Make Your Site's RSS Feed Shine

RSS is a way of life these days, but there's no reason your site's RSS feed needs to look like it was written by a computer. Sure, in order for an RSS feed to be read by most RSS readers it needs to be valid XML, but who says you have to stop there?

That's one of the many great things about XML, you can make your data look any way you want when people view it by simply specifying a stylesheet. And the best part is that all the RSS readers and feed consumers out there could care less... they still see the plain old XML that they know and love.

Take a look at Microsoft MSDN's RSS feed for example:

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/rss.xml

Sure it looks like a basic web page, but underneath it's just plain old XML. If you want to, you can take a look at the raw XML by doing a "View Source" with your browser. But the important thing to notice is that, right after the XML declaration at the top of the file you'll see a link to a stylesheet that looks something like this:

<?xml-stylesheet type='text/xsl' href='rsspretty.xsl' version='1.0'?>

The stylesheet you use will determine what the resulting page looks like. To get started, take a look at the stylesheet used by the feed listed above.

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/rsspretty.xsl

Taking a look at that example should get you well on your way to creating a look and feel that works for your site's RSS feed. Finally humans and RSS readers can peacefully coexist!

If you're still confused about this whole RSS thing, take a look at our RSS section or Microsoft's About MSDN's RSS Feeds page. If it's more the stylesheet side of things that's hanging you up, you might want to peruse our XSL section.

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