HELP: Implementing RSS into website?

[shevek]

Me again today!

To be honest, even after researching, I feel like a total noob about implementing RSS on my website, so I need to ask for help. I have two sites in there that update periodically, my Steam Deck modding journal and my Toybrick castle journal. I would love to offer people to subscribe via RSS so they know when a new entry is made on these instead of having to manually check.
I just honestly have zero idea how to do it or what to look out for especially in regards to edits - will all edits be regarded as new activity and sent out, or how can I signify a new post when they're all on the same page and just separated by dates?

I would love your input.

[Cobra!]

I use easy feed editor to make the feeds, and then to insert them into the website I use this code:

Code

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS feed" href="yourfeed.xml" />

This is the code to tell the browser "Hey, we have an RSS feed!" and the browser adds the icon to the URL, or whatever they do with the feeds.

I also extract from the RSS feed to populate my website's news section using Javascript:

Code

let xmlContent = '';
        let news = document.getElementById('news');
        fetch('rss.xml').then((response)=> {
            response.text().then((xml)=>{
                xmlContent = xml;

                let parser = new DOMParser();
                let xmlDOM = parser.parseFromString(xmlContent, 'application/xml');
                let entries = xmlDOM.querySelectorAll('item');

                entries.forEach(entry => {
                    let entryblock = document.createElement('div');
                    entryblock.setAttribute("class", "newsItem");
                    //author
                    let content = document.createElement('strong');
                    const date = new Date(Date.parse(entry.children[1].innerHTML));
                    content.innerText = date.getDate() + "/" + (date.getMonth() + 1) + "/" + date.getFullYear() + " ";
                    entryblock.appendChild(content);
                    
                    content = document.createElement('span');
                    console.log(entry);
                    content.innerHTML = entry.children[2].childNodes[0].nodeValue;
                    entryblock.appendChild(content);
                    
                    news.appendChild(entryblock);
                });
                
            });
        });   

The children and where they are depend on what details you add to your feed (Like author, tags, preview image, etc.).

Hope this helps

[j]

funny you should mention this! if you're on a Unix distro and like working from the command line, i'm working on a program to generate feeds; keep an eye here if you're interested in that!

aside from that, i update my blog's feed with a new post every time i add one to my site (though my RSS is currently broken). with regards to edits, i only add a new feed when i have new content to add. otherwise i just make subtle edits to the pages and leave a little note at the top saying "hey this is edited" :)

either way, good luck with getting an RSS feed setup! :D

[tarraxahum]

I use easy feed editor to make the feeds,

holy heck where was this when I was figuring out RSS for my sites >:(

gotta save for future use

[Melooon]

@m15o offers a web service that automatically generates feeds for you if you have your blog formatted in a certain way on your site - you just need to enter your page URL and it'll make the feed for you - https://forum.melonland.net/index.php?topic=379.0

I use it on my site (along with my own custom feed gen) and it seems to work pretty well! 

[shevek]

Thank you all a lot, I will look into it! the solution by m15o might even work the best, since I already use their layout for these pages! I even saw the HTML Journal thing on statuscafé, but I never knew it was about RSS feeds.

[Gans]

For editing RSS by hand (which is not too hard):

This line goes into the head part of every HTML page to detect your RSS feed:

Code

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Feed" href="feed.xml">

The RSS file is a simple text file (in my example, it's called "feed.xml"). In your HTML code, link to the RSS file like you would link to an image on your page. As I have the RSS file and the HTML pages in one directory, I can link directly to it without needing to specify any further directories (see under "href", there is just the file name of the RSS file).


The feed.xml looks like this:

Code

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<rss version="2.0">
  <channel>
    <title>Goose Attack Feed</title>
    <link>http://goose-attacks.at/</link>
    <description>New geese attack information on this feed!</description>
    <language>de-de</language>
    <copyright>Gans</copyright>
    <pubDate>20.04.21</pubDate>

  <item>
   <title>New old scrap!</title>
   <category>Tech</category>
   <description>Lots of new scrap available!</description>
   <link>scrapyard.htm</link>
   <author>Gans</author>
   <guid>scrapyard.htm</guid>
   <pubDate>01.12.22</pubDate>
  </item>

  </channel>
</rss>

When you have something new to present, you just copy one block between the <item>-tags and alter all the things. That's not the automated professional way, but if you're just using it, let's say, monthly, it's not that much work.