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I always like to put a link to the RSS in the actual HTML (i.e. so a human can see it) However, clicking it is horrible UX: a wall of text. Or even worse (sha

I always like to put a link to the RSS in the actual HTML (i.e. so a human can see it) However, clicking it is horrible UX: a wall of text. Or even worse (shaking fist at Firefox), a download "Save as..." prompt. So... <shameless self promotion> I made Feed.Style[0] to help people make it be a semi-presentable page by adding an XSLT stylesheet.</shame> I have a couple of examples (of HN and high-ranking HNers natch ;) and found a fair number of bugs^H^H^H^H non-optimal choices in their feeds, probably because XML is not all that human-readable, even for devs. Source [1] is MIT-licensed and is completely static, except for the examples, which are just an optional hack running on Cloudflare pages. Feedback welcome! [0] https://www.feed.style/ https://www.feed.style/ [1] https://github.com/fileformat/feed.style https://github.com/fileformat/feed.style

SquareWheel 3y ago
I've seen RSS styling before but it does feel like an oddity. I think I'm so used to the code view that when I see a styled feed page, it makes me wonder if I'm on the real URL. But at least the page does explain itself. As a side note, it seems like a number of your "after" examples do not load. HN hug, or something else?
- Fileformat 3y ago
  Hmm... The examples are running on the free tier of Cloudflare Pages Functions. I should be dramatically under any CPU/networking/transfer limits. And it should scale up as needed. I just tried all of them now, and they did load. What is the exact error you are seeing? Just a blank page or ??? If you mean that the input box for "copy to clipboard" is empty, that's because the feed doesn't have a "self" link, which the stylesheet needs.
  - SquareWheel 3y ago
    I'm not sure then. The first two "after" examples were blank for me. I tried again now and the first loaded, but second did not. After another few refreshes, it did load, though as you said the "copy and paste" link was blank. I tried it in Firefox and got an XML parsing error[1] instead. Again refreshed and it loaded fine. So it seems intermittent at best. [1] Error follows: XML Parsing Error: mismatched tag. Expected: </link>. Location: https://www.feed.style/example.xml?feedurl=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.ycombinator.com%2Fshowrss Line Number 6, Column 3:
- Linux-Fan 3y ago
  > I've seen RSS styling before but it does feel like an oddity. I think I'm so used to the code view that when I see a styled feed page, it makes me wonder if I'm on the real URL. But at least the page does explain itself. Indeed, that was my greatest concern for adding a stylesheet to the RSS on my website. I tried to solve it by including a screenshot of the source tree :) On my website, the RSS is announced through metadata only on the news page. Per the “Exposed RSS” statement, it should be linked from all pages? I wonder whether it really makes sense for someone to subscribe to a page without even checking it out on such a cursory level as to find the news page, though?
- trekz 3y ago
  Probably needs something like how openrss.org does it. Shows a UX friendly view for RSS but gets picked up by RSS readers as well.

SquareWheel 3y ago

I've seen RSS styling before but it does feel like an oddity. I think I'm so used to the code view that when I see a styled feed page, it makes me wonder if I'm on the real URL. But at least the page does explain itself. As a side note, it seems like a number of your "after" examples do not load. HN hug, or something else?

Fileformat 3y ago
Hmm... The examples are running on the free tier of Cloudflare Pages Functions. I should be dramatically under any CPU/networking/transfer limits. And it should scale up as needed. I just tried all of them now, and they did load. What is the exact error you are seeing? Just a blank page or ??? If you mean that the input box for "copy to clipboard" is empty, that's because the feed doesn't have a "self" link, which the stylesheet needs.
- SquareWheel 3y ago
  I'm not sure then. The first two "after" examples were blank for me. I tried again now and the first loaded, but second did not. After another few refreshes, it did load, though as you said the "copy and paste" link was blank. I tried it in Firefox and got an XML parsing error[1] instead. Again refreshed and it loaded fine. So it seems intermittent at best. [1] Error follows: XML Parsing Error: mismatched tag. Expected: </link>. Location: https://www.feed.style/example.xml?feedurl=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.ycombinator.com%2Fshowrss Line Number 6, Column 3:
Linux-Fan 3y ago
> I've seen RSS styling before but it does feel like an oddity. I think I'm so used to the code view that when I see a styled feed page, it makes me wonder if I'm on the real URL. But at least the page does explain itself. Indeed, that was my greatest concern for adding a stylesheet to the RSS on my website. I tried to solve it by including a screenshot of the source tree :) On my website, the RSS is announced through metadata only on the news page. Per the “Exposed RSS” statement, it should be linked from all pages? I wonder whether it really makes sense for someone to subscribe to a page without even checking it out on such a cursory level as to find the news page, though?
trekz 3y ago
Probably needs something like how openrss.org does it. Shows a UX friendly view for RSS but gets picked up by RSS readers as well.