HowTo: Create RSS Feeds with Linq to XML / XLinq
It´s very easy to create an RSS using Linq to XML. In my sample I create a ASP.NET page, which offers a RSS Feed. We add also a meta tag so that users can find our RSS Feed.
HowTo: Use PicLens and other MediaRSS Clients for your own Website (create MediaRSS with LINQ to XML)
This blogpost is related to the "RSS XLINQ" post – but this time the result will be cooler 
.
About this post
This post is about the "MediaRSS" standard and how you can use it for your own website. If you have never heard of it – never mind. But maybe you have heard of a really cool Firefox Plugin called "PicLens".
"PicLens"?
"PicLens" is a incredible surface for some internet services, like YouTube, Google picture search, Flickr or Amazon:
This is the Amazon-Surface:
Media RSS
The Piclens guys have implemented the "MediaRSS" standard – that means: Each site with an MediaRSS can be viewed in Piclens.
If you are a webmaster, you should take a look at this site. We created in the last post an RSS feed with XLinq – MediaRSS shouldn´t be much harder to code:
XLINQ
We have the same project files – only the RSS generation must be changed:
XNamespace media = "http://search.yahoo.com/mrss";
XNamespace atom = "http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom";
public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)
{
XDocument document = new XDocument(
new XDeclaration("1.0", "utf-8", "yes"),
new XElement("rss",
new XAttribute("version", "2.0"),
new XAttribute(XNamespace.Xmlns + "media", media),
new XAttribute(XNamespace.Xmlns + "atom", atom),
new XElement("channel", this.CreateElements())
));
context.Response.ContentType = "text/xml";
document.Save(context.Response.Output);
context.Response.End();
}
private IEnumerable<XElement> CreateElements()
{
List<XElement> list = new List<XElement>();
for(int i = 1; i < 100; i++)
{
XElement itemElement = new XElement("item",
new XElement("title", i),
new XElement("link", "Code-Inside.de"),
new XElement(media + "thumbnail",
new XAttribute("url", "http://code-inside.de/blog/wp-content/uploads/image-thumb" + i + ".png")),
new XElement(media + "content",
new XAttribute("url", "http://code-inside.de/blog/wp-content/uploads/image-thumb" + i + ".png"))
);
list.Add(itemElement);
}
return list;
}
This time we need 2 XNamespaces – "media" and "atom" are need to create a valid MediaRSS:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?> <rss version="2.0" xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"> ... </rss>
These namespaces must be added by using the XAttribute class. The syntax is in my point of view a bit to complex, but I didn´t find a better way.
The source code above is everything you need to create a "simple" MediaRSS – there are some other elements supported by piclens – look at the Guide for more information.
Result:
We created the RSS auto-detection in the last blogpost. Piclens can now find the MediaRSS elements and show us the pictures on the "Wall" (the Piclens-Button glow if it find a MediaRSS Feed on the site) :
If you have several pictures on your site – publish a MediaRSS Feed. It´s very easy and it´s an open standard (Specification @ Yahoo) – Piclens is just one MediaRSS Client (but today the client with the best surface).
PS: I use my german blog as the picture source – please don´t abuse this example (traffic 
)
HowTo: Create RSS Feeds with LINQ to XML (XLinq)
It´s really easy to create XML with LINQ to XML – you can find a HowTo on my german blog.
Now we´ll try to create an RSS Feed with XLINQ
My Projectfiles:
The "Rss.ashx" will create your RSS. At first I want to make sure, that my site-visitors detect my nice RSS Feed automatically:
<head runat="server">
<title>Untitled Page</title>
<link rel="alternate" href="Rss.ashx" type="application/rss+xml" title="" id="rss" />
</head>
This RSS feature is called "RSS Autodiscovery".
The "Rss.ashx":
We create the head (name, declaration and so on) of the RSS XML in the ProcessRequest Method:
public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)
{
XDocument document = new XDocument(
new XDeclaration("1.0", "utf-8", "yes"),
new XElement("rss",
new XAttribute("version", "2.0"),
new XElement("channel", this.CreateElements())
));
context.Response.ContentType = "text/xml";
document.Save(context.Response.Output);
context.Response.End();
}
At the end of the method the XDocument is saved into the Response.Output. Your RSS items are created in the "CreateElements" Method.
The "CreateElements"-Method:
This method returns IEnumberable<XElement> and the elements will be appended the channel-Element (which is created in the ProcessRequest-Method):
private IEnumerable<XElement> CreateElements()
{
List<XElement> list = new List<XElement>();
for (int i = 1; i < 100; i++)
{
XElement itemElement = new XElement("item",
new XElement("title", i),
new XElement("link", "http://code-inside.de")
);
list.Add(itemElement);
}
return list;
}
That´s it 
German
English
