I have question about RSS feed - rss

I am stuck on this. My project is to do this..This week you will be creating a theme for a web development company.
* You can use http://www.1kbgrid.com/ for a base design.
* Come up with a color scheme that will match this logo.
* Decide what your top links should be. Create an RSS feed for these top pages.
* Create a report that states the scope of the project (why you are doing it), the top level pages, why you picked the color scheme,etc.
ok I have done and rss thing and this is what it looks like
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>Web design software</title>
<link></link>
<description>Has different soft ware and prices.</description>
<item>
<title>Adobe Dreamweaver</title>
<link>http://shopping.yahoo.com/search?p=web%20design</link>
<description>This tells you how much it cost and what it is
for.</description>
</item>
<item>
<title>Frontpage 2003 upgrade</title>
<link>
http://www.softwaremedia.com/microsoft/frontpage/frontpage-
2003-upgrade.html?ovchn=PGR&ovcrn=39202323&ovtac=CMP&ovcpn=frontpage-2003---upgrade</link>
<description>THis is to help build a better web
site.</description>
</item>
<item>
<title>WebPlus X4 Website Maker Mini Box</title>
<link>
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?sku=A3310055&cs=04&c=us&l=en&dgc=SS&cid=52102&lid=1342490</link>
<description>It helps you to make websites</description>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>
what i am stuck on is how to decide what my top link should be.Create an RSS feed for those top pages. Ok the question is am I suppose to link the rss feed or if that is even possible. I am totally lost on this question. Thank you for ready this.

You generally link to RSS documents from your main site by using the <link> tag. It should look something like this
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Top Web design software Feed" href="http://LINKTOMYRSSFILE" />
If you site is a dynamic site, you'll need to replace LINKTOMYRSSFILE with the link to the file that generates your RSS. If it's a static file, just save this file in your server and point it to that.
Also, your main channel link should point to the link of the page that displays all this content.
EDIT
First off, you should use the W3C service to validate your feed. They point out what's wrong/best practices and tells you how you can fix them (use the help link next to the error)
Make sure the empty <link></link> tag contains a url to your site
To answer your questions in the comments
Missing atom:link with rel="self"
According to the RSS Advisory Board's
Best Practices Profile, identifying a
feed's URL within the feed makes it
more portable, self-contained, and
easier to cache. For these reasons, a
feed should contain an atom:link used
for this purpose.
via : http://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/warning/MissingAtomSelfLink.html
You can fix this by changing your <rss> tag to
<rss version="2.0" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
And having the following above items
<atom:link href="http://LINKTOFEED" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/>
Line 12, column 2: item should contain a guid element
It's recommended that you provide the
guid, and if possible make it a
permalink. This enables aggregators to
not repeat items, even if there have
been editing changes.
A frequently asked question about
s is how do they compare to
s. Aren't they the same thing?
Yes, in some content systems, and no
in others. In some systems, is
a permalink to a weblog item. However,
in other systems, each is a
synopsis of a longer article,
points to the article, and is
the permalink to the weblog entry.
So in your case adding the following to each of your items will fix it
<guid isPermaLink="false">LINKTOSOFTWARE</guid>
Replace LINKTOSOFTWARE with the links in your <link></link> tags.
I corrected your mistakes and your feed validates fine. You just need to fix these errors.
You can follow this tutorial on how to add RSS feeds to your pages : https://developer.mozilla.org/en/RSS/Getting_Started/Syndicating
It's as simple as adding an HTML tag into your page.

Related

How can I easily override SEO Sulu CMS page extension in Symfony?

I want to override the SeoStructureExtension with my own implementation, which will support OpenGraph (OG) tags.
What is the easiest way to override it and add additional inputs?
I am afraid to say that overriding the SeoStructureExtension file can not be achieved very easily... The fields it saves are hardcoded. So the first thing you would have to do is override the sulu_page.extension.seo service, which references this class. I would say your best bet to achieve this, is to decorate this service.
The other part you have to extend is the XML file describing the page_seo form. Luckily this part is a little bit easier. Your Sulu installation should already come with a config/forms folder, where you can put a file similar to the original page_seo form. Give it the same key (page_seo) and only add the new fields you want to add (the name of the properties have to match what you are implementing in the decorated service). If you e.g. want to add a new text field, this file would look something like this:
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<form xmlns="http://schemas.sulu.io/template/template"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://schemas.sulu.io/template/template http://schemas.sulu.io/template/form-1.0.xsd"
>
<key>page_seo</key>
<properties>
<property name="ext/seo/ogTitle" type="text_line">
<meta>
<title lang="en">OG Title</title>
</meta>
</property>
</properties>
</form>
Mind the ext/seo/ prefix before ogTitle, which is need for the information to be passed to the SeoStructureExtension.
I also think that these fields might make sense to be added to the core of Sulu. I would be happy if you create an issue, explaining what fields exactly you need etc. Then we can discuss if we implement it in the core as well, so that you don't have to add this manually in future versions.

RSS feed invalid: <status> service unavailable</status

When I try to validate my rss feed, I get this result (with w3c feed validator)
This feed does not validate.
line 1, column 39: Undefined root element: status [help]
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?><status>Service unavailable.</status>
But my feed does NOT contain that status tag. I have no idea where that is coming from?
This is the link to the feed: https://www.vrmodelphotography.com/feed/ I did a search on "status" and I did not receive any hits ...
I do have a background in IT, but it's been a few years and maybe this is a stupid question ... but I can't find any resources on it in google ... and I'm desperate at this point ...
I found it!
So for future reference, if anybody has the same problem ... I had the plugin "under construction" activated. This plugin allows me to work on my website and showing me the design, menu, ... while the rest of the world just sees an under construction page.
It appears as if this plugin was a bit too ambitious and also shut down the RSS feed.

Why a scorm package cannot be reverse engineered to open and edit its contents?

I have a set of scorm learning courses and I want to edit them, to add new pages and content, not just alter existing ones. So, after searching the web I couldn't find a way to edit any scorm content in any existing tool.
Do you experts know what are the reasons for not having an scorm editing tool?
PS: It's scorm 2004 packages.
Content packages are just zips containing two major pieces - the imsmanifest.xml and the content. The manifest file tells the LMS how the content is organized (like the table of contents in a book) and what resources make up the content/course (like a packing slip). And the content is what the LMS shows to the learner as the course, basically SCOs (generally web pages, swf, etc) and assets (images, pdf, supporting stuff).
What Brian G is saying is that the resources that make up the content might not be able to be modified, they could be swfs from a flash project or some other compiled software.
But that doesn't mean you can't add sequencing or other content, you just need to unzip the content package, modify the manifest right, add your new SCOs, and zip up your new content as a package.
Say for instance you have a package that has 3 SCOs and you want to add an intro page. You can do that by adding another <item> to the <organization> and then the path to what the LMS would deliver <resource> under <resources>.
<organizations default="course">
<organization identifier="course">
<title>The course</title>
<!-- add another item for your intro -->
<item identifier="intro" identifierref="INTRO">
<title>Introduction</title>
</item>
<item identifier="sco1" identifierref="SCO1">
<title>SCO 1<title>
</item>
<item identifier="sco2" identifierref="SCO2">
<title>SCO 2<title>
</item>
<item identifier="sco3" identifierref="SCO3">
<title>SCO 3<title>
</item>
</organization>
</organizations>
<resources>
<resource identifier="INTRO" type="webcontent" adlcp:scormType="sco" href="scos/my_intro.html">
<file href="scos/my_intro.html" />
<!-- possible other needed files, or other resources needed -->
<dependency identifierref="APIWRAPPER" />
</resource>
<resource identifier="SCO1" type="webcontent" adlcp:scormType="sco" href="scos/sco1.html">
<file href="scos/sco1.html" />
</resource>
<!-- other sco resources -->
<resource identifier="APIWRAPPER" type="webcontent" adlcp:scormType="asset">
<file href="assets/APIWrapper.js" />
</resource>
</resources>
ADL modified an open source project to do content packaging. It's called Reload and it is designed to help you create the manifest and package your content. It also will open existing packages and allow you to make edits. You can download it here http://www.adlnet.gov/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/ADL_SCORM_2004_RELOAD_Editor_1_1.zip .. There's also more resources and info on ADL's site: http://www.adlnet.gov/scorm/ .
The CAM book in the SCORM Document Suite has all the gritty details about packaging your content. The SN book goes over everything to know about sequencing. You can find the books here: http://www.adlnet.gov/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/SCORM_2004_4ED_v1_1_Doc_Suite.zip
Another resource by ADL are the Content Developer and ISD guides. They have tips, guidance, and examples for developers working with SCORM. http://www.adlnet.gov/scorm-users-guides-for-instructional-designers-and-programmers-are-now-available/
What you call SCORM Content is in fact simply Web Content that can communicate to a LMS using SCORM API. So your question is exactly equivalent to "Why a webpage cannot be reverse engineered to edit its contents" or "Why a Flash movie cannot be reverse engineered".
The correct answer is "Because whoever created the files didn't want you to". And also "They can be hacked.. to some limited extent..".
Most e-learning courses (that's what SCORM is usually used for) are produced in one of the rapid authoring tools, e.g. Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, Articulate Presenter, Lectora and others. These tools use source files that contain all course content, metadata, resources, images, media etc. They output a mix of Flash and HTML files that can be edited to the same extent you can hack anything you see on web, but without sources your question is like asking "Why this nice image I downloaded cannot be reverse egineered into vectors and layers and opened in Photoshop".
In fact, some tools (like CourseLab) use exact same XML file for storing/editing contents and displaying the contents. Only in the former case it is loaded into the editor, and in the latter case it is played back via a JS-based player.
If you outline the exact problem that you're facing (right now it seems like you're just venting your frustration), people might be able to help you better.
I think you're misunderstanding what SCORM is - it's just an API and data model for SCO <-> LMS communication. How the content itself is developed isn't part of the SCORM standard, that's up to the individual developer to decide and implement.

How can I keep XHTML markup in the RSS output from Yahoo Pipes

I am using yahoo pipes to aggregate a variety of rss feeds (and make some simple transformations, etc). However, the XHTML content of my feeds is stripped away by the aggregation process. The problem seems to have nothing to do with my pipes code, and simply be a result of how Yahoo Pipes transforms the input RSS I am feeding it into the output RSS it spits out -- though both are apparently RSS, they are quite different XML files.
So, for example, when the "input" rss looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<feed>...
<entry>
...
<title>...</title>
<content type="xhtml">
HTML CONTENT HERE
</content>
</entry>
...
</feed>
The output looks like this:
<rss xmlns:geo="http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" xmlns:yt="http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0">
<channel>
<title></title>
<description></description>
<link>
</link>
...
<item>
<title>...</title>
...
<description>
NON HTML CONTENT HERE
</description>
...
</item>
</channel>
</rss>
It seems that the problem is that the contents of the <content> tag in my input are being converted into a <description> tag in the yahoo rss output, and from what I looked up, the <description> tag does not support markup within it, so it makes sense that that content is plain text.
My problem is that I can't find any documentation of why Yahoo is making this transformation or how to avoid it. It is nothing that I can find in my pipe, but on the other hand, I can't find a way to access an un-transformed version of my pipe's output. It seems I must be missing something because obviously people use embedded HTML in RSS all the time and I can't imagine it's all being squashed in every pipe out there.
Here is the link to a minimal test case in which I pull in a single feed and output it again with Yahoo pipes: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=5302fba3cc2d02f7a87ffdded87ce627
Can anyone tell me how to modify the above test pipe so that it will spit out content with html in it? Alternatively, can anyone explain if/why this is impossible to do?
AFAIK you can't get raw feed output as XML - Yahoo! shoehorns your output into specific standard RSS fields, as you noticed. The best option that I can think of is to get your output as json (a javascript object), as the json preserves all the fields in the input:
http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=5302fba3cc2d02f7a87ffdded87ce627&_render=json
Most modern processors will take json output in addition to RSS.

Images in RSS feed

Whenever I see images in an RSS feed, they are embedded in CDATA, rather than surrounded by tags.
In my feed, I would like the images to show up without doing that.
Whether in the browser, or a feed reader (Bloglines) or through FeedBurner, the following structure does not show images, although it is valid RSS. Does anyone have experience with this?
<item>
<category>Viewbook</category>
<title>Widget</title>
<description>Learn more about our widgets.</description>
<link>http://www.widget.com/Default.aspx</link>
<image>
<url>http://www.widget.com/images/thumb.gif</url>
<title>Widget</title>
<link>http://www.widget.com/Default.aspx</link>
<description>Learn more about our widgets.</description>
</image>
</item>
On Colonol Sponsz' hint, I researched:
There's no image tag for items, only for the channel. So you have to do it via the CDATA tag.
For completeness: In RSS 2.0, you CAN have a single enclosure inside an item, which per the spec. can be for a single image. However I understand that support among feed aggregators varies. More typically this is used for things like podcasts. The RSS 2.0 standard states:
<enclosure> is an optional sub-element of <item>.
It has three required attributes. url says where the enclosure is located, length says how big it is in bytes, and type says what its type is, a standard MIME type.
The url must be an http url.
Note that you must include the size of the item, along with the URL and mime type.
However, as others indicated, including the picture(s) in CDATA is much more common.
I believe you can use <media:content ....> items with good support by most rss readers, it is working flawlessly for us on mailchimp (rss to email newsletter).
See http://kb.mailchimp.com/article/how-can-i-format-the-image-content-in-my-rss-to-email-campaigns
EDIT: Here's a live link: https://blog.mailchimp.com/rss-to-email-enhancement-for-publishers/
You can use the media:content element (spec) within item.
Make sure you declare the MRSS (Media RSS) namespace (the xmlns:media attribute, below) for this element, if it is not declared for the whole RSS feed, as it won't validate otherwise. (E.g., out-of-the-box WordPress.)
<media:content
xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/"
url="http://www.widget.com/images/thumb.gif"
medium="image"
type="image/jpeg"
width="150"
height="150" />
This may or may not display as you'd like; you'd have to experiment. Embedding in content is in that way simpler, though this route helps with things like MailChimp integration (h/t this answer) or other custom solutions.
An example implementation for WordPress is in my answer here.
Use, e.g.:
<enclosure url="http://www.scripting.com/mp3s/weatherReportSuite.mp3" length="12216320" type="audio/mpeg" />
Documentation here
It works with a seperate tag, as you said. The problem is the specification of version 2.0.
I know, there are feed reader that does supress images for bandwidth reasons.
Source: RSS specification 2.0 via Wikipedia

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