[thomasvining]

Hey there,

I'd like to set up an RSS feed for tokyocube so it's easier for people to keep track of our updates.

Does anyone know of any good resources for researching this and setting it up, as I know pretty much nothing about it, but would really like to get to grips with it?

Thanks in advance!

[stevo]

I was just wanting to know exactly the same thing!

[cam]

It's much easier than you'd think, especially if you have some basic coding experience.

All you really need to do is understand the format you need to output your article information in.

Have a read at this little guide - http://www.petefreitag.com/item/465.cfm

[thomasvining]

excellent, thanks for the link!

[stevo]

Originally Posted by cam

It's much easier than you'd think, especially if you have some basic coding experience.

All you really need to do is understand the format you need to output your article information in.

Have a read at this little guide - http://www.petefreitag.com/item/465.cfm

yep, good article –*do you create RSS feeds actually in your website or can you make them externally and link to them ?

I want something like howies have http://www.howies.co.uk/ on my site.

Ta

[thomasvining]

Originally Posted by cam

Have a read at this little guide - http://www.petefreitag.com/item/465.cfm

Cool, I just checked out that link and also the following links which I found really useful:

http://searchenginewatch.com/serepor...le.php/2175271

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerwork...tml?dwzone=web


I understand the principle now of RSS feeds, and the code side of things doesn't look too scary...however, I'm still not entirely clear on how best to set things up for our site.

We basically want to keep people up to date with the content in our articles (http://www.tokyocube.com/) - I have a few questions if anyone can help:

1 - What would be the best way to structure the RSS file - is it better just to update the RSS file each time we add 3 new articles (as on the homepage), or would it be better to create a feed for each of the lifestyle articles (e.g. all 4 on each of the 3 lifestyle pages)?

2 - How do people subscribe/use your feed? I've tried the 'subscribe' and 'rss' buttons on a few sites and it appears to just open up the rss file in the browser?

.... these are probably stupid questions but I think I just need some straight forward advice/examples from someone who's done this before.

[thomasvining]

... one more question:

3 - What is the best way to keep in check with RSS feeds from other people's sites? I see with FF it lets you view them as bookmarks

[pgo]

Originally Posted by thomasvining

3 - What is the best way to keep in check with RSS feeds from other people's sites? I see with FF it lets you view them as bookmarks

The "Live Bookmarks" feature of FF isn't so great, but it works. You might have a look at Sage, which is a FF extension - it puts a list of feeds in your sidebar and opens them up in the browser.

Or you can try a standalone RSS reader...

www.feedreader.com <-- Free
http://www.bradsoft.com/feeddemon/index.asp <-- Not free.

There are many others.

[thomasvining]

cool thanx pgo, the standalone reader looks really good!

If anyone has any useful suggestions/advice for questions 1 & 2 above I'd definitely appreciate the help! thanx!

[thomasvining]

... not too sure if this is perfect code but the feeds seem to work:

http://www.tokyocube.com/

could anyone let me know if I've done anything wrong there, as this is the 1st time I've messed around with rss feeds? cheers!

[stevo]

Originally Posted by thomasvining

... not too sure if this is perfect code but the feeds seem to work:

http://www.tokyocube.com/

could anyone let me know if I've done anything wrong there, as this is the 1st time I've messed around with rss feeds? cheers!

how did you get theat feed actually embedded in your site tom? Is it a piece of html or something?

[thomasvining]

hey stevo, basically it's an xml file (just write the code in notepad and save as .xml), then all you've gotta do is put the reference to the file in the top of your pages, e.g.

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Tokyocube Competition Winners" href="feeds/competitions.xml" />

If you have a look at the code, you will get an idea of how to structure this file:

http://www.tokyocube.com/feeds/competitions.xml

pgo's link to Sage for Firefox was wicked, and I definitely recommend installing it as you'll see how your feed will look and you can play with the layout if your feed etc:

https://addons.mozilla.org/extension...cation=firefox


I'm pretty blown away by how cool rss feeds are, and I can't believe it's taken me this much time to get round to using them - it's so much quicker now to keep check of all the site content I wanna see everyday.

[roto]

Originally Posted by thomasvining

I'm pretty blown away by how cool rss feeds are, and I can't believe it's taken me this much time to get round to using them - it's so much quicker now to keep check of all the site content I wanna see everyday.

You can say that again...and pgo, great hookup on the Fox add-on (yet again)

[Red Cap]

i use the netvibes custom home page thingy, to gather all my rss feeds.

[roto]

http://www.netvibes.com/ ... nice too

Interestingly enough, I found a link to http://www.feedxs.com/ via netvibes which, at first glance, looks like it could help thomas a lot.

[pgo]

Originally Posted by ®oto

...and pgo, great hookup on the Fox add-on (yet again)

Credit to cam for turning me on to it some months ago.

[Dusteh]

Great thread... rss is something I have looked at a couple of times, but never fully got my head around before - especially as no client has asked for 'latest news' sections recently.

Its actually rather simple after all that, once you find a well written introduction.

[thomasvining]

Originally Posted by Dusteh

Its actually rather simple after all that, once you find a well written introduction.

yep, certainly is - thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread! rss 'kin rocks!

[stevo]

Originally Posted by thomasvining

hey stevo, basically it's an xml file (just write the code in notepad and save as .xml), then all you've gotta do is put the reference to the file in the top of your pages, e.g.

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Tokyocube Competition Winners" href="feeds/competitions.xml" />

If you have a look at the code, you will get an idea of how to structure this file:

http://www.tokyocube.com/feeds/competitions.xml

pgo's link to Sage for Firefox was wicked, and I definitely recommend installing it as you'll see how your feed will look and you can play with the layout if your feed etc:

https://addons.mozilla.org/extension...cation=firefox


I'm pretty blown away by how cool rss feeds are, and I can't believe it's taken me this much time to get round to using them - it's so much quicker now to keep check of all the site content I wanna see everyday.

Cheers! I think this is getting at what I'm looking for now! Looking into it!

[pixelpyro]

This list of RSS Parsers may be of use if you are looking to integrate the feed into your website - haven't had a chance to try any as yet so any feedback on the best/easiest - worst of the bunch would be useful...