RSS Reader Web Control

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Introduction

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds are becoming very popular these days. People need Country News at their own commercial websites. Today the most powerful websites are being developed in ASP.NET due to the fact that ASP.NET provides Web Controls that enable the Software Reuse property of Software Engineering Models. RSS Reader Control may be just dragged and dropped on web forms, can be linked to an RSS Feed and it will display a smooth, cool, and scrolling interface to the Feeds.

Background

The main power behind creation of such feeds is XML (Extensible Markup Language). XML is a structured language, thus provides support for the structured sharing of data. XML documents are built under a specific format. An example of such a document is as follows:

RSS Feeds work in the same way. Today News Agencies update a specific document on a daily basis. The same document is provided an interface in the websites. So the websites always have the latest contents of news. Obviously the creation of such documents is not easy as far as their property of being case-sensitive is concerned. Today, there are many XML editors available in the market. The structure of RSS Feeds is a standard and is unique around the world. A sample RSS Feed looks like this:

A detailed description on RSS can be found here.

RSS Reader provides an interface to such a document. It extracts the XML from the specific documents, implies the scrolling effects to the contents read.

Using the Code

To use RSS Reader, you will need to add RSS Reader to your tool box by locating the RSSReader.dll. Once RSS Reader is in your tool box, you will need to drag it to the page. You will also need to provide the URL where to fetch news from. Different CSS classes may also be applied for a good interface of the control. Since the header, content area, and footer are purely editable and styleable, you will have the option to design the control to your requirements and likings. The list of properties is as follows:

HeaderText: The Text to appear as the control title, e.g. Country News
HeaderCssClass: The CSS Class to apply on Header
RSSHeading: The Text to appear as heading for the news inside the control, e.g. News
RSSHeadingCssClass: The CSS Class to apply on news heading
RSSNewsCSSClass: The CSS Class to apply on the contents of news
FooterText: The Text to appear in the footer of the control. e.g. News from http://www.thenews.com.pk
FooterCssClass: The CSS Class to apply on the footer of the control

After setting the properties, the control will look like this:

Points of Interest

Since the XML document is the data source for the control, it should be in the standard format, so that the control is able to read the contents. The Case Sensitivity of XML may also be of a great concern.

History

23^rd March, 2008: Initial post

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[My vote of 1] Absolute waste of time...
Member 4144208

3:46 9 Mar '10

Without the source code this project is an absolute waste of time and is less than useless.

The reason people use this site and upload the source code is so that others can learn from it, improve it and then upload it again - thus creating a train of good code. Secondly, if you are unwilling to release the source code, but give out the dll.. (On this site) it appears that you have something malicious in the code.. Why else would you not release it here?

If your intention was to showcase your code, try asp.net. This site is more of a community based user group. I for one do not use ANY code without compiling the source code myself. When I create sites for customers it is absolutely required that I know what code is in the application.

Just a waste of everyone's time to post about a solution and not include the source code..
You get the lowest rating possible.

Re: [My vote of 1] Absolute waste of time...
Member 4144208

4:13 9 Mar '10

By the way... If you want to keep your source code in secret squirrel mode.. You need to obfuscate it. .NET Reflector decompiled your code easy.
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Nice article.. But..
deezZ

1:50 7 Dec '09

Hi. Its a nice article and very useful. But as mentioned by others, there are the need of some modifications in the DLL for each site. So please mail or upload the dll source. Thanks. Keep up the good work.
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good but..
Norberto Olazabal

7:38 19 May '08

With no source code is kind of useless
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Great Control!!!
vvvlad

23:45 21 Apr '08

Hi Muhammad! For a long time now I'm looking for a nice example of rss reader code. Could you please email the source to me so I will be able to learn from it? My mail is vvvlad42@yahoo.com Thanks in advance
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Source code & how to set to a DataSet? [modified]
Super Garrison

12:25 15 Apr '08

Hi M Usman I like your article! I want to learn more about this control that I need to set the list to a DataSet. Is that possible to email the source code? Does anyone have an idea on how to set to a DataSet? Thank you, Nowlex (nowlex2000@yahoo.com) modified on Wednesday, April 23, 2008 2:42 PM
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source code for learn in this article
nhhoan

22:13 12 Apr '08

Hi, M Usman Thanks you, i like this sample. I want to learn in this sample about how to create this control... Do you share this source code. Thanks Hoan Nguyen vnnhhoan@yahoo.com
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Re: source code for learn in this article
M Usman

1:39 14 Apr '08

I will email the code for the article tomorrow or the next days ... Muhammad Usman Software Developer, M.sc.(Computer)
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Source Code?
Davidjwong

15:22 26 Mar '08

Thanks for the article, but did I miss the source code for this? I only found a dll file and an example page, no source code for the RSS reader itself.
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Re: Source Code?
M Usman

2:56 27 Mar '08

I included it in as a dll, Why you need the source code, do you want to modify it ? Muhammad Usman Software Developer, M.sc.(Computer)
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Re: Source Code?
Davidjwong

13:39 27 Mar '08

Two reasons I (and possibly other readers) would want the source code:
1, so I can learn from it. As I understand it, Code Project is essentially about sharing code rather than showcasing controls. In any case, that's why I come to the site.
2, because if I use it I very likely would want to change it. For example I think you hard-coded the width of the control which means to use it I'd have to fit my web page around it.

I and other readers can of course decompile the source code to get it, but why make us go through the extra step?

Re: Source Code?
Member 2781211

4:57 28 Mar '08

Another reason is that if I use this internally and depend on its functionality, down the road if there are any incompatibilities, bugs, etc. I need to be able to support it. For example, if it doesn't work with ASP.NET 4.0, 5.0, whatever.0 and I can't find you, I need to fix it myself. I may never change your source code, I just need to know that I have some recourse if I come to depend on it.
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I like it
Torben71

1:25 26 Mar '08

Great article.. Keep up the good work.. Q: Is it possible to change the default width of the control? I have tried the "width" method it is not working. The text "More info.." can this be changed to something else? I do not want a border style on the control! How to disable?
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Re: I like it
M Usman

2:55 27 Mar '08

well, you will hve to change the source code for these modifications. Muhammad Usman Software Developer, M.sc.(Computer)
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Good Job
Rai Shahid

3:39 24 Mar '08

you are article is very useful thanx R@! Shahid (0306-4143432)
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