Lotus Domino Designer 8 Help

PROGRAMMING DOMINO FOR WEB APPLICATIONS

RSS feeds
Release 8 includes a new database template, rss_generator.ntf, that contains a collection of agents and script libraries designed to produce RSS feeds for views in Domino databases, including:

E-mail, Calendar, and Contact entries from a user's database
Corporate contacts
Discussions

RSS feed generator databases have three primary functions:

map fields in Domino databases to RSS XML elements
generate the RSS feeds
syndicate (advertise) feeds

The rss_generator.ntf is a server-based template and it can only be used on a Domino server. Databases created from the template must reside on the server, and they can only access and generate feeds for databases co-located on the same server.

Databases created from the template must include Anonymous in the ACL, with Reader level access, if the RSS feed database is to be used by anyone. Set the appropriate web rule option to override session-based authentication for specific URL pattern for the RSS feed database. For derived mail database RSS feeds, the Anonymous entry must be set to No access with no privileges, to allow users to login and see links to their mail file.

User-based RSS feed databases can be created with server security set to 'Basic' authentication mode and Anonymous is set to 'No access.'

When users open the database, the home page redirects users to an "Available Feeds" page, which advertises all feeds listed in the RSS Feed Definitions view.

RSS feed Views

Create and edit RSS feeds in the RSS Feed Definitions view. The order of the feeds in the view is the order in which they appear in the feed list. You can change the order of the feeds in this view, by moving them up or down the list.

Use the 'External Web documents' view to collect and advertise Web-enabled documents as RSS items. For example, you might use this to aggregate important company documents like Human Resources PDF forms, Corporate policies, and other documents that may not be part of a Domino view.

Setting up an RSS feed generator database

Create the database from the template, as described in Domino Administrator Help.

In the RSS Field Definitions view, click New Feed. The New RSS Feed Definition form appears.

First, choose the database to serve up as an RSS feed.

Field Action

Database type Choose the type of database for which to create the RSS feed:
Derived mail database (calculated per user)
Other, common database
The database type determines some aspects of the behavior of the feed. For example, if you create a feed from a mail file, the user's name will appear in the feed name in the database.

Database Choose the database for which to create the feed.

View Choose the database view that will be used to create the feed.

Next, configure these mandatory fields for the RSS feed description. These map to required XML tags in the RSS file:

Field Action

<title> Specify the title of the feed. This will appear on the feed list in the database.

<description> Provide a brief description of the feed. This also appears on the feed list.

<language> Default is English.

<encoding> Default is UTF-8.

Last, you can configure these optional fields to further refine the RSS feed description:

Field Action

Number of entries to be emitted Specify the number of items that appear in the RSS feed

Convert Domino names to RFC822 email addresses Have Domino-formatted user names (for example, John Doe/West/Acme) be converted to standard Internet email addresses (for example, johndoe@acme.com)

Add additional tag libraries Specify the location of other tag libraries you want to use

Treat this view as an ordered list? If you specify this for an RSS feed, this means that RSS readers will remove items that do not fit the criteria of an ordered list. A common example of an "ordered list" is a top-10 feed of best selling books.
Note Contacts and Calendar feeds should be configured as ordered lists.

You can also add additional XML information at the bottom of the form to further define your RSS feed. For example, for podcasts, you will want to use the <enclosure> tag to advertise an audio or video file.

The database also has an internal function to create iCalendar or vCard objects when the <enclosure> tag is associated with an RSS item

iCalendar and vCard objects can be retrieved by examining the "URL" property of the <enclosure> tag
Since most RSS readers do not process enclosure tags, sending a link to the iCalendar or vCard object reduces the amount of unnecessary data delivered to the client.

You can configure global options for the RSS feed. Select the feed in the view and click Global Options. From here, you can:

Change the look of the main page of the RSS generator database, including the header
Change the look of the redirect page, as well as the default redirect time

Glossary

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Glossary

Field	Action
Database type	Choose the type of database for which to create the RSS feed: Derived mail database (calculated per user) Other, common database The database type determines some aspects of the behavior of the feed. For example, if you create a feed from a mail file, the user's name will appear in the feed name in the database.
Database	Choose the database for which to create the feed.
View	Choose the database view that will be used to create the feed.

Field	Action
<title>	Specify the title of the feed. This will appear on the feed list in the database.
<description>	Provide a brief description of the feed. This also appears on the feed list.
<language>	Default is English.
<encoding>	Default is UTF-8.

Field	Action
Number of entries to be emitted	Specify the number of items that appear in the RSS feed
Convert Domino names to RFC822 email addresses	Have Domino-formatted user names (for example, John Doe/West/Acme) be converted to standard Internet email addresses (for example, johndoe@acme.com)
Add additional tag libraries	Specify the location of other tag libraries you want to use
Treat this view as an ordered list?	If you specify this for an RSS feed, this means that RSS readers will remove items that do not fit the criteria of an ordered list. A common example of an "ordered list" is a top-10 feed of best selling books. Note Contacts and Calendar feeds should be configured as ordered lists.