Channel hooks

Channel hooks are a powerful feature of Awasu that transform it from being just another feed reader into something much more profound.

Like plugins, they are small programs or scripts that get run by Awasu but while plugins are used to generate feeds, hooks are run when certain things happen e.g. when a channel is updated or new items are received. In other words, they hook into the flow of information within a channel.

Why is this so important? Browsers such as Internet Explorer or Firefox and every other feed reader available today are passive tools; they simply display the data as it arrives without understanding anything about what they are showing. Channel hooks let you monitor the information, analyze it and then respond to it.

Some examples

Here are some examples of what channel hooks can do:

• Monitor your warehouse and take action when stock gets low
  A channel plugin gets the current stock levels in your warehouse from a corporate database and converts it into a feed which Awasu uses to constantly show you the latest information. Every time the channel is updated, a hook is also called that checks if anything is running low and if so, sends a request to your buying department to replenish it.
• Monitor your stock portfolio and respond to events
  Awasu monitors a channel that shows the current prices of shares in your stock portfolio. Every time the channel is updated, a hook is also called to check for sudden price movements. If something is detected, Awasu sends an urgent SMS message to your mobile phone to notify you and asks if you want to buy or sell any stock. You reply with an SMS message and Awasu forwards those instructions to your broker.
• Search the Internet for articles and save them in a database
  If you are a researcher, you will probably have quite a few channels relating to your field of interest. A channel hook can be set up that gets called every time new items are found on any of those channels. The new items can be checked for certain words or concepts and if they match, saved in a database. Leave Awasu running for a while and pretty soon, you'll have a database full of items directly related to the subject you are interested in.