If you’ve been thinking about playing around with Yahoo Pipes but are a bit reluctant, rest assured that there’s an easy way to go about it. Pipes can be cloned with a single click, then tweaked to your liking. What’s more, if you click on a module without dragging it onto the Pipes canvas, a brief description will appear at the bottom of the modules listing at left. Click on the description and you’ll get an example Pipe in the new window.
The simplest way to get started with Yahoo Pipes is to take an existing Pipe that someone else has created (check the Hotlist), click on its “Clone” link, tweak it to your heart’s content in the Pipes canvas, then save it with a new name to your collection of pipes. [You must have a Yahoo Mail account to save and create Pipes. So sign up for one beforehand. There’s no requirement to use Yahoo Mail, just to have an account.]
This is how I got started, and when I didn’t understand how to use a particular Pipes module, I followed the sample-use Piple. Just click on the module in question in the left hand list of the Pipes canvas. A description appears at bottom left, as well as a link. Clicking on the link pops up a new browser window or tab, with a Pipes canvas showing an example use of that module.
Keeping doing this and you’ll find creating Pipes gets easier and easier. Here’s a sample video to show you how incredibly simple it is. Just stick with the easy modules at first.
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