Creating a Central Specific Feed for your weblog

A couple of people have asked me how to set up a separate RSS feed on their weblogs just for Macromedia Central. If you are using Moveable Type it is actually pretty simple.

Login to the Moveable Type admin.
Create a new Category in Movable Type. For this post, let’s assume you name it Central.
Create a new Template in Moveable Type
On the Templates page, click the “Add a new Index Template” link.
For Template Name and Output file, put central.rdf
Make sure the rebuild automatically check box is checked.
For the template body, add the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="<$MTPublishCharset$>"?>

<rdf:RDF
  xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns##"
  xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
  xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
  xmlns:admin="http://webns.net/mvcb/"
  xmlns:cc="http://web.resource.org/cc/"
  xmlns="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/">

<channel rdf:about="<$MTBlogURL$>">
<title><$MTBlogName encode_xml="1"$></title>
<link><$MTBlogURL$></link>
<description><$MTBlogDescription encode_xml="1"$></description>
<dc:language>en-us</dc:language>
<dc:creator></dc:creator>
<dc:date><MTEntries lastn="1"><$MTEntryDate format="%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S" language="en"$><$MTBlogTimezone$></MTEntries></dc:date>
<admin:generatorAgent rdf:resource="http://www.movabletype.org/?v=<$MTVersion$>" />
<MTBlogIfCCLicense>
<cc:license rdf:resource="<$MTBlogCCLicenseURL$>" />
</MTBlogIfCCLicense>

<items>
    <rdf:Seq><MTEntries lastn="15">
    <rdf:li rdf:resource="<$MTEntryPermalink encode_xml="1"$>" />
    </MTEntries></rdf:Seq>
</items>

</channel>

<MTEntries category="Central" lastn="15">
    <item rdf:about="<$MTEntryPermalink encode_xml="1"$>">
        <title><$MTEntryTitle encode_xml="1"$></title>
        <link><$MTEntryPermalink encode_xml="1"$></link>
        <description><$MTEntryExcerpt encode_xml="1"$></description>
        <dc:subject><$MTEntryCategory encode_xml="1"$></dc:subject>
        <dc:creator><$MTEntryAuthor encode_xml="1"$></dc:creator>
        <dc:date><$MTEntryDate format="%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S" language="en"$><$MTBlogTimezone$></dc:date>
    </item>
</MTEntries>

</rdf:RDF>

If you did not name your new category Central then you will need to put the category name in the following line:

MTEntries category="Central" lastn="15″

Now, when ever you publish a new item on your weblog in the Central category, it will be added to the feed.

The last step is to submit your new feed to the Macromedia XML News Aggregator.

mike chambers | about

Creating a Central Specific Feed for your weblog