There are three sections on the 'Feeds' tab: the feed button bar, the 'available feeds' listbox, and the feed data entry area.
Feed button bar
The feed button bar contains buttons for the most commonly used feed operations. From left to right the buttons are: New Feed, Open Feed, Save Feed, Close Feed, Download Feed, Upload Feed, Move Feed Up, Move Feed Down, WYSIWYG Description Editor, View Source, and Preferences. All these functions (and a few more) are also available from the main menu.
Available feeds list box
This list box contains all the feeds that have been worked on in FeedForAll. Click on a feed to make it the active feed for editing.
Data entry area
The data entry area is on the right hand side of the 'Feeds' tab. There are two tabs in this area: 'Required' and 'Optional'.
The 'Required' tab contains fields that must be filled in for each feed.
| · | Title: Every feed must have a title.
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| · | Description: You must include a brief description of the feed
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| · | Link: The Web page address containing information about the feed
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| · | Pub Date: The publication date is required so that news readers know when a feed has been updated with new items.
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| · | Auto Pub Date: When checked the feed's publication date will be automatically filled in whenever you add a new item. The feed's publication date should always match that of its newest item, so it is recommended that you check Auto PubDate.
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The 'Optional' tab contains several additional fields you may choose to include.
| · | Skip Hours: Set the hours that RSS readers do not have to check for new updates. If you always update at midnight, you can tell readers to skip the other 23 hours.
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| · | Skip Days: Tells readers which days to skip checking for new updates. Use this if you update on the same day each month.
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| · | Language: Sets the language for your feed.
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| · | Category: Some RSS directories allow users to search for feeds by category. Set the appropriate category for your feed here.
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| · | Cloud: Cloud servers let readers know when there are updates to feeds that are registered to them, thus saving the reader having to check all the time. If your feed is registered with a cloud server enter the Domain name or IP address of the server, the port the server runs on, the path (location) of the cloud server's responder, the name of the procedure that calls the request notification and the protocol to use to communicate with the cloud server.
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| · | Text input: The Text Input settings allows a data entry box to be displayed within your feed. It can be used to collect information from the reader, or act on data they enter. Not all feed readers support this option. If you enter any information for text input you must fill in all four fields to set including the title, description, variable name assigned to the input box and the link to a CGI program that receives the data from the data entry box.
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| · | Webmaster: The e-mail address of the person responsible for technical issues relating to the feed
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| · | Editor: An e-mail address for the person responsible for the feed's content
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| · | Copyright: The copyright notification for the feed
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| · | Rating: Optional rating for your feed. For information on rating a feed, check www.w3.org/PICS.
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| · | Docs: The address of a Web page that explains the RSS specification
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| · | TTL: The 'Time To Live' or the amount of time a feed is allowed to be cached by the server before it must refresh (look for new items)
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The 'Extensions' Tab is used to add extensions (namespaces) to your feed. For example if you want your feed to be an iTunes podcast, you would add the iTunes extension to your feed here. After you add a new extension you will see that there is a new tab under the Extensions tab for that namespace, for data entry. If the namespace supports data in Items or Images, then you will also see new tabs in a similar location under the Items or Image tab.
The 'Advanced Tab' is used to include XML comments and to support style sheets
| · | XML Comments: Optional comments about the feed or topics it contains.
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| · | Stylesheet: CSS and XSL Style sheet file names.
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Special Features on the Feeds Tab:
Live spell checking
The 'Title' and 'Description' fields are enabled with live spell checking. Unrecognized words will automatically be underlined, as you type. Right-click on any underlined word for spelling suggestions, or to add it to the dictionary.
WYSIWYG Description HTML editor
HTML tags may be included in the description fields in RSS feeds. This allows some formatting of the description text, resulting in a more professional looking feed.
Enter HTML tags manually in the 'Description' field, or use the WYSIWYG HTML editor for easier formatting. Double-click inside the 'Description' text box, click on the HTML Editor button in the button bar, or choose 'HTML Editor' from the 'Tools' menu to start the editor.
Pub Date date and time pickers
Dates are defined to be in a specific format the RSS specification. FeedForAll makes entering dates easy using date and time pickers. Click on the calendar button to the right of the Pub Date field to choose a date from a calendar.
Feed Smart Dates
Many RSS feed publishers schedule when their new content is published. Rather than entering the next publish date manually each time, the Smart Date button can be programmed to automatically advance the Pub Date to the next desired publication date.
The Smart Date button (with an image of a calendar with a wand) is to the far right of the Pub Date field. By default the Smart Date button enters the current date and time into the Pub Date field. Program the Smart Date button to enter a more useful date and time in FeedForAll's 'Preferences' screen.
Auto Pub Date
There are two types of Pub Dates in an RSS feed: the Feed Pub Date, and Item Pub Dates.
The Feed Pub Date contains the date and time that the most recent item was published.
Each item that is added to a feed also has its own Pub Date that is set to the date and time that the individual item was published. The Feed's Pub Date should match the most recent Item's Pub Date. FeedForAll can automatically handle this for you. Check the 'Auto Pub Date' box (bottom right corner of the Feeds tab) to automatically update the Feed's Pub Date.
Help!
There are many fields that may be used in an RSS feed. It may not be obvious from a field's name what data should be entered into them. FeedForAll supports a "What's This" help function that can help you out here. Click the icon in the top right corner of the Feeds tab and your mouse pointer will change to an arrow with a question mark. Click an item in the Feeds tab to display a help window explaining the purpose of the field. "What's This" also works on other features of the screen including button bar buttons.