Summary

In this chapter, you learned the history of online syndication, including the rise of RSS and Atom as the two dominant XML formats for syndication. You also learned how RSS aggregators, such as FooReader.NET, make using news feeds much easier.

This chapter walked through the creation and implementation of a web-based RSS/Atom aggregator, FooReader.NET. Starting with the client components, you learned how to create XParser, a JavaScript RSS/Atom parser that provides an easy to use interface for developers of web applications based on RSS and Atom. You also learned how XParser uses the XML DOM present in Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla-based browsers.

You learned that while the client-side components of a web application are a necessity to properly display data to the user, server-side components are needed to retrieve the necessary data. Using C# and the .NET Framework, you learned how to retrieve remote XML feeds, cache them, and output them to a page. You also learned how to set HTTP headers so that browsers will know what to expect, and remote servers will know what is hitting them.

Finally, you learned how to set up the application in IIS and test it to make sure it was properly installed.