MHonArc RSS 2.0 rcfile example

"Dave Stragand" <dave.stragand@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> · Sat, 14 Apr 2007 23:36:54 -0400

Hello All,

I recently implemented Jeff Breidenbach's RDF feed rcfile that many of
us are using to create news feeds from MHonArc.  I noticed though, that
Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) cannot seem to read this older format as a
valid feed when found via autodiscovery, so I wrote two new rcfiles
which seem to work well -- this one is RSS 2.0 and my previous post is
for ATOM 1.0.  In testing, they both work just fine with IE7.
Admittedly, I'm not much of a coder, so if anyone would like to chime in
and refine these scripts, please feel free.  Good comments and input
help the whole MHonArc user community.

Please note the following items:

  -You will need to change "www.example.org", "YourArchiveName", "Your
Title", etc. in the code to be appropriate for your particular needs.

  -You may need to define a MIME type for ".rss" as "text/xml"

  -All times are scripted in GMT.  This should work fine for most feed
readers, including IE7.

  -Hint: To create this additional index (feed), look at the
documentation for the OTHERINDEXES resource.
(http://www.mhonarc.org/MHonArc/doc/resources/otherindexes.html)

  -It is possible (and IMHO preferable) to continue to generate your
existing RDF file (if applicable) to support any readers who currently
subscribe to that feed. You may call multiple additional indexes/feeds
with the OTHERINDEXES resource.  Alternatively, you could create a
manual RDF file announcing the replacement feed and point users to the
new feed URL.

  -Hint: You will need to run MHonArc via the "MHA-PREVIEW.PL" command
in order to generate the previews/summaries of the messages needed by
this rcfile.

  -Feeds may fail validation at http://feedvalidator.org based on the
output of $X-MSG-PREVIEW$ in the <item>|<description> field. If the
first character of the output is a space or other unacceptable
character, the validator may point this out as an error. In my
experience, this does not affect many (if any) feed readers.

  -To add the "autodiscovery" of the feed by browsers, add the following
code to the <IdxPgBegin> and <TIdxPgBegin> (and optionally, the
<MSGPGBEGIN>) sections of your -MAIN- rcfile, placed within the <HEAD>
code:  <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS 2.0"
href="http://www.example.org/YourArchiveName/maillist.rss"/>

  -Chances are that you are finding this script in a MHonArc Users
archive. Current revisions and bug fixes to this rcfile may be found at
the following permanent URL:
http://www.forwardlook.net/features/rc-rss20.txt 

I hope these files will be as useful to others as the RDF rcfiles by
both Jeff and David have been to me.

Thanks,

-Dave Stragand
http://www.forwardlook.net

RC-RSS20.TXT
* - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - *

<FieldOrder>

</FieldOrder>

<Sort>

</Sort>

<DayBegin>

</DayBegin>

<DayEnd>

</DayEnd>

<!-- This is a MHonArc rcfile, which is designed to
     generate RSS 2.0 output. 

     Written by Dave Stragand, dave(_dot_)stragand(_at_)
     forwardlook(_dot_)net, 2007-04-10, v. 1.0.  Based
     upon the original RDF MHonArc rcfile created by
     Jeff Breidenbach, jeff(_at_)jab(_dot_)org, Aug 26, 1999,
     v. 1.0 and David Gibbs' midrange.com mailing list archives
     RDF RC file example posted at 
     http://david.fallingrock.net/2005/07/22/rss-from-mhonarc/

     Current versions of this rcfile may be found at
     http://www.forwardlook.net/features/rc-rss20.txt
                                                         -->

<!-- ------------------------------------ -->
<!-- Section 0: Configuration adjustments -->
<!-- ------------------------------------ -->

<idxsize>
10
</idxsize>

<idxfname>
maillist.rss
</idxfname>

<!-- ----------------------------- -->
<!-- Section 1: Specify RSS markup -->
<!-- ----------------------------- -->

<ssmarkup>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<rss version="2.0">
</ssmarkup>

<idxpgbegin>
  <channel>
    <title>Your Title</title>
    <link>http://www.example.org/YourArchiveName</link>
    <description>Description of Your Feed</description>
    <language>en-us</language>
    <pubDate>$GMTDATE(%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S)$ GMT</pubDate>
    <lastBuildDate>$GMTDATE(%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S)$ GMT</lastBuildDate>
    <docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs>
    <generator>MHonArc RSS 2.0 RCFile</generator>
    <managingEditor>postmaster@xxxxxxxxxxx (Postmaster Display
Name)</managingEditor>
    <webMaster>webmaster@xxxxxxxxxxx (Webmaster Display
Name)</webMaster>
    <image>
      <title>Your Title</title>
      <url>http://www.example.org/images/image.jpg</url>
      <link>http://www.example.org/YourArchiveName</link>
    </image>
</idxpgbegin>

<litemplate>
  <item>
    <title>$SUBJECTNA$</title>
    <link>http://www.example.org/YourArchiveName/$MSG$</link>
    <description>$X-MSG-PREVIEW$</description>
    <pubDate>$MSGGMTDATE(CUR;%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S)$ GMT</pubDate>
    <guid
isPermaLink="true">http://www.example.org/YourArchiveName/$MSG$</guid>
    <author>$FROMADDR$ ($FROMNAME$)</author>
  </item>
</litemplate>

<idxpgend>
  </channel>
  </rss>
</idxpgend>

<!-- ----------------------------------------------------- -->
<!-- Section 2: Remove any HTML left from default settings -->
<!-- ----------------------------------------------------- -->

<listbegin>

</listbegin>

<listend>

</listend>

<nodoc>

<nomultipg>
<main>

<!-- --- -->
<!-- End -->
<!-- --- -->