Re: WebParts

["Bill Kearney" <wkearney99@hotmail.com>]

> A while back there was talk about standard ways to indicate that an 
RSS file is
> available. I'm beginning to think that the best way to do this is 
with a
> multi-pronged approach:
> 
> * a link tag or meta tag
>   <link type="application/rss+xml" href="...">
>   or whaterver
> * a content-type for RSS files, so user-agents can start to figure 
out how to  
>  handle them
> * a convention of a well-recognized logo linking to a page 
explaining the rss  
>  file(s)'s availability.

Narrowing the content type to just RSS is going to be problematic.  
WHICH flavor of RSS comes into question.  In theory, an XML file can 
be parsed to determine it's intention.  This is a whole other debate 
fraught with hassles.

Meta tagging requires quite a bit of cooperation on the part of feed 
generators.  If they've got a feed, that's about all we can 
reasonably expect them to provide.  Meta tagging their content in 
addition to feeds seems like asking a bit much.

But yes, some sort of "click here" that does something with a feed 
would be desirable.  Meanwhile, it's a matter of just FINDING the 
source of the feed.  Many sites don't appear to be advertising feed 
availability.  Almost none of the sites I checked returned search hit 
results on RSS, RDF, feed, etc; even the ones that HAVE feeds!  

This resurrects the idea of using a protocol prefix like http, ftp, 
gopher, etc.  Not really appropriate given it's likely just text in 
an HTTP stream.

You're left with the content type.  This and an agreement on file 
type suffixing (.rss, .xml, .rdf, etc...) seems the only viable way 
to get the situation moving forward.

I don't think the orange XML button works.  To me it implies generic 
XML more than a feed.  Yes, for most purposes it indicates a feed but 
it seems a bit confusing.  Couple this with local browser settings 
and a local handler and you might be able to get something working.  
But since most browsers look at a file type suffix this is going to 
break if folks continue to name the file feedname.xml as the .xml 
suffix is handled by the browser.

-Bill Kearney