What Is A RSS?

A RSS is a file which contains things like stories or several seperate pieces of information. An example is a news website, they may use a RSS to store their stories so other people can use programs to read these stories. A RSS is built up of simple text, it is divided up into the seperate pieces of information, this information consists normally of a title, description and a link. Below is an example.

New HTML Tutorial

Today there will be new tutorials

What you can see about is one piece of information which is built up of a title (New HTML Tutorial), a description (Today there will be new tutorials) and a link (http://spaces.msn.com/members/keepthechange).

The main use of RSS files is the ability to read these files with programs designed to do such procedures e.g. RSS Feeds Toolbar. Your MSN Spaces uses RSS feeds (see the bottom of your page for a , click on it and you will see your RSS feed). In one of my tutorials (Your Own IE Toolbar) you can use RSS feeds, this is a useful time to make your own RSS file.

The Coding

Firstly you need to state that the file you are making is a RSS file. You will need the code:
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>

</channel>
</rss>

Right, now save your file as filename.xml, changing filename to whatever you want.

OK, so now you need to create some items. An item is an individual piece of information (title, description & link). To do this use this code:

<item>
</item>

Inside these tags you will need to add:

<title>
</title>
With your title inbetween the two tags e.g.

<title>
My Title </title>

You also need the description:
<description>
</description>

With the description between the two tags e.g.

<description>
The description of my item. </description>

Finally (if you want) you can add a link which will take you to a webpage when the item is clicked on, you will need the code:
<link>
</link>

With the full URL inbetween the tags e.g.
<link>
http://spaces.msn.com/members/keepthechange123 </link>

And thats it! Below is an example RSS file:

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>

<item>
<title>keepthechange123 - HTML Tutorial's Home Page</title>
<description>For the main page on my HTML Tutorial click here!</description>
<link>http://spaces.msn.com/members/keepthech ange123/</link>
</item>

<item>
<title>keepthechange123 - HTML Tutorial's Other Page</title>
<description>For the other page on my HTML Tutorial click here!</description>
<link>http://spaces.msn.com/members/keepthech ange123/</link>
</item>

</channel>
</rss>

You can put in as many items as you want, but I wouldnt recommend more than 10.

Uploading The File

Now save the file. You will now need to upload the file. I use 50 Webs, but you can use whatever online space you want. When your file is uploaded you can use the link of the file for whatever RSS feed link you want.

|

© RIC-KEEPTHECHANGE123