Challenge:
Publish a feed not using a content management system.
Ideas:
Publish a feed in XML but style it with XSL so that I don’t have to “generate” an HTML page. Sounds sexy. So far it’s working.
The biggest challenge was finding a nice “what can I and can’t do with XML and/or XSL” chart. There were a few manuals, but I wanted a quick glance type thing. What’s required? What’s optional?
Seems there are different namespaces, which mean that more options in XSL are available. For example, Yahoo (of all folks) have a media namespace. This opens up thumbnails/images! XML+Thumbnails/images… sounds like a newsletter.
But wait… there’s more. I have put in an on the XML and subscribed to it with iTunes. Sure nuff. The mp3 is coming through loud and clear. And with XSL I can say “if audio, show audio link…”
Code:
The XML (newsletter.xml)
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?><?xml-stylesheet type=”text/xsl” xhref=”newsletter.xsl” mce_href=”newsletter.xsl” ?><rss version=”2.0″
xmlns:media=”http://search.yahoo.com/mrss”
xmlns:itunes=”http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd”
xmlns:dc=”http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/”
>
<channel>
<title>Test Lab Newsletter</title>
<link>http://www.test.org/news/newsletter/index.html</link>
<description>Test Lab description.</description>
<category>Science</category>
<itunes:category text=”Science”/>
<language>en-us</language>
<copyright>copyright 2005-2006 Test Lab</copyright>
<lastBuildDate>Mon, 15 May 2006 15:34:51 EST</lastBuildDate>
<image>
<title>Test Lab Newsletter</title>
<url>http://www.test.org/images/icon-pod-test-300.jpg</url>
<link>http://www.test.org/news/newsletter/index.html</link>
</image>
<itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit>
<itunes:image xhref=”http://www.test.org/images/icon-pod-test-300.jpg” mce_href=”http://www.test.org/images/icon-pod-test-300.jpg” />
<item>
<title>Test Lab contract newsletter title here</title>
<description>Blurb for the newsletter article</description>
<link>http://www.test.org/news/news_letter/2006/20060515/index.html#jsa</link>
<guid>http://www.test.org/news/news_letter/2006/20060515/index.html#jsa</guid>
<author>contactname@test.org (First Last)</author>
<media:thumbnail url=”http://www.test.org/news/news_letter/2006/20060515/test_tn.jpg” height=”70″ width=”100″ />
<category>Science</category>
<pubDate>Mon, 15 May 2006 15:57:53 EST</pubDate>
<itunes:keywords>keywords space entered here</itunes:keywords>
<itunes:duration>00:00:00</itunes:duration>
<itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>
The XML (newsletter.xml)
First part goes above the html tag to say “Hey! I’m a stylesheet for XML.”
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”ISO-8859-1″?>
<xsl:stylesheet version=”1.0″
xmlns:xsl=”http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform”
xmlns:media=”http://search.yahoo.com/mrss”
>
<xsl:output method=”html”/>
<xsl:template match=”/”>
Now this part goes in where you want the channel items to show. All around this I have the normal web site template in plain ol’ HTML. I have some inline CSS but that’s to show what it’s doing. I put the layout in a table because it copies/pastes better in an email for emailing the newsletter. I’m hoping to get rid of that table “soon.” But for now, it’s a necessary evil.
<xsl:for-each select=”/rss/channel/item”>
<tr valign=”top”><td><xsl:if test=”media:thumbnail/@url”>
<img>
<xsl:attribute name=”src”>
<xsl:value-of select=”media:thumbnail/@url” />
</xsl:attribute>
<xsl:attribute name=”width”>
<xsl:value-of select=”media:thumbnail/@width” />
</xsl:attribute>
<xsl:attribute name=”height”>
<xsl:value-of select=”media:thumbnail/@height” />
</xsl:attribute>
</img>
</xsl:if>
</td><td class=”news_item”><p style=”padding-left:0;font-size:80%;”>
<a><xsl:attribute name=”href”><xsl:value-of select=”link”/></xsl:attribute><b style=”font-size:120%;”><xsl:value-of select=”title”/> </b></a><br/>
<xsl:value-of disable-output-escaping=”yes” select=”description” />
If we have a podcast, there will be text in the url field that points to the podcast’s location.
<xsl:if test=”enclosure/@url”>
<a><xsl:attribute name=”href”><xsl:value-of select=”enclosure/@url”/></xsl:attribute><img xsrc=”/images/icon-mp3.gif” mce_src=”/images/icon-mp3.gif” alt=”Listen MP3″ border=”0″ />
</a>
</xsl:if>
</p>
</td></tr>
</xsl:for-each>
I will post more on this project if/when it continues. Right now everything’s working fine and dandy. We haven’t had any podcasts to go with the newsletter stories yet but when I test it out, it was fine. The generator is still fine and only needs a little more tweaking to be (hopefully) safe enough for others to use in the office.
