RE: How to handle RSS Feeds

> I'd almost go as far as saying that, perhaps, the pure XML feed should
> not be directly "clickable" for a human user at all...but that 
> would require
> a standard auto-discovery mechanism for RSS readers (then again, there may
> already be something along those lines...I have to admit this is an area I
> only lightly dabbled in).

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://www.wats.ca/wats.xml" />
See also our article: http://www.wats.ca/articles/missinglink/49

> 
> An interesting approach I saw a while back was the use of 
> (client-side) XSL
> to present RSS feeds in a nicer way...but again, this does not solve the
> issue of browsers that don't know what to do with the XML in the 
> first place...
> 
> http://www.mezzoblue.com/archives/2003/11/05/plugging_the/

We have also linked a style sheet to our feed: http://www.wats.ca/wats.xml.  Note, while this provides a formatted presentation, none of the "permalinks" or active hyperlinks are "clickable" or active, as the <a> anchor element is not present in the original feed.  One other method is to provide a partially formatted, but un-styled feed using a server side (PHP) script: http://www.zaphodbeeblebrox.com/RSS/zaphod.php (Note: this is a "code snip" intended for server-side includes)

JF

--
John Foliot  foliot@wats.ca
Web Accessibility Specialist / Co-founder of WATS.ca
Web Accessibility Testing and Services
http://www.wats.ca   1.866.932.4878 (North America)

Received on Friday, 12 March 2004 09:44:29 UTC