Creating Atom/RSS Content on MyUW

UW departments may publish their Web content (such as news headlines or resource listings) on MyUW via an XML file composed of a number of related information items. MyUW supports two XML-based formats for syndicating content that is updated dynamically:

In this document, we first describe the specific components in Atom and RSS formats that MyUW requires and displays and then outline the process for publishing your channel on MyUW.

Contents

  1. The Atom Feed Format for MyUW
  2. The RSS Feed Format for MyUW
  3. Publishing your Channel on MyUW

1. The Atom Feed Format for MyUW

Below is an example of a single-entry Atom feed document. The elements required by MyUW are boldfaced.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">

<title>UW in the Media</title>

<link href="http://uwnews.org/mock/atom.xml"/>

<updated>2008-07-14T16:54:34Z</updated>

<author>

<name>UW Office of News and Information</name>

</author>

<id>http://uwnews.org/mock/atom.xml</id>

<entry>

<title>Surprises surfaced in 40-month eruption</title>

<link href="http://www.columbian.com/news/localNews/2008/07/07142008_Surprises-surfaced-in-40month-eruption.cfm"/>

<id>http://www.columbian.com/news/localNews/2008/07/07142008_Surprises-surfaced-in-40month-eruption.cfm</id>

<updated>2008-07-14T03:19:00Z</updated>

<summary>Now, Mount St. Helens' 40-month encore is over -- last week, after five months of silence at the crater, scientists officially declared an end to the eruption of 2004-08. Steve Malone, research professor of Earth and space sciences, is quoted.</summary>

<author>Vancouver Columbian</author>

</entry>

</feed>

The <feed> element MUST contain these child elements as specified below:

A <feed> element may contain a number of <entry>s. An entry MUST have:

All <updated> date-time values MUST conform to the specification of ISO Standard 8601.

MyUW ignores the <source> element of an Atom entry because the Rome SyndEntry model (which MyUW uses for parsing) does not provide access to it. Please use the <author> element to present author and/or source information.

The content is displayed on MyUW as follows:

Surprises surfaced in 40-month eruption - Now, Mount St. Helens' 40-month encore is over -- last week, after five months of silence at the crater, scientists officially declared an end to the eruption of 2004-08. Steve Malone, research professor of Earth and space sciences, is quoted. Vancouver Columbian Sun, Jul 13, 2008, 8:19 PM PDT

MyUW can be configured not to display the author and the summary (or the description in RSS) even they are present in the feed.

2. The RSS Feed Format for MyUW

Below is the RSS feed document of the same content in the previous example. The elements required by MyUW are boldfaced.

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<rss version="2.0">

<channel>

<title>UW in the Media</title>

<description>This RSS news feed from uwnews.org, the University of Washington Office of News and Information, includes recent stories about the University of Washington in the media.</description>

<link>http://uwnews.org/apps/uwnews/public/rss.aspx?q=uwnUwitm&numToShow=1</link>

<pubDate>Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:54:34 GMT</pubDate>

<lastBuildDate>Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:54:34 GMT</lastBuildDate>

<copyright>(c)2008 University of Washington News and Information ...</copyright>

<item>

<title>Surprises surfaced in 40-month eruption</title>

<link>http://www.columbian.com/news/localNews/2008/07/07142008_Surprises-surfaced-in-40month-eruption.cfm</link>

<description>Now, Mount St. Helens' 40-month encore is over -- last week, after five months of silence at the crater, scientists officially declared an end to the eruption of 2004-08. Steve Malone, research professor of Earth and space sciences, is quoted.</description>

<author>Vancouver Columbian</author>

<pubDate>Mon, 14 Jul 2008 03:19:00 GMT</pubDate>

<guid>http://www.columbian.com/news/localNews/2008/07/07142008_Surprises-surfaced-in-40month-eruption.cfm</guid>

</item>

</channel>

</rss>

The <channel> element MUST contain these child elements:

Because the Rome SyndFeed model (which MyUW uses for parsing) does not provide access to the channel <lastBuildDate>, which is the last time the content of the channel changed, MyUW currently uses the channel <pubDate> for validating its content cache. Therefore please specify the last modified date and time in the <pubDate> element.

A channel may contain a number of <item>s. An item MUST have:

If you need to embed HTML tags in the description text, such as a link, the tag must be entity-encoded by replacing the less-than sign with &lt; or &#060; and the greater-than sign with &gt; or &#062;.

MyUW ignores the <source> element of an RSS item because the Rome SyndEntry model (which MyUW uses for parsing) does not provide access to it. Please use the <author> element to present author and/or source information.

All <pubDate> values MUST conform to the Date and Time Specification of RFC 822.

3. Publishing your Channel on MyUW

Please follow these steps to create your new channel on MyUW:

  1. Contact MyUW to submit your request with the following information: MyUW will review the request and notify you of the status.
  2. Create an XML file of Atom or RSS format. Choose the one that fits your needs.
  3. Validate your file.
  4. Send us the URL of your XML file if it will be hosted on your Web server. (Or send us the file if you prefer MyUW to host it.)
  5. Once we have your new channel up on the MyUW test Web site, we will ask you to verify the content displayed. This is the time to make correction or adjustments.
  6. When the channel is ready for production, we will email you the release date.
  7. Please notify MyUW if the location of your XML file changes in the future.


Last updated: 7/22/2008
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