Broadcast Builder Professional Review Three letters can mean the end to monthly email newsletters, give you a bigger web profile and keep your target audience up to date with the latest news: RSS. You may have noticed little red "RSS" and "xml" boxes showing up on all sorts of web pages. If you're like a lot of users, you find yourself wondering "What is RSS ?". The idea behind RSS is for webmasters to post an XML or RSS file containing summaries of news items and links to the complete articles. This file, called a news feed, is accessed by a news aggregator which displays the information in a compact and easy to read format. Now, any web site can have its own RSS news feed thanks to Broadcast Builder. The issue with any new technology is that implementing a solution often becomes the problem. Broadcast Builder solves that though it's many features, easy to use interface and by offering three different versions to satisfy users of all levels. I had no previous experience in RSS and was certainly not an XML guru yet was able to quickly create an RSS feed for the Shareware Genie website using Broadcast Builder. The three versions of Broadcast Builder allow you to choose a program with features that best match your needs and budget. Even a personal website can have an RSS feed. Broadcast Builder doesn't stop with RSS. Its many features allow interaction between RSS and blogs, databases, html and even wap for cell phone access. Download a copy of Broadcast Builder Pro edition by clicking on the blue button on the bottom of this page; you'll find this review acts as a tutorial. If you prefer to download another version, please see the Broadcast Builder Enterprise Review or the Broadcast Builder Standard Review. Please note that the Enterprise edition has the most features and was used to create the screen shots for all reviews. More information on news aggregators can be found on the FeedDemon review. Configuration Configuration consists of checking to see if you have a common database driver, ActiveX 9, and adding information to the config windows. First we'll look at the configuration windows then give you some links to drivers in case you don't have them The nice thing about the configuration windows is that you don't have to fill them in right away; Broadcast Builder prompts you for any information you haven't provided when it actually needs it. To access the configuration windows, click on "Tools" on the top menu bar and then "Configuration". Of the six windows present, we will go over the three of them are audio-vidio/DirectX, mail/usenet, and external blog tools. Information on the first page, Global & feed configuration, can be found in the posting RSS feeds section below. - AUDIO-VISUAL / DIRECTX - All images and enclosures used on RSS and Blogs have to be URL based. This means they have to be on a server somewhere that you can get to by typing a URL and can't be on the "C" drive of your PC. For your feed and blogs to find these images, you have to specify a base URL where you're going to put. So if you're creating a folder called PictureFiles in your URL the base URL would be http://yourURL/PictureFiles. Please note that the names ARE case sensitive. If you want to use camera capture devices, click on the autodetect button and Broadcast Builder will automatically find them. Press the down arrow next to the Camera and Audio capture text boxes for a list of devices you can use then select the device of your choice. If you plan on using the media capture tool found in the Enterprise version of Broadcast Builder, you will need to have DirectX 9.x or higher installed. If you don't have this version, follow the link to get the latest version of DirectX. - MAIL / USENET - If you want to use the usenet and email functions in Broadcast Builder, you must specify what your news server and email hostname is. If you have no idea what usenet is or how to see it, check out our usenet configuration page. Contact your internet service provider (ISP) if you need more information on the names of your news server and email hostname. You can still blog and create RSS feeds with Broadcast Builder without this information but you won't be able to use the email and usenet functions. - EXTERNAL BLOG TOOLS - If you have an external blog like Blogger or Live Journal, fill in the appropriate username/password information here. For more information on blogs, see the blog editor section. Another requirement of Broadcast Builder include having Microsoft's DAO 3.x installed. In case you're not a database junkie, DAO 3.x is a dll in Microsoft's Jet 4.0 Database Engine Service Pack. If you use Windows 2000 or later, or Microsoft Access , you probably already have it installed. If you have problems installing the program and think this driver is missing, check the DAO 3.x information page for more details. Make an RSS page - Wizard You can think of RSS as a big XML file with a series of "Item" tags. The information in each item tag is an article discription with a link to the article page. Follow these steps to see just how easy making an RSS page is with Broadcast Builder. 1) Use the hotkey CTRL-N or click "File" on the top menu bar and then "New RSS File" from the dropdown menu. This will give you the option to use the wizard. For this example, select yes. After the page is complete, you'll see how to enter information manually. 2) The wizard window, shown below, contains a series of tabs on the bottom that you can access sequentially by clicking on the blue right arrow or directly by clicking on the tab. The first tab or information tab has some general infomation on RSS feeds. Read the information and click on the right facing blue arrow. 3) The second tab or Channel Information tab, shown below, asks for five pieces of information: a) Feed Title. A feed title which can be any name you want and is for your reference. The title for this example is "Shareware Genie News". The feed title will appear as a clickable link on the bottom of each news item and will have the base link mentioned below as its target URL. b) Base Link. The base link doesn't point to a news item but to your web site. This example used http://www.sharewaregenie.com. c) Channel Description - This describes the entire feed. Since you can put more than one feed on your website, the title should reflect the type of news items you're going to put into the feed. Remember, the RSS file is a series of items so don't pick the name of the first item for the feed description. The example uses "Product announcements from The Shareware Genie". d) Managing Editor - An email address is required for this. If you put a name in this section it may not validate properly. For this example, webmaster at sharewaregenie.com was used. e) Copyright Notice - Since you created the feed, give yourself credit for it. The example uses "Copyright by The Shareware Genie". Complete this information and click on the blue right arrow. 4) The next tab is the Channel Specifics tab. Choose the language you want to use in the first text box and specify the publish date of the article on the second text box. The red square to the right of the second text box will make the publication date the same as today's date. Click the right blue arrow after your selections are made. 5) Now for information on your first article. For this example, the first article will just announce that an RSS feed is available on the shareware genie website. The First Article tab asks for four pieces of information: a) Article Title. This is what your readers will actually see as the title. The title in the example is "News from The Shareware Genie now available on RSS". b) Article Link - This is the link to the web page where the entire article can be found. The link will not be to the home page but to an RSS info page that has recently been posted: http://www.sharewaregenie.com/RSSInfo.php . c) Publication Date - Either specify a date or click on the red box to make the publication date today's date. d) Article Text - Here is where you enter the article itself. Remember that this is a description of an article and not the article itself. Make it descriptive enough to get the point across but don't bore your audience with too many details. The article description for this example is simply "The Shareware Genie will now offer an RSS newsfeed containing announcements of new programs, reviews and general information." Enter the appropriate information for your feed and click the right blue arrow. 6) You just have to finalize your information and you're all done. Select the name and location of your file, make sure the "Load feed into editor after finalizing" check box is selected and click finalize. Just remember, Item information is specific to each item, Channel information appears on all items, all titles will appear as clickable links, and the links you enter are the target URLs. The left part of the image below shows what a news item looks like on the news aggregator FeedDemon; the two blue boxes on the right side describe the Channel and Item information as well as indicating their location. You've just created your first RSS feed; let's look at it in the editor. Make an RSS page - Editor You should now see the information you entered into the wizard on the RSS page editor. A reduced view of the RSS page editor is shown below. If you used the manual mode instead of the wizard, you would have been brought to this page and you would have entered the data into the text boxes instead of being prompted for it. The only field left blank by the wizard is the "Webmaster" text area. Fill in an email address in this space if you want. Save your data by clicking on the "Save feed" button on the bottom of the window which saves your news feed in three different formats: RSS, RDS, and XML. Now lets add additional items. The wizard had you add channel information and the first item. You can view that item by clicking on the "Preview Feed" button shown above. The image below shows what the feed looks like in its present form; notice the headlines that appear and where they were entered on the wizard. Most of the channel information won't be visible; only the item information. The image below shows how the feed will appear in the news aggregator FeedDemon. The top link is the article link which will go to the article page while bottom link was supplied by the channel information and goes to the main website. This a good start but an RSS feed with one entry really isn't going to grab anyone's attention. With Broadcast Builder, it's easy to add more. 1) Click on the "New feed item" at the bottom of the window. This will open a blank news item page. 2) Fill in the information like you did with the wizard. If you're using the enterprise version, we'll discuss enclosures later. For now, leave the enclosures blank. For this example, an announcement of the Armor2Net Review was added as shown in the image below. Please note that for the feed to properly validate, the page link must not be relative but a complete URL. In the example, the link would not validate if it was Armor2NetReview.php instead of www.sharewaregenie.com/Armor2NetReview.php. The Author must be an email address to validate. 3) Click on the "update feed items" button, shown below, to add your changes to the channel. To add additional news, just repeat the procedure above and the news item will be added to the bottom. To edit a news item, just double click on the item to be edited in channel tree located in the left panel of the editor. This will expand the item in the channel tree and bring it up in the main editor window. Change anything you want and click the "update feed items" button that was show above. If you wish to change the order of your news items, you can edit the post dates. Notice the order of the items won't change unless the "update feed items" button is clicked. Saving the feed will NOT automatically update the feed with your changes. You can also add new feed items using PAD files. PAD or Portable Application Description is an XML file that contains product descriptions, specifications and links to more information. PAD files can also be used to automate listings which is why most shareware sites look the same; they're all showing you the same PAD file generated page. In case you're wondering, the Shareware Genie relies on original content and doesn't use PAD files. To add a PAD file to your feed, click on new feed item and then import your padfile from a local or a web source. The feed will auto generate and you can edit it as you see fit. More information of padfiles can be found at the Association of Shareware Professionals website or at their PAD repository page. Data can also be imported to your feeds from other RSS feeds. Click on the "File" button on the top menu bar and select "Import From" from the dropdown menu then select "From RSS file". A window will open where you can specify the location of a local or remote RSS source. If you want to add a picture to the title of your RSS feed, fill out the appropriate information in the bottom of the Channel Information window shown below. The image will have to be located in the base URL that you specified in the configuration window. Below is what the feed with the image looks like on FeedDemon. Images of various sizes can be used to create a different look. Next to the "Image" button is the "Text Input" button which you can use to add a text input box to your feed. To create a text input you need to specify the following four elements: 1) Title - this is the label of the submit button for the text input. 2) Description - a description of what the text area is for. 3) Name - choose a name for the text object in the text input area 4) Link - enter the URL of the CGI script that will process the text input. One of the many uses for this feature is to allow viewers to provide feedback on the articles they read. Now that you've mastered RSS creation, it's time to post it on your website. Posting RSS Feeds The first step is to enter your web site's FTP information. This information only has to be entered into the configuration window once as long as your web site parameters don't change. 1) Click on "Tools" in the top menu bar and select "Configuration" from the drop down menu. The hot key alternative is ALT + C. For information on the other sections of the Configuration window, see the "Configuration" section at the start of the review. To upload your feed, you only have to fill out the section mentioned above. 2) The global details are fairly straightforward; name, email address, website link, etc. I chose ISO-8859-1 for XML encoding because most of the other feeds I've seen use this. Feel free to pick from the many choices available. 3) If you're going through a proxy server, fill in the information on the right side of the window. If you're not sure, check with your IT department. You can autodetect the proxy information if you're using the Enterprise edition of Broadcast Builder by clicking on the button to the right of the "Use Proxy Server" checkbox. 4) The "Feed Upload Information" section on the bottom of the window is where you type the username, password and server address of your website. Click the "Save Details" button in the lower right and the configuration is done. Now it's time to actually upload the feed. 1) Click on "File" in the top menu bar and select "Upload Feed" from the dropdown menu or use the hotkey CTRL + U. A warning box will appear asking if the file has been saved. If you merely clicked the "Update Feed items" button when adding new feeds, then the file is NOT saved and the proper data will not be uploaded. If your file has been saved, click the yes button to continue. 2) The Upload Feed window will appear with some of the information that you entered in the configuration window. Click on the "connect to server" button and your website directory tree should appear in the left of the window. If it will not connect, the connection information is probably wrong; correct any mistakes and try again. 3) Navigate the directory tree until you find where you want the file placed and click the "Upload Feed"button. That's it; your feed is posted! There are a few other things you may want to do to make your RSS feed a bit easier to access. 1) If you want your RSS feed to be autodetected by news aggregators like FeedDemon, place this line in the <HEAD> section of your web page <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS feed" href="URL/FeedFileName.rss" /> where "URL/feedFileName.rss" is the URL of your RSS feed. 2) You may also want to define the Mime type "application/rss+xml" as rss on your website. Check this link for more information on MIME types with RSS Feeds. 3) Add the RSS and XML images shown below with links to your feeds. 4) Check to see if your information is correct by using this online Validator. Just enter the URL of your feed and click test. 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