* RSS feed generation, tofeed and ListGarden
Many Web applications can output their own RSS feed but sometimes you will want to add items to a feed that have been created by non-RSS aware applications. This is likely in intranet environments where a feed could be built from random items as varied as spreadsheets, diagrams, Word documents, or even the output from a log file.
To build such an ad-hoc feed you could use a free tool such as tofeed.py, a Python script created by Marcelo Rinesi that accepts command line arguments, standard input, or file data to generate a feed.
Another free tool but this time with a rich, complex user interface is ListGarden published by Software Garden, a software company founded by the legendary Dan Bricklin.
ListGarden is an application for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux that runs as a local Web server and uses a browser as its client interface. Installation is a snap and to launch the UI you left- or right-click on an icon in the system tray (which also provides an option to shut down the program).
ListGarden is an incredibly rich program that requires no knowledge of XML or RSS and offers all of the features needed to create and maintain one or more sophisticated RSS feeds including a built-in FTP client.
Among ListGarden’s features include the ability to:
* Produce both XML and optional “human-readable companion HTML” content.
* Be accessed remotely (i.e. you can run the program on a Web server although ListGarden provides no access authentication).
* Support enclosures (“a way of attaching multimedia content to RSS feeds by providing the URL of a file associated with an entry” – see here).
* And if all that weren’t enough, it is also open source!
The documentation is excellent and ListGarden provides specific support for RSS feeds for podcasting and some very sound advice on the background and etiquette of RSS feeds.
If you are experimenting with RSS feeds, these are key resources you have to have.
P.S.: If you want to read up on the RSS specification, check out the Technology at Harvard Law blog.
