By: Jorge Solis
![]() HTML Reader: HTML output, fast and small size (240 px width) intended for Pocket PC. Easy to customize. View Download |
![]() Flash 5 Reader: Flash small client (240 px width) intended for Pocket PC developped in Flash 5. View Download |
![]() Rss Reader Db: Flash 6 client using a MySQL database, large file size (400 x 400) easy to customize. View Download |
![]() Rss Reader: Flash 6 client using a txt file, large file size (400 x 400) No databse needed, works without categories. View Download |
What’s RSS?
Rich Site Summary (RSS) is a lightweight XML vocabulary
for describing metadata about Web sites, ideal for news syndication. Originally
developed to populate Netscape's My Netscape portal with external newsfeeds
("channels") RSS has taken on a life of its own and has become perhaps the most
popular XML format today. Thousands of Web sites today use RSS as a "what's
new" mechanism to drive traffic their way. There are distinct versions of RSS
specifications, the most important: RSS 0.91, 0.92 and 1.0. The principal difference
between versions if the use of tags, each version adding more tags and information
about the feeds. To see a complete article about creation and evolution of RSS
feeds, see http://www.webreference.com/authoring/languages/xml/rss/1/
Rss Reader
This thin Flash Client is intended to read RSS (Rich
Site Summary) 0.91, 0.92 and 1.0 Feeds in his most important tags through a
PHP class who parses the XML data and outputs name/pair values who can be interpreted
by the Flash movie. In great part, this work is possible thanks to erational.org,
who has developped some great reader that doesn’t fill my needs. My problem
was that I need a Pocket PC Reader (who only has Flash 5 Player or maybe when
you’re reading this, Flash 6 player has released on PPC) so I developped the
XML parser in PHP using the PHP SAX parser (included in standard distribution).
The pocketRFlash.php (in PocketReader) and the Rss.php (in the Reader) handles
the XML output to build the string flow. The xmlclass.php is the base class
for both. All the XML parse routine is done in PHP, so Flash only need to read
name/pair values, giving a less processor intensive movie, welcome especially
when you're targeting a wide audience.
Also I included some management tool fot those using the database version (MySQL)
with a setup and basic insert/delete forms to manage the categories and the
feeds. The provided feeds are only for demostration purpose, you want to replace
with your owns. The Pocket Reader was developped in Flash 5 and the code is
not so clean as I want (anyway, who can write clean code in Flash 5 ActionScript?
… well, don’t answer me) The Main Reader was developped for Flash Player 6.
Questions? Visit us
on the message board.

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