Contents: Really quick cheatsheet · RSS 1.0 · Simple HTML Markup for Supporting RSS 1.0 generation · Markup description · Try it · Links
If you just want to add the capacity for an RSS feed to a page you own, with minimal additional work, here is a quick list of things to do.
RSS 1.0 ("RDF Site Summary") is an RDF Vocabulary that provides a lightweight multipurpose extensible metadata description and syndication format. In short, its a means for describing news and events so that they can be shared across the web. Examples of this in practice related to the W3C are the W3C at meerkat channel, the W3C news-is-free channel and W3C At A Glance. In short, RSS 1.0 is very cool way of describing, managing and making available to very broad audiences relevant and timely information.
This document provides a quick guide for a simple way of creating RSS 1.0 news feeds from your W3C related domain, activity or working group home page. A specific goal of which will be in effective integration of this information to provide team, member and public views of what's going on at W3C. Rael Dornfest's Writing RSS 1.0 provides a more detailed description of RSS 1.0 and links to additional tools and technologies for creating news feeds.
This document is designed to provide an explanation of one way which focuses on the use of a simple, descriptive set of HTML markup (discussed below) and a corresponding XSLT transformation file. This work builds on Dan Connolly's Site Summaries in XHTML work with a focus of providing a more simple, descriptive set of HTML markup (discussed below) and a transformation capabilities that can be used for a larger set of web pages than the W3C's Home Page.
Please note that using this documentation for a working group's page means you can probably make the leap to using the working group home page markup, which, besides allowing you to easily generate an RSS feed, will allow as much data as you markup to be used in other applications.
With the addition of a small set of elements and descriptive classes, we can semantically annotate HTML documents to support the generation of RSS 1.0 feeds. The following example from the Semantic Web Home Page for instance provides the basis for describing the relevant feed:
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Semantic Web</title> </head> <body> <blockquote> <p>"<span class="summary">The Semantic Web is an extension of the current web in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation.</span>" <cite>-- Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler, Ora Lassila, <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/2001/0501issue/0501berners-lee.html"> The Semantic Web</a></cite></p> </blockquote>
News items associated with the feed are described using the following mark-up:
<h2 id="new" class="new">Events</h2> <ul> <li> <div class="item" id="x20020125a"> <a class="link" href="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/news#x20020125a"><img alt="-" width="17" height="11" src="/Icons/right" /><span class="title">An RDF Schema for P3P</span></a> : <span class="date">2002-01-25</span>, <span class="description">The <a href="http://www.w3.org/P3P/">P3P Working Group</a> has published An <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/NOTE-p3p-rdfschema-20020125"> RDF Schema for P3P</a> as a W3C Note. Based on The <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/WD-P3P-20010928/">Platform for Privacy Preferences 1.0 (P3P1.0) Specification</a> Last Call Working Draft, the Note represents one possible RDF schema for P3P. P3P simplifies and automates the process of reading Web site privacy policies, promoting trust and confidence in the Web.</span> </div> </li> ...
This HTML can then be transformed via a specific XSLT file to create the corresponding RSS news feed. The above example RSS 1.0 looks like the following:
<rss:channel rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Overview.rss"> <rss:title>W3C Semantic Web</rss:title> <rss:link>http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/</rss:link> <rss:description>The Semantic Web is an extension of the current web in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation.</rss:description> <rss:items> <rdf:Seq> <rdf:li rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/news#x20020125a"/> ... </rdf:Seq> </rss:items> </rss:channel> <rss:item rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/news#x20020125a"> <rss:title>An RDF Schema for P3P</rss:title> <rss:link>http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/news#x20020125a</rss:link> <dc:date>2002-01-25</dc:date> <rss:description rdf:parseType="Literal"> <span class="description">The <a href="http://www.w3.org/P3P/" shape="rect">P3P Working Group</a> has published An <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/NOTE-p3p-rdfschema-20020125" shape="rect"> RDF Schema for P3P</a> as a W3C Note. Based on The <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/WD-P3P-20010928/" shape="rect">Platform for Privacy Preferences 1.0 (P3P1.0) Specification</a> Last Call Working Draft, the Note represents one possible RDF schema for P3P. P3P simplifies and automates the process of reading Web site privacy policies, promoting trust and confidence in the Web.</span></rss:description> </rss:item> ...
The following is a more descriptive explanation of the associated mark-up.
It may help to know that an RSS feed is essentially a sequence of items, with a bit of additional collection- or feed-level information. Each item has a title, a link to the original source of the information (the news item is typically extracted from some larger context), and some descriptive text.
The stylesheet creates the feed this way:
Looked at the other way 'round:
In case of doubt, it may be helpful to consult the XSLT transformation sheet.
Note, 2003-04-24:
The XSL file is the stylesheet which does the scraping. Unless you are experimenting with a variant copy of it, don't change it from the default. The XML data is the XHTML page which contains the markup described above. The Base is the base URI to be used in absolutizing any relative URIs in the input; normally, making it the same as XML data will be the right thing. The Channel is the URI where the output RSS should go. The Page is the URI to which the RSS channel will link. (In case of doubt, make it identical to XML data.)
Once you're satisfied with the results, this service can be automated through CVS-commit triggered scripting. That is, once you make changes to your XHTML file and commit them to our CVS space, the XSLT can be run over it and the RSS file generated automatically and almost immediately. For now, please contact Ryan Lee (ryanlee@w3.org) to get your feed set up.
Once this is in place and working to your satisfaction, please let me know, and I will configure the W3C At A Glance service to include this new content.
To see examples, or for further information: