vowe dot net :: An RSS feed for your Notes mail anyone?

An RSS feed for your Notes mail anyone?

by Volker Weber

We have a whole lot of Domino blog templates. All of them have RSS feeds. Here's an idea: Take that code and make it an extension of your mail template. Has anyone done this yet?

2004-06-16 :: email :: bookmark :: digg

Comments

Hm, does RSS natively support authentication and access rights?
I mean, yes, of course you can protect the page that is being returned on request and since it's requested and transmitted via http it should be feasible.
But is there an RSS reader that allows to configure a username and password to authenticate with the server if necessary?
I am certainly lacking experience with a variety of RSS readers since I am everhappy with what I get from the Trillian plug-in. And that certainly doesn't support authentication...

Just thinking out lout

Ragnar Schierholz, 2004-06-16 22:24

Ragnar, some do. Here is a selection.

Volker Weber, 2004-06-16 23:12

I am currently working on a tool for generating an RSS feed from _any_ database on a Domino server. The idea is to have a wizard that lets you select from any view, folder, or arbitrary search formula, and map fields to the various RSS tags. The design should be able to generate both RSS and Atom feeds. It's been on the back-burner for quite a while, but I've been planning on getting it going again soon.

-rich

Richard Schwartz, 2004-06-17 00:19

That selection seems not to be too actual. I'm actually using SharpReader to get a feed which requires authentication.

Oliver Regelmann, 2004-06-17 01:05

Rich, nice idea. But in this case I would want the code to sit inside the application because it should inherit the ACL.

Oliver, as the header suggests, it is almost a year old. In any case, yes, we could use authentication to get authorized access only to the mail RSS feed.

Volker Weber, 2004-06-17 01:14

Respecting the ACL can be arranged easily enough. No data is copied. It is accessed on the fly. The agent that generates the feed could be set to run with the identity of the authenticated user.

-rich

Richard Schwartz, 2004-06-17 03:12

In that case, wouldn't it just be a view with some HTML tags added to the text in the columns? Like what Mike Golding does here:

http://www.notestips.com/80256B3A007F2692/1/NAMO5MQVKJ

ACL is built-in, as are Reader fields and auto-updates. No agents or fancy tricks required.

You're talking about creating an RSS feed from your mail, not reading one into your mail, right? If you're talking about reading one in (i.e. -- turning your mail database into an RSS aggregator), I think that's a great idea too, but it's a bit harder.

- Julian

Julian Robichaux, 2004-06-17 03:56

Is OpenNTF listening?
Cool idea!
;-) stw

Stephan H. Wissel, 2004-06-17 06:47

Is there something available that would work for Domino discussion and document databases?

Stefan Tilkov, 2004-06-17 08:43

This is half an hour’s work. My site’s RSS feeds are all just standard Notes views tagged up & embedded in pages: easily moved into the Notes application of one’s choice.

Ben Poole, 2004-06-17 11:07

Julian, yes, it would be an application of Mike's article.

Stefan, those would be two more of those applications. Very similar, BTW. Mail is a bit easier because we already have the inbox folder, that we may want to use as a source for the feed.

Ben, if you spend that half an hour, then please make the view available to the public. :-)

Volker Weber, 2004-06-17 11:15

The PAVONE NewsReader contains a view which can copy and paste into each other Notes database. The view generates the RSS code. You must only change the field names. Problems exists with Rich text fields, so you should create a text-field in the form for the Rich text fields. The NewsReader can read all entries in the view as an RSS entry. If you want that another RSS reader can read the entries you should create a page, as Ben described.

Rolf, 2004-06-17 14:15

A view-based solution is easy, but an agent-based solution can be far more flexible. E.g., it can take arguments to limit the depth either by date (without putting a performance-killing time-dependent view into your database) or by doc count. Also, an advantage of using an agent in a separate database is that you don't need designer rights for the source database. All you need is to know a few field names and you can generate the feed without modifying the actual database's design.

-rich

Richard Schwartz, 2004-06-17 17:05

Stefan - the free domino software at http://www.dominoblog.com does rss feeds (RSS 2) for content and discussion - the design is open so you can see how it is done - it uses both views and agents for RSS so examples of both (agent version is there in case people want to do logging of hits etc).

Steve Castledine

Steve Castledine, 2004-06-18 11:09

Herzlichen Glückwunsch an Volker Weber, den 2. Erfinder der Mailingliste ;-)

Wolfgang Flamme, 2004-06-19 00:57

Jo, DAS könnte man damit auch machen. Aber eigentlich will ich nur MEINE Mail sehen. :-)

Volker Weber, 2004-06-19 01:03

Ok Volker, I see not much of a problem for authentication however I agree with Rolf - proper conversion for RichText/MIME/SMIME and even those Notes2Notes-client targeted ENCAP mails sounds challenging.

And yes, what about replies and C+S features your Notes client offers?

Wolfgang Flamme, 2004-06-21 10:56