How to Make a Feed

HOW TO MAKE A FEED:

Go to http://www.library.upenn.edu/blos/feeds/

Click “Add a New Post.” The feed editor is displayed.

Required Fields:

1. Channel Title: In PennPortal on the Library tab, this will appear as a red header. On other tabs, at present, it will be navy.

2. Channel Category: Choose from the dropdown box

3. Title and Link (under the green bar): This “Title” will appear as a linked item in an unordered list.

By default, fields appear for 10 items. To see fields for more items, enter a number of items and click “save.” The next time you edit your document, you will see your items plus empty fields for 10 items.

Additional fields:

1. Channel link: Optional. It will be the link for the red header.

2. Channel description: Optional. Will not be displayed in PennPortal. In most displays, it will be printed under the channel title. (In PennPortal, a mouseover description can be displayed with the navy title bar. This navy bar mouseover appears only in PennPortal. I don’t recommend it; it is difficult to find the exact and tiny hotspot that will trigger the mouseover. But let me know if you want it.)

Description (for item, under the green bar): Optional. Item descriptions can be displayed in either of 2 ways. Email me with your preference.

They can be printed under the item link, or
They can be suppressed. Suppressed item descriptions are displayed when you mouseover the item link. In the Mozilla browsers, the mouseover is limited to 87 characters; further description text is automatically replaced by an ellipsis. In IE, the full description is displayed.

Click “save.” You will be taken to http://www.library.upenn.edu/blos/feeds and your new feed will appear at the top.

CODING HAZARDS!!!!

3 coding hazards actually prevent a feed from appearing:

1. Naked ampersands: xml will not tolerate a naked ampersand - not even in the middle of a URL (for example, ampersands occur in all but the most basic URLs for the e-resource locator). The character entity & is fine - the first time you save the page. However, in the feed editor, it will be overwritten as a naked &, and, the next time you save the page, your feed won't work.
There are 3 possible solutions

a. In a URL, substitute semicolons for ampersands. The following example has 4 semicolons; it is important not to miss a single one:

http://www.library.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/res/sr.cgi?fotlp=;title=;searchType=contains;community=10;resourcetype=1

b. In text, use the word "and"
Knovel Engineering and Scientific Online Reference Books

c. Go ahead and use & but you must remember every ampersand and recode it -every time you edit the page.

2. Html tags: Html tags are not permitted in any field of the feed editor.

3. Hidden line endings from Word: When text is pasted from Word the hidden line endings in Word are included. To get rid of these, insert the cursor at the visible end of the line and hit your delete key.

Two more coding hazard cause weirdness rather than non-appearance:

4. Smart (aka “curly”) quotes and smart apostrophes pasted in from Word may or may not be a problem in xml. In any case, they are a problem in browsers. Replace them with straight quotes and apostrophes.

5. All character entities (& is just one example) will be overwritten in the feed editor as soon as you hit save. They look fine the first time you save your file, but appear incorrectly the next time you save. For example “é” will become “i”; “ñ” will become “q.” Two solutions:

a. Remember to edit character entities every time you save your file or

b. Omit diacritics altogether.

HOW TO CAN FRANKLIN SEARCHES FOR A FEED

Here’s the double whammy:

PennPortal is too xml-minded to tolerate ampersands and Voyager is too crotchety to accept the semicolons that replace them in feed URLs.

And here’s the solution:

Use the Franklin widget for your search. (It’s found on the Library homepages, at the top of content pages, and on the Local Search Tool page.)

1. Do your search in the Franklin widget (it will take a Boolean search if you like).

For example, a keyword search for “handbook of ethnography” 2001

yields this URL:

http://www.library.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/franklinwidget/fqs.cgi?search=%22handbook+of+ethnography%22+2001&searchtype=kw_and&x=7&y=3

2. Scan the resulting URL for ampersands and replace them with semicolons.

In the same example, 3 ampersands (near the end) are replaced:

http://www.library.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/franklinwidget/fqs.cgi?search=%22handbook+of+ethnography%22+2001;searchtype=kw_and;x=7;y=3

3. Use your revised URL in the feed editor.

ABOUT RED HEADERS & THE NAVY BAR TITLE

1. Potential duplication: Every channel has both a navy title bar and a red header. Unless you want these titles to say the same thing, email me with the text that should appear in the navy bar. (Another option is to combine more than one feed in a single channel and give the channel an inclusive title. See below: HOW TO SHOW MULTIPLE SUBHEADERS IN YOUR CHANNEL.)

2. The navy bar title has a character limit of 40. If your feed has a title longer than this, I will shorten it for the navy bar. This is not the end of the world; I will be happy to re-title the bar at any time.

3. The navy bar title can include an ampersand. It is not part of the xml page.

HOW TO SHOW MULTIPLE SUBHEADERS IN YOUR CHANNEL

Channels with multiple are actually a series of separate feeds. If you want to break up your items under subheaders. (See the Historical Research Tools channel for an example.)

1. Make a separate feed for each subsection.

2. Notify me that you want your feeds combined in one channel. Note the order in which they should appear.

WHAT TO EMAIL LESLIE TO HAVE YOUR FEED DISPLAYED IN PENNPORTAL:

1. From the display on http://www.library.upenn.edu/blos/feeds , copy the link labeled “Feed link” and send it to me for inclusion in PennPortal.

The link will be in this form:

http://www.library.upenn.edu/blos/feeds/Vet/selected_e-journals.rss

Here are the other instructions you may want to email:

2. Do you want a channel description to appear in PennPortal? (Not recommended)

3. Item description: If you have item descriptions, should they be displayed or suppressed (with mouseovers) in PennPortal?

4. Navy bar title –

If you don’t want the same title in the navy bar and in the red header, what bar title do you want?.
The navy bar title has a character limit of 40. If your default title exceeds this length, how would you like it abbreviated?

5. Do you want multiple feeds in a single channel? If so, in what order should they appear.

HOW TO EDIT A FEED:

You can only edit your own feed.

Go to http://www.library.upenn.edu/blos/feeds

Click on your category: e.g., history

Find your feed. Only your feeds will have an edit link. Click “edit.”

HOW TO DISPLAY A FEED ON A PAGE ON THE www… SERVER:
1. Library feed:

example:

where the feed address is http://www.library.upenn.edu/blos/feeds/education_news.rss

and the html display is http://www.library.upenn.edu/blos/feeds/education_news.html

2. Outside feed:

example:

http://p.moreover.com/cgi-local/page?o=rss002&c=Cool%20sites

3. NewBooks+ feed:

example:

4. To suppress the item descriptions in 1,2, or 3: use embednd