30 replies to this topic

[Jill]

I wonder why RSS isn't just built in as a plug in to our browsers?

Seems so old fashioned to have to get some kind of reader. Why do people bother? I just can't wrap my head around the whole RSS stuff!

[JamesW]

Jill

My thoughts entirely!

Why would I want to use RSS when I can use the actual web sites of the RSS providers?

Cheers

James

[Ruud]

Volume.

Using RSS feeds in especially a standalone reader you can browse through, scan, the latest additions to tens of sites in minutes. Just browsing from site to site would already take longer.

I'm a heavy Outlook user and love Newsgator which intergrates with it. Excellent combo.

My take on it, as published on site.

Ruud

Edited by Ruud, 25 February 2004 - 07:09 PM.

[McFox]

Ahhhhhhhaaa! Or should that be ARRRRGGGGGGHHH?

I have been putting this RSS, XML, feeder thingy, off for ages because it required me to exert my few remaining braincells. However, I have now read through Grumpus' page and that of Ruud, and have come to a startling realisation! You get different types of 'Reader', or, brandishing my new-found knowledge, 'News Aggregator'.

One type, you download to your desktop, feed in the code (or whatever - I haven't got that far yet) and when you log onto the net and let it run, it collects your newsfeeds for you; right to your desktop.

The other type, is an online News Aggregator. This works by collecting the newsfeeds for you but instead of bringing it to your desktop, you have to be logged into the News Aggregator website.

Just in case anyone is as baffled by all this RSS, XML stuff as I am.

McF

[mcanerin]

What I've been looking for is an easy to use XML/RSS publishing system for a webpage.

Example: I want to make a "news" page for my website and I'd like to use RSS feeds to populate it. I found some stuff that would but it's all clunky or expensive.

Come on! I'm not a programmer but this can't be *that* hard, can it?

Ian

[Ruud]

Have a look at Magpie RSS. Damned easy to use in any PHP site.

Ruud

[Grumpus]

Cool. Thanks for the Magpie reference, Ruud. I have been half heartedly looking for an aggregator for folks to install on sites for my directory, but never have the time to go out looking.

Nice and thanks again!
G.

[Ruud]

You're more than welcome; very happy to be able to contribute something of value.

Magpie does RSS1 and most of RSS 2. But tags withing tags within tags is hard for it. So for custom feeds like Amazon or coupon's it isn't the best thing. Apart from that - rocks. With caching and header check it's easy on the bandwidth as well. Can't be made much faster either.

Ruud

[dbmasters]

My PHP/MySQL CMS system is currently in beta testing and it contains and PHP-based RSS feed displayer, it's really not too tough, if you want, I can pass the code on to you to take a look at. Actually, I'll just pop it in right here:

echo "<p class=\"bodymd\">RSS Feed: $rss_feed</p>";
$insideitem = false;
$tag = "";
$title = "";
$description = "";
$link = "";

function startElement($parser, $name, $attrs) {
	global $insideitem, $tag, $title, $description, $link;
	if ($insideitem) {
  $tag = $name;
	} elseif ($name == "ITEM") {
  $insideitem = true;
	}
}

function endElement($parser, $name) {
	global $insideitem, $tag, $title, $description, $link;
	if ($name == "ITEM") {
  printf("<p class=\"bodymd\"><a href=\"%s\" target=\"_blank\">%s</a></p>",
  trim($link),htmlspecialchars(trim($title)));
//  printf("<dd>%s</dd>",htmlspecialchars(trim($description)));
  $title = "";
  $description = "";
  $link = "";
  $insideitem = false;
	}
}

function characterData($parser, $data) {
	global $insideitem, $tag, $title, $description, $link;
	if ($insideitem) {
	switch ($tag) {
  case "TITLE":
  $title .= $data;
  break;
  case "DESCRIPTION":
  $description .= $data;
  break;
  case "LINK":
  $link .= $data;
  break;
	}
	}
}
$xml_parser = xml_parser_create(); 
xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, "startElement", "endElement"); 
xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser, "characterData"); 
$fp = fopen("$rss_feed","r") or die("Error reading RSS data."); 
while ($data = fread($fp, 4096))
{ 
   xml_parse($xml_parser, $data, feof($fp)) 
       or die(sprintf("XML error: %s at line %d",  
           xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($xml_parser)),  
           xml_get_current_line_number($xml_parser))); 
}
fclose($fp); 
xml_parser_free($xml_parser);

Not really prepared to walk through it line by line, but if you are familiar with PHP and the RSS doc's layout, you should be able to make some sense of it.

[Grumpus]

So for custom feeds like Amazon or coupon's it isn't the best thing.

No, because "custom feeds" aren't RSS.

G.

[McFox]

function startElement($parser, $name, $attrs) {
	global $insideitem, $tag, $title, $description, $link;
	if ($insideitem) {
  $tag = $name;
	} elseif ($name == "ITEM") {
  $insideitem = true;
	}
}

It is all so clear now

McF

[websage]

What is the difference between a RSS feed and Atom.xml feed?

[Grumpus]

Atom is pretty much the same, just a few of the tag names are different and the structure (in certain parts) is somewhat different.

G.

[Ruud]

Think of it as next-generation RSS. RSS has reached its final implementation in RSS 2.0 and will not be updated. That has generated some issues with how new things should be implemented - and once implemented how to be sure software out there deals with it consistently.

It has been a specific request from RSS 2 creator Dave Winer to not make up other versions of RSS.

So, instead, Atom is brought into the world. You can read more about this motivation behind the project on their motivation page.

Ruud

[websage]

Thank you, Ruud and Grumpus!