Comments RSS for each thread

September 30, 2005 6:30 AM

May I have per-thread RSS feeds with comments for Christmas?
posted by ijoshua to Feature Requests at 6:30 AM (16 comments total)

Probably, if you can provide Matt with a template.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 6:33 AM on September 30, 2005

Yeah, give me a template and xmas will come early.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 6:39 AM on September 30, 2005

Well, this works for me in Safari and NetNewsWire. Feedvalidator.org validates it, but I don't know about Bloglines.

I understand that there is much contention about the format of the <description> element's content. Since the HTML isn't valid XML (<br> instead of <br />, for example,) I guess that wrapping it in a CDATA section is the best option.
posted by ijoshua at 7:13 AM on September 30, 2005

It loads fine for me in bloglines, small sample of course.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 7:23 AM on September 30, 2005

Yeah, I whipped up this, which is pretty similar. I chose to encode HTML tags in the "description". Kosher? Not? Who knows, but it validates, and Bloglines likes it.
posted by Plutor at 7:24 AM on September 30, 2005

god, I hate that the author element requires an email. Stupidest requirement ever.

I suppose I could just put [e-mail], since example.com is a test setup specifically for this kind of spam avoiding.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:38 AM on September 30, 2005

The <author> is optional. That's why I chose to omit it and indicate the author in <title>.
posted by ijoshua at 7:46 AM on September 30, 2005

ijoshua, that doesn't look bad at all in bloglines. Let me test it out today.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:01 AM on September 30, 2005

Yeah, author is optional, and it doesn't even need to contain an email address. It can be whatever format you like. But I like to use fields (like category and author) instead of shoving that stuff into the 'description' or 'title' field.

Plus, you probably want to put the post itself as an item in the feed. It's an important part of the thread, especially in AskMe.
posted by Plutor at 8:04 AM on September 30, 2005

OMG that feed preview is orgasmic.
posted by grouse at 9:19 AM on September 30, 2005

Hey watch it, grouse. Don't get any of that stuff in my brew, it'll turn it sour.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 9:26 AM on September 30, 2005

god, I hate that the author element requires an email. Stupidest requirement ever.

Use dc:creator, or better yet, Atom.

Yeah, author is optional, and it doesn't even need to contain an email address. It can be whatever format you like.

Not if you expect stuff to work.
posted by cillit bang at 2:49 PM on September 30, 2005

so anyone have an atom template for comments if that works better?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:10 PM on September 30, 2005

Here's an Atom sample that validates. Note that it's served with a "Content-Type: application/atom+xml" header.

(Atom has a slightly dumb title requirement, sadly)
posted by cillit bang at 4:19 PM on September 30, 2005

Using the Atom sample in Safari: The HTML doesn't work. It's just printed as code. Also, the author is printed twice, once in the title and once in what looks like an author field.
posted by smackfu at 8:18 PM on September 30, 2005

Safari doesn't understand Atom 1.0 yet. It tries to interpret it as 0.3 and fails.
posted by cillit bang at 5:18 AM on October 1, 2005