What is RSS ?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It is a method to spread headlines and announcements around the internet. Potentially it can save people from having to trawl around websites looking for new content announcements. To make use of RSS, either another site can use the RSS feed of the first (perhaps thus becoming the automated "All the world's model railway news" site), or an end user has an RSS reading tool to collect the headlines from sites of interest, and prompt the user when new material has arrived.

The 2mm homepage has an illustration of using RSS feeds from other sites; the lower list of new material from blogs and other sites is generated from a collection of RSS feeds, which are then processed to show the headlines and the beginning of each article.

You can find out about RSS and RSS reading tools via various websites; suggest you put "RSS" into Google and see what you find! Or for a controlled explanation, the BBC's website has a decent introduction, if biased a bit to use by a news broadcaster.

The 2mm Scale Association news feed & RSS.

The homepage of the 2mm website has a "news" panel, also repeated on this page. This provides links into new content, both on the 2mm website and on related websites.

If you have a RSS reading tool (below), then you can subscribe to the RSS feed at http://www.2mm.org.uk/rss.xml
or you could drag the RSS symbol onto your reading tool. Most modern web browsers will display our RSS file because we've added an XSL style sheet, without the style sheet, the RSS file alone isn't much use to an ordinary web browser.

Adding News Items to the 2mm Site.

If you have a bit of news you wish to publicise in the 2mm News Items, then please send them to the webmaster. You should send a short headline, and then a further short description paragraph. If there is a website which requires a link, please include that.

At the moment, the RSS file is managed on my home computer and uploaded to the website. I'm looking at an online RSS maintenance tool which will allow those with appropriate passwords to upload their own material to the news feed.

RSS Reading Tools.

I recommend that you search for tools as things are changing rapidly. The following is my understanding in December 2005.

Windows Internet Explorer v6 does not directly support RSS, though there are third-party plugin applications, and stand-alone Windows applications (both free and paid-for). Internet Explorer v7 has built in RSS support.

Mozilla Firefox has limited RSS support for the headline, but not the body of the message (using "live bookmarks"), or there are various plugins for Firefox, such as "Wizz RSS".

Mozilla Thunderbird (the mail tool) has support for RSS; using an email-like tool is an alternative way of viewing RSS information and receiving notifications of changes. There are RSS plugins for Microsoft Outlook (and I guess Microsoft Outlook Express).

Apple Mac users have full RSS support in the current Apple Safari browser.

There are a lot of online tools for managing RSS feeds; Google, Yahoo and numerous others have tools to create customised personal pages, the content of which is often drawn from RSS feeds.

 

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