Comic RSS?

[wmcduff]

Would you be opposed to making an RSS feed for your comic? Not with the comic itself, just news that it's been updated. I have a RSS feed crawl of comics and I'd like to add yours to it. If it's not in my crawl, I'll probably forget to check after a while, because I'm Mack-ish that way.

[Erika]

I'm not opposed to the idea, as long as it's just an alert we've updated, and not that weird hotlinking stuff that plauges some other comics. I don't know how to set one up, though. Ideas, anyone?

[MalkavianMarine]

never heard of the idea

[wmcduff]

Feb 9, 2009 18:34:51 GMT -5 Erika said:

I'm not opposed to the idea, as long as it's just an alert we've updated, and not that weird hotlinking stuff that plauges some other comics. I don't know how to set one up, though. Ideas, anyone?

Order of the Stick had the same objections. Give me a bit to look at the code on his feed, and I'll type one up and an instruction file. I've done them before, but it's been a while.

I only know how to do it by hand though; someone else might know how to script something so it auto-updates with each comic.

[wmcduff]

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?xml-stylesheet title="CSS_formatting" type="text/css" href="http://www.interglacial.com/rss/rss.css"?>
<rss version="2.0"
 xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
><channel>

<link>http://sidekickgirl.comicgenesis.com/</link>
<title>Sidekick Girl</title>
<description>Sidekick Girl</description>
<language>en</language>
<lastBuildDate>Wed, 04 Feb 2009 11:00:38 GMT</lastBuildDate>
<skipHours><hour>0</hour><hour>1</hour><hour>2</hour><hour>3</hour><hour>4</hour><hour>5</hour><hour>6</hour><hour>7</hour><hour>8</hour><hour>9</hour><hour>10</hour><hour>12</hour><hour>13</hour><hour>14</hour><hour>15</hour><hour>16</hour><hour>17</hour><hour>18</hour><hour>19</hour><hour>20</hour><hour>21</hour><hour>22</hour><hour>23</hour></skipHours>
<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
<sy:updatePeriod>daily</sy:updatePeriod>
<sy:updateBase>2007-01-01T11:10+00:00</sy:updateBase>
<ttl>1440</ttl>
<docs>http://www.interglacial.com/rss/about.html</docs>

<item>
 <title>February 4, 2009.</title>
 <link>http://sidekickgirl.comicgenesis.com/d/20090204.html</link>
 <guid>http://sidekickgirl.comicgenesis.com/d/20090204.html</guid>
 <description>http://sidekickgirl.comicgenesis.com/d/20090204.html</description>
</item>

<item>
 <title>January 28, 2009.</title>
 <link>http://sidekickgirl.comicgenesis.com/d/20090128.html</link>
 <guid>http://sidekickgirl.comicgenesis.com/d/20090128.html</guid>
 <description>http://sidekickgirl.comicgenesis.com/d/20090128.html</description>
</item>

<item>
 <title>January 21, 2009.</title>
 <link>http://sidekickgirl.comicgenesis.com/d/20090121.html</link>
 <guid>http://sidekickgirl.comicgenesis.com/d/20090121.html</guid>
 <description>http://sidekickgirl.comicgenesis.com/d/20090121.html</description>
</item>

<item>
 <title>January 14, 2009.</title>
 <link>http://sidekickgirl.comicgenesis.com/d/20090114.html</link>
 <guid>http://sidekickgirl.comicgenesis.com/d/20090114.html</guid>
 <description>http://sidekickgirl.comicgenesis.com/d/20090114.html</description>
</item>

<item>
 <title>January 7, 2009.</title>
 <link>http://sidekickgirl.comicgenesis.com/d/20090107.html</link>
 <guid>http://sidekickgirl.comicgenesis.com/d/20090107.html</guid>
 <description>http://sidekickgirl.comicgenesis.com/d/20090107.html</description>
</item>

</channel></rss>

There. All you need to do is to add an item with the correct date at the top of the list, erase the one on the bottom, and change the lastBuildDate to the time when you post. Oh, and link it off your front page. Though I suspect someone else could do it better than I...

[Erika]

Ahhhh. So this requires the mysteries of coding. Something neither of us know ANYTHING About. Methinks this is something that's going to wait until there's a bit more of a need or demand for it. It was a nice thought, though.

[wmcduff]

There's probably a program that will do it automatically; I just know how to do it by hand because I'm olllllld. That and I'm not sure what you're using. It's just a small file that is checked by RSS readers.

Some people put every comic on their RSS, but the last five or so is enough, I think. It's just specialized XHTML. There's the first section say that it's an RSS file, then identifying your site and telling computers to check only once a day, then links to the last five comics, then a closing.

Still, I'm sure there's a better way to keep the stupid thing updated.

[Erika]

I think the concept is a good one, but it's really more suited to comics that update more frequently and less consistantly. A great reminder when you don't know exactly when a comic will update so you don't have to keep checking it. We don't have that problem. It's Wednesday! The comic....is there! Even when we're "late," it's up by 10am. So we don't really have much demand for it. But it will be something to keep in mind for later.