RE: IE7 Feed Rendering Issue

[Sean Lyndersay]

This is off-topic, but I’ll answer quickly. If someone wants to go into this in more detail, contact me offlist.   Given that we’ve re-done the look-and-feel of the built-in stylesheet about 3 times since Beta 1 (it’s changed again in the next beta release), it obvious that people have lots of opinions about what looks right for them.   So, in some future release (not IE7) we will definitely add the ability for the user to customize the look-and-feel of feeds in IE.   As for the API, the documentation for the RSS API is here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/feedsapi/rss/overviews/msfeeds_ovw.asp There’s an sample app here: http://blogs.msdn.com/rssteam/archive/2006/02/28/540319.aspx   Thanks, Sean   From: M. David Peterson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 09, 2006 12:28 PM To: James Yenne Cc: A. Pagaltzis; atom-syntax@imc.org; Sean Lyndersay Subject: Re: IE7 Feed Rendering Issue   * Why can't I publish my own stylesheet and use these Microsoft elements for collation, background, etc.  This Microsoft stylesheet should be replaceable. *   I would say this is a quite valid question.   Is this capability planned and has simply not been implmented at this stage?  I realize the look and feel of the browser itself will be handled via the standard Windows Themes interface when this, in fact, is changed by the user.  Will this stretegy be the primary strategy moving forward?   Of course, the ultimate question James has posed is most particular to the web feed itself.  It's simple enough to go in and play with the DOM via the various GreaseMonkey clones for IE, so obviously where theres a will, the way has already been paved.  But this is obviously not an IE strategy, and instead a vendor hack.   Of course, it seems to me that the piece that is missing has nothing to do with all of this... the piece that is missing is maybe our own realization that there is an RSS API that, from what I understand (lloks like a new item will be added to my study list for the week :), allows the ability to develop a completely different rendering engine all together that ties into the RSS backbone such that no matter what interface is use, IE-based, XAML-based, WinForms-based, etc.... each can stay consistent with the same set of data.   Thats actually pretty cool when you think about it.  Would be cooler if it had a more snazzy name to the backend system... something like "AtomicRSS" but then again, theres nothing stopping me or anyone else from building just such an interface that could act as the Atom-enhanced version of the of the RSS backbone...   I sure do love the idea of extensions, I tell ya ;) :D   On 3/9/06, James Yenne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >* Sean Lyndersay <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > [2006-03-09 17:05]: >>To build on this idea, there is real value on a consistent view of >>feeds for the user, helping the user understand what they are looking >>at, and the context in which they can use the data. In fact, that's >>part of the promise of RSS - consistency. > >+1 > While I agree in principle, my concern is that as Microsoft moves forward with this reasonable tact for IE and on behalf of the web feed community, Mozilla, Safari and others will have their own solution which is different and also "consistent".  The published SSE extensions are a good step in making this consistency stick, but will these others use SSE or yet another solution.  Why can't I publish my own stylesheet and use these Microsoft elements for collation, background, etc.  This Microsoft stylesheet should be replaceable. >>Finally, we think that  feeds+stylesheets exist as a stopgap measure to >>help users avoid the nasty XML view in browsers that don't support >>feeds (yes, this is a generalization, and some people are building web >>sites that are built in a more complicated way, but in the vast >>majority of cases, it's true). > >+1 > >>I argue that the right thing for a publisher is to serve HTML when they >>want control over the look and feel of the entire set of content, and >>to serve RSS/Atom when they want their data consumed as a feed (which >>has always meant surrendering the look-and-feel to the particular >>client the user chooses). > >+1 > Sure, serving XHTML is just a one off for my app, but part of my goal is to clarify this behavioral standard for the browser / feed reader / aggregator community. The publisher is thus henceforth locked into the IE browser's look and feel for the subscription & presentation page, which works fine of course.  This is a browsers becoming a reader and an aggregator, and it's tricky. -James -- <M:D/> M. David Peterson http://www.xsltblog.com/