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RSS news feed downloads a file instead of pointing to feed?
 
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 12:53 pm    Post subject: RSS news feed downloads a file instead of pointing to feed? Reply with quote

When i cliick on the orange 'XML' logo anywhere on The BlogHarbor site, a file is downloaded to my desktop, and needs to be opened in a text editor. On any other site, the browser shows the XML file in the browser window with the correct URL for accessing the feed. What is the problem here?

-paul
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john
Site Admin


Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 10:50 pm    Post subject: Re: RSS news feed downloads a file instead of pointing to fe Reply with quote

There are 2 primary elements which dictate what happens when you access any file on any site: the server and the browser. So the reason why a file does whatever it does is due to the interaction between the server and the browser.

First, the server has to tell the browser some information about the file by telling it what kind of content it is about to send. This information is known as the MIME type or content type.

When the browser gets this information about the content type, it checks its preferences to see what it should do with the file. For example, if the content type is text/html the browser will know this is an HTML page and display the content. If the content type is application/msword, which is a Word document, some versions of Internet Explorer can display the Word document within the browser window. Other browsers can not, and must simply save the file and hand it off to Word to open the document.

So as you can see, the server sends the browser the content type before sending the content, which allows the browser to determine what to do with the content.

There is some debate as to which content type is proper to use for RSS files. We fall on the side that the proper type is application/rss+xml. Using this content type allows you as a user and web browser developers to make choices about how you want RSS XML files to be handled. We think that this is the best way to have browsers that know what to do with an RSS file, either showing it inline if they can handle it or passing it off to an RSS aggregator.

Other sites (yes, and even this forum server - woops!) might serve RSS with the content type of text/xml. We think - as do many other weblog software developers - that application/rss+xml is a better choice, which is why your browser might handle RSS feeds on BlogHarbor weblogs differently than on other weblogs.

What are your options if you are not comfortable with your RSS feeds being sent as application/rss+xml?

1) Educate your users. I am not sure which makes more sense for a user who does not know what an RSS feed is in the first place, opening a page full of gobbledygook codes in the browser or having them download that gobbledygook. Chances are they don't know what to do with either, so create a page on your site that explains to your users what an RSS feed is, where your feeds are, and what they can do with them.

2) On a personal level, you can reconfigure your browser. My Mozilla out of the box does the same thing - prompts to download BlogHarbor blogs' RSS files - so I just configured it to pass them to Mozilla and now they open up inline...

3) Transform the RSS feed we create for you into the RSS feed you prefer using a service such as FeedBurner. This service can take your blog's RSS feed and manipulate it in various ways, including altering the content type. Then you can alter your blog templates and components to reference your FeedBurner feed instead of the one we are generating.

Hope this helps explain things, sorry this came out so long, but I thought the question deserved a thorough answer.
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 10:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

thanks for the explanation...I can't seem to figure out how to configure my browser to open the feed inline though, which is what I want to do.

I am using Safari.

Thanks again,

-paul.
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john
Site Admin


Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Sun Nov 07, 2004 11:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Paul - Safari does not appear to have any method for users to configure what to do with any given file or MIME type.

I think that you can dig into the application using Show Package Contents and modify the Info.plist file, but I don't know enough about the configuration of this file to offer a concrete suggestion.
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heidigoseek



Joined: 28 Sep 2004
Posts: 17
Location: Monroe, MI

PostPosted: Mon Nov 08, 2004 12:08 pm    Post subject: Feed Burner Reply with quote

I've found Feed Burner very impressive.

http://www.feedburner.com

Besides the many interesting options for tracking, displaying, and configuring your feeds, the most impressive features is creating a more "visually pleasing" feed. In addition to making the gobbledygook look less like such, it also has a little bit of info on the left sidebar as to what a feed is, how to subscribe to them, and a link to more info on RSS. I found it a little nicer to people who may not know too much about feeds yet.

You can take a look at mine to get an idea:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/HeidiGoSeek
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