Announcing the DMXzone RSS feed
At DMXzone, we've launched our RSS feed. RSS stands for Rich Site Summary, and is a way of putting out content in a pre-defined way so that anyone else who wants to can take the text file and automatically import it into their own site. If you want lots of detail, here's the full specification, but in order to use someone else’s RSS feed in your own web site, all you really need to know is that an RSS feed is text, but the data in it is a small subset of XML. DON'T PANIC! (I always say that when someone sees the 'X' word). RSS isn't nicknamed Really Simple Syndication for nothing).
Most web developers write a script in their preferred scripting language that grabs the feed at a pre-defined interval (depending on how frequently it’s updated by its author) and then put it in their website using ASP/ PHP (or whatever). Because it’s just text, the typeface, colours etc are determined by the HTML or CSS of the site that is consuming the feed. (If you are running a PHP-driven site, Matt Machell has a very simple tutorial with all the code needed use someone’s RSS feed in your site.)
DMXzone RSS feed in Macromedia Central
A new way to read a RSS feed from your desktop is Macromedia's new product, Central. One of the functions of central is a sort of desktop news gatherer. You can give it addresses of the RSS feeds from your favourite news sites (DMXzone, BBC, Zeldman) and it wil poll them all at a pre-determined interval and check for updates. Then you can check them all out at your leisure (and don't even need to be online when you’re reading the information, as Central has downloaded them all already).
So. Let's have a look at how you can read the DMXzone feeds from Central. First, choose which feed you want. There are several:
URL |
Description |
DMXzone web development and industry news | |
DMXzone Free tutorials | |
DMXzone extensions | |
DMXzone projects | |
Books on DMXzone | |
Links | |
FAQs | |
DMXzone premium tutorials |
- Download and install Central from the Macromedia website for free.
- The first screen when you open Central looks like this:
- Click on the Blogreader button and the Blogreader will open:
- Click the Add button to add a new feed. Insert the URL, I inserted the url to see the Premium Content Articles: http://www.dmxzone.com/rss.asp?typeid=28
- Select the News categorie and you will see the latest Premium Content on DMXzone!
If you can't see the new content, check that Central is on-line. See the magnet logo in the top left-hand corner? If it's greyed out, click it. Also, Central's default is checking the feeds once every 30 minutes. To change this, or to force it to check, choose 'View' from the top menu bar and then 'Preferences'.
That's all there is to it!
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