On Tuesday, Chairman Cox announced an early release of some open source software that allows you to analyse information that has been filed with the SEC in XBRL format. It's a web based demonstration environment, available here.

So, this is an interesting start. It's a hint at some of the power that is available when analysing XBRL information. It highlights some of the things that still need to be done to improve the framework for filing XBRL with the Commission (or indeed, any regulator). I think it also provides a bit of a wake-up call to the consortium about the so-called "rendering" problem.

Some of the obvious issues include:

• Requiring meaningful labels for logical groupings of concepts. In the XBRL specification we call these "extended link roles". At CoreFiling we call them "Groups" because the other name is not very helpful.
• Enforcing a single entity identifer.
• Determining and enforcing a single versioning/taxonomy life cycle strategy so that it's easy to construct a time series across multiple filings by the same company.
• Imposing an "order" constraint on disclosure segments and contexts, and equally important, imposing a consistent framework for segment identifiers, for individual filers, across time.

Marc van Hilvoorde is leading a working group that is coming to grips with some of the issues to do with rendering. Rendering is a really tricky area. At one level, accountants that prepare financial disclosures need them to look exactly "so". Developing a specification that can provide really precise rendering descriptions could take quite some time be impossible. Those consuming the data, on the other hand, are really just looking for a broad brush approach, that will help set out tables and headings etc., so that the data can be easily conveyed to the user. It is this latter area that Marc's group is going to be thinking about.

I gather that that there will be another, independently developed analysis tool, that will also be open source, that the Commission's contractors are still working on. Cool! Bring it on. Oh! One other point. I believe the data in this current trial is being batched up overnight. Fair enough, it is early days. One reason for that is that the SEC's RSS feed is only updated every night. What about sorting that out, guys? Once it's been filed, it should be available... shouldn't it?

A very welcome face at the conference was Mark Bolgiano, the new XBRL-US Executive Director. In the unlikely event that we didn't scare him away with the proverbial information fire hose, he will be starting on 11 December. Seems like a very capable guy coming into the middle of the XBRL-US group at a crucial time.

So, lots of people have been wondering about what we have been up to over the last few months. It's true. We've been pre-occupied. But now we are beginning to take the wraps off. SpiderMonkey! It's here!

Based on Eclipse, SpiderMonkey offers a phenomenal new experience for taxonomy builders everywhere. It provides a user interface that offers all the power of XBRL, but in a user-friendly way. SpiderMonkey is based on True North, so you can be completely confident about the output. As one of our early testers says "The UI reflects a complete understanding of the XBRL spec - not some approximation to it". But that's what you expected from us.

Now in Beta... (the program is pretty full up, but if you can convince me that you'll really work it, you know what you are talking about, and will file bugs and enhancement requests, we might squeeze you in). In general, you can Sign Up to get it on general release.

PS: Did you hear us say "three way merge"??? Yup. It does that too!

This week marks the last few days of Kurt Ramin's role as chairman of XBRL International. An awful lot has happened over the last couple of years. Thank-you Kurt for all of the effort that you have put in, especially in relation to the development of the IFRS taxonomies and the explosion of interest in the standard across a phenomenal number of countries. Very much helped along by your dedication - not to mention a truly ludicrous travel schedule. But don't go away... there might be some truth to the suggestion that we all want you to keep on biking flying.

Welcome, Michael Ohata, to the helm. I'm looking forward to the next year or two: I'm sure it will be tremendous.

Unveiling a new look for the website today. Hope you like it.