RossOlson.com [Order Somewhere Chaos] + webdev + rss and greymatter

Establishing an RSS file updated by GreyMatter

Step by Step Instructions

For those of you who are interested in Syndicated Content and RSS files and the like, I've written up the file that I use to put an RSS file together. It keeps the headlines for the two most recent articles in the file and has a link to the archives.

1) Create a text file called syndicated.xml that has the following text:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rss version="0.92">
     <channel>
          <title>[Title of Your Journal]</title>
          <link>{{logwebpath}}/</link>
          <description>[Description of Your Journal]</description>
          <language>en-us</language> 
          <lastBuildDate>{{weekday}}, {{dayday}} {{monthwordshort}} {{yearyear}} {{militaryhour}}:{{minuteminute}}:{{secondsecond}} GMT</lastBuildDate>
          <docs>http://backend.userland.com/rss092</docs>
          <managingEditor>[your e-mail address] ([Your name])</managingEditor>
          <webMaster>[your e-mail address] ([Your name])</webMaster>
          <image>
               <title>[Title of Your Journal]</title>
               <url>[http://your.graphic.goes/here.gif]</url>
               <link>{{logwebpath}}/</link>
               <description>[Description of Your Journal]</description> 
          </image>
          <item>
               <title>{{weekday}}: {{entrysubject}}</title>
               <description>{{entrymainbodyfirstwords 20}} ...</description>
               <link>{{pagelink}}</link>
          </item>
          <item>
               <title>{{previousentrysubject}}</title>
               <description>{{previousentrymainbodyfirstwords 20}} ...</description>
               <link>{{previouspagelink}}</link>
          </item>
          <item>
               <title>Previous Entries</title>
               <link>{{entrieswebpath}}/</link>
          </item>
     </channel>
</rss>

2) Change any of the text that is between two square brackets '[ and ]'. This includes the following:

[Title of Your Journal]
[Description of Your Journal]
[your e-mail address] ([Your name])
[http://your.graphic.goes/here.gif]

3) Make sure that GreyMatter can write to the file. On UNIX machines this means setting the permissions to something like "666". (Everyone can read a write to the file).

4) In the Configuration control panel, look under Connect Other Files. Add the path and filename to get from gm.cgi to syndicated.xml. My entry looks like: "../notes/syndicated.xml".

That's about it! Now you can point all the aggregators and feed pickups towards your syndicated content.

Please note that filling in a template is not the 'right' way to make an XML file. It's simply the easy way. The right way involves DTD's, parsers and lots of additional coding to do what we've done here.

< GM Support ring > ? #

RossOlson.com

Establishing an RSS file updated by GreyMatter

Step by Step Instructions

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