This is a continuation from my articles on RSS

• Part One - "RSS Mania Addiction - An Introduction to RSS and the Terminology"

• Part Two - Outline of How to Create an RSS Feed"

• Part Three - The Template File"

• Part Four - The Basic Elements of the Channel Element"

• Part Five - How The RSS Feed Works & Some Programming Constructs"

Now we have covered some of the major points in the "Channel" element, we will now cover the various sub-elements in the channel element - specifically the "image" element. Crtitical Point - None of these are required EXCEPT for the command line of:

Those of you who understand RSS templates might ask why I am concentrating so much on the Channel element and it is a valid question. The thing is that possibilities within a Channel element are all meant to actually "publicize" the information for your entire web site. If you are CNN or Microsoft or the New York Times you have nothing to worry about. But if you are like the majority of us out there, then every bit of information you can get into your RSS template may help. Additionally, it is simply good practice to include some of these elements as the more RSS spreads the more they will be used.

First let me briefly cover the three sub-elements which you will almost NEVER find in an RSS template. (You can easily skip this part, unless you want to understand most of the innards of the RSS 2.0 specification.)

• Cloud sub-Element - This sub-element which will appear as follows: <cloud></cloud>. Its purpose is to allow a processes to register with a cloud to be notified of updates to the channel. In other words the Cloud acts as a farm to feed out RSS feeds to "computers" connected to it. Sort of like a buffer.

• textinput sub-element - This sub-element is strange in that I have yet to find a use or clear description of what it is supposed to do. Mostly ignored by all.

• ttl sub-element - This sub-element announces announces its ttl = "Time To Live" to the aggregators before they should refresh the information from the source. An example of this would be: <ttl>180</ttl>Which tells aggregator that it has 180 minutes before it must return to refresh the information from the source. (If you read Part Five of the series you will know this is sometimes an important sub-element.)

Okay now we are ready for Channel sub-element of image. The image defined here is the image usually asscociated with your RSS feed or your web page. In other words usually it is your LOGO.

Since your LOGO is of critical importance, as most people are visual and they do associate pictures with names, (as the Internet proves over and over again), you should take the time to get this into your RSS template. It is fairly simple so follow these four options within the sub-element of image.

Ready?

1. First we continue the list (from article four and repeated below at the end with the "image" command. No Biggie here. Just typing or cut and paste.

   <image>

2. Next we have the "Title" command. In here usually goes the name of the Business. "Randy Pandy's Perfumery" in our case. That is easy enough.

   <title>Randy Pandy's Perfumery</title>

3. This next one is optional but good practice. This tells the parser how big your logo is, by width and height. If you don't know, just call up in a directory and run your mouse over the file or ask for its properties by right-click. It will tell you the height and width. Remember this is an RSS file, so make the logo a small size and keep its weight down. Good practice is no bigger than 250(w) X 150(h) (and that is huge) and no heavier than 20k (and that is heavy!) We will go for 142X99.

   <width>142</width><height>99</height>

4. Now you tell the parser in the "Link" command just where your web site is. That is simple and we have done that already. So..

   <link>http://www.randpandy.com</link>

5. And finally in the "URL" you tell the Parser through your RSS file just where the LOGO can be found on your web site. (Do not link it to your home computer as that is NOT your web server!)

   <url>http://www.randpandy.com/images/randylogo.jpg</url>

6. And finally we close off the "image" tag.

   </image>

See that was not that hard was it?

Okay lets see what are rss.xml file which will make our RSS feed looks like until now.

<CHANNEL>

<TITLE>Randy Pandy's Perfumery</TITLE>

That's it for the Channel element! YEAH! And guess what? You can get away without using most of these commands. However as I keep on saying it is good practice.

Our next article will discuss the basics of the "Item" element.

Copyright 2005 Ted W. Gross. All rights reserved. (You may publish this article in its entirety with the following author's information with live links only.)

Ted Gross

Ted Gross was born and raised in New York City and in 1978, moved to Israel, and currently resides in Jerusalem.

He began his writing career in University as the op-ed editor of the University paper and wrote a series of eight editorials during that year. While in Israel, he wrote two children's books. "The Letter & The Crown"; was published in Israel, while the second, and more successful, was published in the United States by United Synagogue entitled, "Of Rabbit's Wool & Camel's Hair". While teaching comparative religion, he also had articles on polemics and religion published in Midstream Magazine.

However, by the time the children's books were published his family was growing, and he began work and was active in high tech from 1985 until 2001. There he functioned as a CTO ? Chief Technological Officer ? in three different companies, managing to take two companies from start-up phase to a buyout and a successful IPO respectively.

After having taken the last company to a successful IPO, six children and a peaceful divorce, it was time to leave high-tech and try and develop some ideas in writing. At that point, Israel embarked on "Operation Defensive Shield", and since Ted is a reserve battlefield medic, he ended up in Jenin, and the battles that took place there became front-page news all over the world. "Three Weeks In Jenin" was written soon after, though unfortunately the contract was cancelled once the United States entered into its current war with Iraq. However, an independent movie producer, did do a documentary on Ted's experiences as a medic in Jenin.

He currently is working on the "Chronicles of the Children of Heaven" (a fantasy work), on another non-fiction book entitled "Last Times" and on a cooking book entitled "Help! I Have A Fire In My Kitchen", (as well as short stories and poetry from time to time). To make ends meet, Ted owns a real-estate investment firm in Jerusalem and Virgin Earth Article Submissions.

Examples of Ted's work can be found on his web site.

Usually one can find Ted either putting out fires in his kitchen, drinking coffee in a cafe musing about the great "what-ifs" of life, assistant coaching little league baseball, dealing with one of his six children, having a fight with his sister, or walking the byways of Jerusalem with Rainbow, his golden retriever, pondering the silence of the heavens.