Auto HTML-RSS Update

What is RSS?

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an XML format designed for sharing web content like news headlines. An RSS service (also known as an RSS channel) consists of a list of items, each of which contains a headline, description, and a link to a web page. To use RSS, you will need a special RSS news reader or aggregator that will allow you to collect and display RSS service. RSS news readers allow you to view the service you select all together in the same place and, by automatically retrieving updates, stay current with new content soon after it is published.

Auto HTML-RSS Update is a utility that will read an xml page, convert the RSS data, and import it in to an existing web page. This will allow you to create web pages that will always display the most current information from your RSS feed, and since the resulting page is HTML, it can be easily included into any existing page.

For an example, check out my home page at http://www.theblattners.com/home.html#_Current_Headlines. These 4 news feeds, and local Atlanta traffic, are updated every 15 minutes. There is another page that is also being updated, click on "Look here for more news headlines" below Current Events on my home page. This page includes the descriptions for each link.

The xml files are downloaded, the links are converted to HTML, and then added to the page.

Here is a picture of the main screen:

As you can see, this is pretty easy to figure out. The RSS pages will be read every 30 minutes, converted, and then added to an HTML web page between tags that you set. There is no limit to the number of links or pages you can update. I currently have this program updating 3 pages with 19 RSS links every 15 minutes. If you would like to see how I have them set up, here are links to the three pages.

• My home page - This displays current news headlines, local traffic alerts, and local weather
• More News Headlines - 9 RSS feeds are displayed on this page
• Metro Atlanta Traffic - This page displays detailed information about local Atlanta traffic

Clicking on the "Modify / View URL List" brings up the configuration screen:

Here is a quick run-down on setting up an HTML document to automatically update:

1. Enter the URL to the RSS page you want to convert
2. Enter the tag to look for in the existing HTML document
3. Set the location of the HTML file to modify
4. Select the options you want
   1. Include Description - Adds the description for the link if available in the RSS file
   2. Include Date and Time - This will add the date and time of the link if available in the RSS file
   3. Add a Blank Line - Adds an HTML line feed '<br>' to each link
   4. Add a bullet to search link - This option will add a bullet '•' before each link
5. Enter the maximum number of links to include
6. Click Save

Now all you have to do is add the tag in your html document. Decide where you want the links to be displayed, and enter the tags. In this example, the tag was <topnews>, so we add the <topnews> tag in the existing HTML document (C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\home.html in this example), and on the next line </topnews>. Auto HTML-RSS Update will automatically add the links between these tags. One thing to note, anything between these tags will be deleted when an update occurs.

Click 'Close' to return to the start screen. When you click on 'Refresh Now' the page will be updated immediately. To continuously update the page and the desired intervals, click 'Start Conversion'.

The 'Show Code' button allows you to see the URL of the xml file, the raw RSS data, the converted HTML links, the target HTML file to add the links to, and the tag to add the links after

Visit the Auto RSS to HTML for more information