RSS 101 Tutorial Part 5

Creating an RSS Feed Manually

Let's manually generate a basic RSS feed. Assume that we want to create a feed about documentation standards and guidelines significant to the IT industry. Within this feed, we can integrate many and various topics such as:

- Writing style

- Importance of correct grammar, punctuation, and spellings

- Sentence arrangement

- Guidelines for writing technical documents, white papers, installations sheets, customer service example manuals, and user guides

- Sample templates

- Tips for conforming to international standards

- Value of avoiding or including colloquialism

- Rules for reviewing and editing

- Charges for writing beginners, experienced, and experts

Each topic identified hereinbefore forms an item for the RSS feed. Our first item can be written as follows

Item Title Writing Style

Item Definition

The purpose of a document and its audience define its writing style. A formal production such as a white paper or a management report must have the formal tone. In comparison, a user guide demands to be written in a more friendly tone. Learn more about writing style and compose result-oriented documents.

Detailed Article URL www ITdocumentation dot com / WritingStyle.html

Author Writing Guru

Email WritingGuru at ITdocumentation dot com

Publishing Date Mon, 27 June 2005, 0900 EST

Gather similar newsletter for all part to be included in the feed. This data forms item info part of the RSS feed.

As for the channel newsletter, define a feed title, Differentiation, and its URL. In our example these attributes can be:

Feed Title Guidelines for IT Documentation

Feed Characterization Brilliant assemblage of writing tips and guidelines for documentation specialists of all experience levels working in the IT field!

Feed URL www dot ITdocumentation dot com

Using the Basic RSS Feed Format

The next course after collecting the feed news is to put in a normal format, which the Internet browsers and RSS aggregators can comprehend and interpret to show it correctly on your PC. The format for this file is as follows:

Insert feed title

Insert feed URL

Insert feed Description

en-us

Insert date and time

Insert title of the first item

Insert URL of the detailed article for the first item

Insert Description of the first item

Insert author's email address (Author's name)

Insert item spreading date

Insert title of the second item

Insert URL of the detailed article for the second item

Insert Description of the second item

Insert author's email address (Author's name)

Insert item broadcasting date

:

:

Notice that there is only one example of the channel tag, whereas quite some revelations of the item tag. The number of item tags should be the same as the number of index you want to embed in your RSS feed.

The tags in red determine the extra data you can integrate in an RSS feed. This data is not mandatory, but gives the article more credibility and offers the readers an option of communicating with the author.

Let's now look at inserting item newsletter in the above format. The first item in our case when inserted in the before format will look as follows:

Guidelines for IT Documentation

http : // www dot domain dot com

Brilliant inventory of writing tips and guidelines for documentation specialists

of all experience levels working in the IT field!

en-us

Mon, 27 June 2005, 0930 EST

Writing Style

http : // www dot domain dot com / WritingStyle.html

The purpose of a document and its audience define its writing style. A formal production such as a white paper or a management report must have the formal tone. In alternative, a

user guide essentials to be written in a more friendly tone. Learn more about writing style and construct result-oriented documents.

WritingGuru at ITdocumentation dot com (Writing Guru)

Mon, 27 June 2005, 0900 EST

:

:

Use the before format to include data for other content and your feed is executed!

Assign the feed a name and save it. Numerous RSS resources say that all RSS feeds have the extension .rss or .xml. In reality, however, an RSS feed can have any extension or no file extension. A number RSS feed generating software written in hypertext preprocessor (PHP) use the .php extension for the feeds they construct. It is also for the benefit of keeping things simple and filenames indicating their content that consumers might merge .rss or .xml extensions to RSS feeds.

You can syndicate as lots elements as you want though try not to exceed beyond 10 part per feed for usability reasons.

In an RSS feed, content are typically arranged in the reverse historic order with the existent item being the first one and the oldest item at the end, just like news headlines.

Again if you are new to Internet, you can surely construct an RSS feed as long as you follow this basic feed format and you have importance content to publish.

Validating the Feed

Use Feed Validator for an automated code validation of the feed. To do this, upload your RSS file of your web site. In the case above, the file will be uploaded on http : // www dot ITdocumentation dot com / rss / writingstyle.xml.

Next, go to http : // www dot feedvalidator dot organization. This site shows a text box where you must to enter the place of your RSS file, which in our example is http : // www dot ITdocumentation dot

com / rss / writingstyle.xml.

Click the Validate button for code validation to begin and wait for some time to view message informing you about revelation or absence of any errors in the file. If the validator reports any errors, fix them, and recheck the code until all errors are fixed.

Adding Digital Media

Adding digital media containing images, audio, and video can transport your audience to a certain realm. With this capability, your messages become alike more personalized and put together that human touch to the process.

Without actually embracing an audio file, you can embed a standard link in your RSS feed directing the users towards a file which when selected allows the surfers to download it. The subscribers can refer to it repeatedly and when ever they want to.

Moreover, RSS 2.0 supports a new feature named enclosure to enable feed creators enclose digital media content. When an appropriate enclosure reading software comes across such a feed item, it reads the accompanying link and content type to automatically download it and store it on a media device.

Using Software to Compose an RSS Feed

Software offers a number advantages over manual:

- No requirement of any technical knowledge including that of XML or HTML.

- Spell check to eliminate spelling mistakes from feeds.

- No requirement to validate your feed.

- Eases the process of updating a feed.

- The option of adding your line of business logo thereby giving an identity to the feed.

The next part will be about: "Tips for Creating Effective RSS Feeds"

If you can't wait till the next part release, or you can't locate the first 3 parts please download the extensive report from our web site in the downloads area.

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