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How-To: Subscribing to DIYPlanner.com Feeds

Submitted by eafarris on Sun, 2005-08-28 23:21.

DIYPlanner.com exposes much of its content through RSS feeds. This allows users to read new or updated content without having to check the site. Through software known as a 'feed reader,' the latest happenings on DIYPlanner.com can be delivered to you.

Feeds are available for the following sections of this site:

  • The front page
  • The forums
  • The categories

Everywhere that the orange "XML" icon appears, it is linked to an RSS feed for that section of the site. On the front page, the "Syndicate" section on the left-hand side of the page is a link to the feed for the front page. Any time content is posted on the front page (announcements, new articles), the feed will be updated.

Each forum also has a feed attached to it. For example, this forum topic is part of the "This Site" forum, whose url is http://diyplanner.com/forum/17 . Visiting that page shows an XML icon at the bottom of the topic list. Subscribing to this feed will deliver new topics and comments into your feed reader.

Most of the content on DIYPlanner.com has been placed into one or more catetories, which themselves have feeds. You can go to the templates categories to see a list of the categories availble, and a link to their feeds.

Some popular software for reading feeds are:

In addition, internet "start pages" like My Yahoo! and My MSN allow custom RSS feeds as part of their services.

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Enclosures come, too: templatecast

Submitted by eafarris on Wed, 2005-09-14 18:21.

As many of you may know, podcasting is the combination of an audio file (usually an MP3 or AAC) and an RSS feed, the feed delivering the file when available. The feeds on DIYPlanner.com also include files being delivered by the feed. In this case, it's the first file that is 'attached' to the post.

Where this becomes really nifty is when you're subscribing to the feed for a category. For example, I've subscribed (via Bloglines) to the "Misc" feed (see a full listing of the categories and their feeds on the templates categories page). When posts get published in that category, not only do I get the text of the post, but as an 'enclosure,' I get the PDF when it's attached!

Therefore, I am coining the term 'templatecast' to describe this behavior.

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