, or using programming languages.

One of the basic problems in developing mashups is to get access to the data sources one wants to use. If they do not offer a public API the developer is limited to write complicated scripts (in Perl for example) to access the data, and then still only the most basic data can be accessed. Using openkapow robots this problem is solved quickly and easily and it opens the whole internet to mashup developers. The most common robot type to use in mashups is REST robots. Simply build a REST robot to the site you want to access, publish the robot on openkapow and then call the REST service from within a mashup builder tool or your own code (written in PHP, Ruby on Rails, Java or whatever your language of choice is). Since REST robots can output data in several formats (for example JSON, XML and CSV) it is easy to use the data from the robots in any program.

Read more:

Learn more about openkapow robots

2007-02-15T11:40:00Z

This article answers the basic questions about what openkapow is, what an openkapow robot is and when you should use them.

What is openkapow?

Openkapow.com is an open service platform, this means that you can build your own services (called robots) and run them from openkapow.com, all for free. These robots accesses web sites and allows you to use data, functionality and even the user interface of other web sites in a whole new way. No longer are you limited by what public APIs or RSS feeds that are available, instead you can build your own in minutes. You can then use those services from within your own mashups, code, Yahoo! Pipes, Google Gadgets etc

Background
Openkapow is built on Kapow Technologies Enterprise Mashup Platform that has been developed since 1998. The Enterprise version is currently used by more than 200 enterprises around the world. VISA, SimplyHired, US Army and Bank of America are just a few of the customers. This ensures that openkapow is the most feature rich and powerful open mashup enabler around today.

What is an openkapow robot?

A robot in openkapow is a small program that automates what a person can do in a browser. This includes navigating web sites by clicking on links and submitting forms, extracting data from a site and much more. Robots are created in the development environment RoboMaker without any programming and robots are then hosted and run on openkapow’s servers. The behavior of a robot can be affected by input values (for example the username and password to use to log in to a password protected site) and the robot produces an output (for example the current rate of a specific stock).

What is an openkapow robot - the technical version
An openkapow robot is nothing more than an XML file that has been defined using the RoboMaker development environment. This XML file is then uploaded to the openkapow servers and can there be referenced with an unique URL. When this URL is called the XML file is interpreted by the openkapow Mashup Server that then performs the actions of the robot. Download RoboMaker now and check it out for yourself

Why should I use openkapow robots?

Use openkapow if…

… you are missing the RSS or Atom feed you want from your favourite site, then just build your own with an RSS/Atom feed robot. Then you can use the RSS feed in your RSS Reader or in applications that consume RSS feeds (such as Yahoo! Pipes or Pageflake Flakes). See how an RSS robot is built in this tutorial about how to create a basic RSS robot
.. you are missing an API to a site you want to interact with from within your mashup or program, then just build your own with an openkapow robot. Even if a site has a public API, it might not do exactly what you want, once again you can get around that problem with a REST robot. Then you can use this REST service from within your own code (Ruby on Rails, Java, PHP or whatever) or from within applications that can consume REST services. See how a REST robot is built in this tutorial about how to create a basic REST robot
… you want to use parts of a sites user interface and functionality on your own site, then just use the part of that site on your own with the help of a Web Clip robot. Then you can use the clip to easily build widgets and gadgets (such as Google Gadgets) or directly on your own site. See how a Web Clip robot is built in this tutorial about how to create a basic Web Clip robot

Download RoboMaker

2006-11-22T16:21:00Z

Make a mashup of any website using RoboMaker's
easy-to-use point and click visual development environment.

For users upgrading from RoboMaker 6.2 please note:

The product name has changed from RoboSuite to Mashup Server.
This install will not overwrite your existing 6.2 install.
Before uninstalling RoboMaker 6.2, please copy your robots from your project library to the 6.3 install library. Your project libary is located in <robomaker install path>/Project/Library.


Available Installers:
	Windows	Download (138MB)
	Linux	Download (165MB)

Windows Instructions:
After downloading, double-click setup.exe

Notes: You do not need to install any other software. A Java virtual machine is included with this download.

System Requirements:

Linux Instructions:
After downloading open a shell and, cd to the directory where you downloaded the installer.
At the prompt type: sh ./setup.bin

Notes: A Java virtual machine is included with this download. It will be run automatically when you run the shell script.

Create A Robot

2006-11-13T21:07:00Z

It’s easy to get started creating your own robots and Mashups - there are three main steps to get you started:

Step 1 – Download the openkapow Edition of RoboMaker; RoboMaker is a powerful and intuitive development environment in which you can rapidly create and deploy your robots. Download RoboMaker now!.
Step 2 – Build a Sample Robot; Now that you have downloaded and installed RoboMaker, you can begin to have fun creating your own cool robots and Mashups. To get you started we have a simple tutorial called “Hello World.” This tutorial teaches you the basics of creating a robot and is a great place to start. You can find it [here].
Step 3 – Practice Makes Perfect; Now that you have created your first robot and explored the powerful visual building environment in RoboMaker, you are ready to learn more advanced robot building techniques. Take a look at some great Mashups in our Demo section. Our demos will give you an idea of just some of what’s possible with openkapow RoboMaker. You will also find our other tutorials an excellent source of learning and understanding on how to build more advanced robots. Check out the tutorials.

There are two other terrific places at openkapow for you to explore as you build robots. We encourage you to spend some time having fun with other users’ robots in the Robot Gallery and a great way to share what you have learnt with others and also learn from the experience of other members is to visit our forums regularly. Our forums provide you with a great place to learn, share, and find help as you build cool robots and Mashups for fun or for your enterprise.

Have fun and we look forward to seeing your robots and Mashups on openkapow.com!

Logos and Attribution

2006-11-13T21:07:00Z

Thanks for using OpenKapow. We ask that you include a link back to Openkapow from your mashup or website that uses this image:

Here is some sample HTML to embed in your page:

Learn About Robots

2006-11-13T20:58:00Z

Robots – The Building Blocks of a Mashup

Mashups are web-based applications that aggregate visual interfaces (eg;Google maps), business logic, or data, from other web applications or sites and recombine these components as required to meet a specific purpose or business need. In openkapow, mashups are built around the concept of software Robots. These Robots are the building blocks of a mashup and execute specific tasks related to clipping of site content, aggregation of data, or the creation or consumption of REST or SOAP-based web services or RSS feeds.

Developers who belong to the openkapow community will have access to RoboMaker, an intuitive and powerful visual scripting environment to create Robots. All Robots developed by the openkapow community will be accessible through the Robot Gallery, a common repository on the openkapow site, where they can easily be reused by other, either as a standalone component, or in the context of a full mashup.

A Robot contains instructions on how to interface to one or more source applications. Object models define the format for input and output from Robots. The visual design environment provided by RoboMaker provides a very intuitive, but powerful interface for connecting to business logic and data, using existing web API’s, or wrapping these components with web API’s where needed. Using openkapow, developers can quickly and easily create Robots and mashups, working in their preferred scripting environment, including Ruby on Rails, PHP, Java, or .NET

What is a Clip?
An openkapow Web Clip is a type of Robot which allows a developer to collect data or visual content from any web site. A Clip can be fine or coursed grain, ranging from a single visual element on a web page, to a full clip of one or more pages. Clip’s can be easily integrated into any mashup and can even incorporate login or authentication mechanisms that are part of the underlying site the clip is sourced from. For more information on how clips work, go to Creating a basic Web Clip robot

What is a REST Robot?
In addition to data or visual content that can be collected by clipping, mashups can also incorporate business logic from any web based application. However, you will often find cases where the business logic you are targeting for your mashup lacks SOAP-based web services interfaces and is not published as a web service. To get around this problem, RoboMaker builds REST-based Robots for you, wrapping business logic in the target application to create a REST web service that can then be incorporated into a mashup. For more information on how REST Robots work, go to Creating a basic REST robot.

What is an RSS Robot?
RSS or ATOM feeds are a mechanism that web sites offer to “push” data and content to subscribers of their feed. An example of an RSS feed in a mashup would be a website that has a scrolling window of current news headlines from leading wire services and publications who allow users to subscribe to RSS feeds from their site. RoboMaker makes it easy to create RSS Robots, providing your mashup with a level of interactivity and rich user experience that has come to be associated with web 2.0 applications. For more information on how RSS Robots work, go to Creating a basic RSS robot that reads from Digg

Where can I get more help?
Openkapow.com is a community with many active and experienced users willing to share they experiences and knowledge of using RoboMaker to build robots and Mashups. We encourage you to explore the community forums where you can find discussions on advanced techniques and ideas, design best practices and general discussions on Robots and Mashups.