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A new RSS Script Generator! V3.1 Add news feeds to your website! Wow!

Related Resources...
To find additional resources, enter the search terms: "rss directory"
 
Generate an RSS feed for your website! Why not?

  Would you like to display RSS news feeds on your website? Well… Now you can, while being able to fully customize the script! How cool is that?

As long as you have the URL for the RSS feed that you would like to display, you are free to go.

There are many websites where you can find lists of available RSS feeds, and many sites provide RSS feeds for their content without advertising it. For example, we have one for our Streaming Audio Book Broadcasting Service. Our RSS feed URL is
http://gutterstar.net/books/xml.rss

To find more information about RSS feeds and where to get them, simply enter the search terms: "rss directory"

Why did we make this script when there are many online services that host RSS script creation services? Well, because none of them provide full customization, so we made one that does! Pretty exciting ey?

So, what’s the good of having an RSS feed on your website?

One reason, is to display interesting content that updates itself without you having to do anything… Another, is that the RSS feed content is automatically picked up by search engine bots, so your site will get a higher search engine ranking. In short, including RSS feeds on your site that support the content of your website, will automatically increase your website's popularity.

To make it work: Enter the URL of the RSS feed into the URL field below, and customize to your heart’s content!

NEW! To get the color combinations that will blast your news feed into the stellar realms of success, try out the new GutterStar.net Color Picker! Now 548 colors to choose from!

Feel free to experiment...

Latest Feature: Now Supporting Secure HTTP Authentication!



Use secure HTTP authenticated RSS feeds without the risk of revealing your login information! The process is very simple, simply enter the login code in the Authentication String field when creating your script. That's all.

GutterStar.net keeps no record of this information, the security of your login information is guaranteed.

How it works: When you enter your authentication string when creating your RSS script, the authentication string is automatically encrypted using a high conversion security algorithm. The unreadable string is then encoded for use on the web, and added to your RSS script. When the page loads, your login information is briefly decoded on our server, and the RSS feed is loaded. When the script is finished loading, all of the relevant login information is automatically perged from memory. There is no way for your login information to be publically accessed.

Automatic Secure Email Updates!



* Receive an email notification if the RSS feed that you have on your site goes down! Now, NEW and improved! Read on for more details...

Have you ever had several pages with RSS feeds on your site (delighting your visitors to no end with brilliant thoughts, dazzling ideas, exquisite ponderables… Then, all of a sudden, the RSS file that your script was pointing to no longer works?

Sometimes the RSS file is down because the server the file is hosted on is down, This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and usually indicates server maintenance. On some occasions though, the name or URL of the RSS file has been changed by the provider for whatever reason… Which can be very annoying, since the RSS script on your site will simply be pointing to an empty location until the problem is discovered… Which can take a long time if you don’t check your pages on a regular basis.

Solution: The RSS script detects when the RSS URL cannot be opened, then does the following…
  • Sends you an email notification, identifying the page URL where you have your RSS script so you can know which of your page’s encountered the problem.
  • Also identifies within the email notification, the URL of the news feed file that could not be opened, so that you can tell if any additional pages that use the same RSS script might be effected as well, and which ones.
  • Sets a built in timer to ensure that you will only receive one email notification per day regarding the particular RSS file that could not be opened. (It would get pretty old if each visitor to the same page triggered the same notification over and over... So now, that won't happen.)
  • NEW: Encodes your email address within the script that you put on your site, which is totally encrypted to ensure the security of your email address! (To guarantee your privacy, we keep no such email records on our servers. Nor is your email address used for any other purpose.) When a news feed cannot be accessed, the encrypted email address within your JavaScript is automatically referenced, and the courtesy message is sent to let you know as soon as the problem occurs.


How awesome is that!? To use the feature, simply fill in the relevant field when prompted in the form below. Enjoy...

Important Information: Service Interruptions



If the RSS script has suddenly stopped working on your web page, and GutterStar.net is still reachable, the interruption is likely due to a violation of our Terms of Service Agreement. The Terms of Service Agreement appears after you click the “Alright! Let's go!” button below to generate the RSS script for your site.

In essence, the Terms of Service Agreement states the following… 1) The line “Powered by GutterStar.net” must remain visible when using the script on your site. Since this line is very unobtrusive, and blends in with the rest of the script text seamlessly, this small reference shouldn’t be of any consequence. The reason for this requirement is fairly obvious… By using this free and powerful service, you are showing your support for GutterStar.net in return by retaining a small reference to this site. Which is much appreciated we assure you! And 2) That you cannot reverse engineer or compromise the service in any way. Why not? Well… That wouldn’t be very nice would it?

What happens if a webmaster uses font sizing, background or foreground color combinations, CSS, JavaScript, or any other means to hide or obscure the “Powered by GutterStar.net” reference? Well, it’s pretty obvious when this happens because we won’t see it when we look at the page… Elementary, my dear Watson…

So then what? Well that’s the interesting bit… An ID for the site will be added to the Warning List, which will display a message to the webmaster to notify them about the problem. Since these things sometimes happen by accident, the message serves as a reminder to the webmaster that the “Powered by GutterStar.net” reference must remain visible when using the service, and hopefully prompt them to adjust the necessary colors and fonts accordingly to achieve this. To restore the prior functionality of the service as it was before, the webmaster can simply generate a new script for their site by using the form below.

What happens if, after repeated warnings, the webmaster continues to hide or obscure the “Powered by GutterStar.net” reference? Sadly, there is no reasoning with them at such a point… The webmaster’s domain would then be added to the Blacklist, which will prevent any further usage of the GutterStar.net RSS Service on their website… Which is sad, since, if it were otherwise, GutterStar.net and the webmaster’s site could mutually support each other… One by providing valued content, and the other by linking back in support.

Alright! Let's go!



Bonus Feature: A Name anchor tag is automatically included within the header of the script when it loads. The name of the anchor is "news". This gives you the ability to create a skip link anywhere on your web page that will automatically jump to this script! So, to make it work, just add a link to your page like so...
<A HREF="#news"> What's the latest whatever from somethingorother? Click here to find out! </A>
Simply change the link text to match the content of your page. To see this feature in action, check out the link "So... What're the latest odd, weird, bizarre news articles from around the world? Click here to find out!" on the page at GutterStar.net!

Don't forget, if you have any ideas for improvements, if you find a bug, or if you would like to see a new feature added to this service, please don't hesitate to write us about it. Simply click here to bend our ears about something important! Your feedback is important.

Also, if you would like to be notified when new features or updates are added to this service, feel free to sign up here...

Feed URL
Maximum Items
Action
eMail (optional)
Authentication String (optional)
(Enter the URL of the RSS feed that you would like to use.)

(Enter the maximum number of items to display at one time.)

Links Should Open In

(Choose whether you would like activated links to open a new window, or in the same window.)


(This feature is useful if you would like to be automatically notified if your RSS news feed cannot be accessed by the script. Simply enter the email address where you would like the courtesy message to be sent. IMPORTANT: No record of this email address is saved. The email address will be fully encrypted within the JavaScript that you place on your site to ensure the privacy and security of your email address. The encrypted email address will be stored within the "ntify" variable of your JavaScript code, generated when you click the "Alright! Let's go!" button below. Simply leave this field blank if you wish to ignore this setting.)

(This feature is useful if your feed url requires HTTP Authentication in order to work properly. This authentication string should be in the following format: "UserName:Password" IMPORTANT: No record of this information is saved. The authentication string will be encrypted to ensure your security, and included within your JavaScript code on the following page. This will allow you to use your HTTP authenticated news feed publically, without the risk of revealing your personal account information. Simply leave this field blank if you wish to ignore this setting.)

Type
Height
Width
Table
Text
Table Attributes:

(You can enter an exact pxl value such as "100", or a percentage such as 50%. Feel free to experiment.)

(You can enter an exact pxl value such as "100", or a percentage such as 50%. Feel free to experiment.)

Table Positioning

(This will align the table as specified, which is useful if you would like the outer text to wrap around the border of the table. To ignore this setting, simply skip to the next setting without checking a radio button.)


Text Positioning

(This will align the text within the table as specified.)


Type
Text
Size
Color
Font
Extra
Header Text Settings:

(Choose whatever header text that you would like to appear within the H2 tag.)

(Choose the font size that you would like for the header text. Enter a number between 1 -smallest- and 7 -largest-.)

(Choose the font color that you would like for the header text. This can be a hex value such as "#000000" or a literal value such as "black". To find the right color, refer to the color picker mentioned in the introduction.)

Header Text Font Face:



Title Text Settings:

(Choose whatever title text that you would like to appear before the RSS description.)

(Choose the font size that you would like for the title text. Enter a number between 1 -smallest- and 7 -largest-.)

(Choose the font color that you would like for the title text. This can be a hex value such as "#000000" or a literal value such as "black". To find the right color, refer to the color picker mentioned in the introduction.)

Title Text Font Face:

Row Text Settings: (Enter the number of characters that you would like the description to display. Leave the field blank to display full descriptions. Examples: 100, 500, 1000, 5000, etc. Whatever you like.) (Choose the font size that you would like for the row text. Enter a number between 1 -smallest- and 7 -largest-.)

(Choose the font color that you would like for the row text. This can be a hex value such as "#000000" or a literal value such as "black". To find the right color, refer to the color picker mentioned in the introduction.)

Row Text Font Face:


Thank you for visiting GutterStar.net!

Copyright GutterStar.net, all rights reserved.
  RSS Screenshot of an RSS feed as seen in Mozilla Thunderbird File extension: .rss, .xml MIME type: application/rss+xml (Registration Being Prepared)[1] Extended from: XML RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. An RSS document, which is called a "feed," "web feed," or "channel," contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites in an automated manner that's easier than checking them manually. RSS content can be read using software called an "RSS reader", "feed reader" or an "aggregator". The user subscribes to a feed by entering the feed's link into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. The reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly for new content, downloading any updates that it finds. The initials "RSS" are used to refer to the following formats: Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0) RDF Site Summary (RSS 1.0 and RSS 0.90) Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91) RSS formats are specified using XML, a generic specification for the creation of data formats. The RSS formats were preceded by several attempts at syndication that did not achieve widespread popularity. The basic idea of restructuring information about web sites goes back to as early as 1995, when Ramanathan V. Guha and others in Apple Computer's Advanced Technology Group developed the Meta Content Framework (MCF).[2] For a more detailed discussion of these early developments, see the history of web syndication technology. RDF Site Summary, the first version of RSS, was created by Guha at Netscape in March 1999 for use on the My.Netscape.Com portal. This version became known as RSS 0.9.[3] In July 1999, Dan Libby of Netscape produced a new version, RSS 0.91,[4] that simplified the format by removing RDF elements and incorporating elements from Dave Winer's scriptingNews syndication format.[5] Libby also renamed RSS to Rich Site Summary and outlined further development of the format in a "futures document".[6] This would be Netscape's last participation in RSS development for eight years. As RSS was being embraced by web publishers who wanted their feeds to be used on My.Netscape.Com and other early RSS portals, Netscape dropped RSS support from My.Netscape.Com in April 2001 during new owner AOL's restructuring of the company, also removing documentation and tools that supported the format.[7] Two entities emerged to fill the void, with neither Netscape's help nor approval: The RSS-DEV Working Group and Winer, whose UserLand Software had published some of the first publishing tools outside of Netscape that could read and write RSS. Winer published a modified version of the RSS 0.91 specification on the UserLand web site, covering how it was being used in his company's products, and claimed copyright to the document.[8] A few months later, UserLand filed a U.S. trademark registration for RSS, but failed to respond to a USPTO trademark examiner's request and the request was rejected in December 2001.[9] The RSS-DEV Working Group, a project whose members included Guha and representatives of O'Reilly Media and Moreover, produced RSS 1.0 in December 2000.[10] This new version, which reclaimed the name RDF Site Summary from RSS 0.9, reintroduced support for RDF and added XML namespaces support, adopting elements from standard metadata vocabularies such as Dublin Core. In December 2000, Winer released RSS 0.92[11] a minor set of changes aside from the introduction of the enclosure element, which permitted audio files to be carried in RSS feeds and helped spark podcasting. He also released drafts of RSS 0.93 and RSS 0.94 that were subsequently withdrawn.[12] In September 2002, Winer released a major new version of the format, RSS 2.0, that redubbed its initials Really Simple Syndication. RSS 2.0 removed the type attribute added in the RSS 0.94 draft and added support for namespaces. Because neither Winer nor the RSS-DEV Working Group had Netscape's involvement, they could not make an official claim on the RSS name or format. This has fueled ongoing controversy in the syndication development community as to which entity was the proper publisher of RSS. One product of that contentious debate was the creation of an alternative syndication format, Atom, that began in June 2003. The Atom syndication format, whose creation was in part motivated by a desire to get a clean start free of the issues surrounding RSS, has been adopted as IETF Proposed Standard RFC 4287. In July 2003, Winer and UserLand Software assigned the copyright of the RSS 2.0 specification to Harvard's Berkman Center for the Internet & Society, where he had just begun a term as a visiting fellow.[13] At the same time, Winer launched the RSS Advisory Board with Brent Simmons and Jon Udell, a group whose purpose was to maintain and publish the specification and answer questions about the format.[14] In December 2005, the Microsoft Internet Explorer team[15] and Outlook team[16] announced on their blogs that they were adopting the feed icon first used in the Mozilla Firefox browser . A few months later, Opera Software followed suit. This effectively made the orange square with white radio waves the industry standard for RSS and Atom feeds, replacing the large variety of icons and text that had been used previously to identify syndication data. In January 2006, Rogers Cadenhead relaunched the RSS Advisory Board without Dave Winer's participation, with a stated desire to continue the development of the RSS format and resolve ambiguities. In June 2007, the board revised their version of the specification to confirm that namespaces may extend core elements with namespace attributes, as Microsoft has done in Internet Explorer 7. In their view, a difference of interpretation left publishers unsure of whether this was permitted or forbidden. As noted above, there are several different versions of RSS, falling into two major branches (RDF and 2.*). The RDF, or RSS 1.* branch includes the following versions: RSS 0.90 was the original Netscape RSS version. This RSS was called RDF Site Summary, but was based on an early working draft of the RDF standard, and was not compatible with the final RDF Recommendation. RSS 1.0 is an open format by the RSS-DEV Working Group, again standing for RDF Site Summary. RSS 1.0 is an RDF format like RSS 0.90, but not fully compatible with it, since 1.0 is based on the final RDF 1.0 Recommendation. RSS 1.1 is also an open format and is intended to update and replace RSS 1.0. The specification is an independent draft not supported or endorsed in any way by the RSS-Dev Working Group or any other organization. The RSS 2.* branch (initially UserLand, now Harvard) includes the following versions: RSS 0.91 is the simplified RSS version released by Netscape, and also the version number of the simplified version championed by Dave Winer from Userland Software. The Netscape version was now called Rich Site Summary; this was no longer an RDF format, but was relatively easy to use. It remains the most common RSS variant. RSS 0.92 through 0.94 are expansions of the RSS 0.91 format, which are mostly compatible with each other and with Winer's version of RSS 0.91, but are not compatible with RSS 0.90. In all Userland RSS 0.9x specifications, RSS was no longer an acronym. RSS 2.0.1 has the internal version number 2.0. RSS 2.0.1 was proclaimed to be "frozen", but still updated shortly after release without changing the version number. RSS now stood for Really Simple Syndication. The major change in this version is an explicit extension mechanism using XML Namespaces. For the most part, later versions in each branch are backward-compatible with earlier versions (aside from non-conformant RDF syntax in 0.90), and both versions include properly documented extension mechanisms using XML Namespaces, either directly (in the 2.* branch) or through RDF (in the 1.* branch). Most syndication software supports both branches. Mark Pilgrim's article "The Myth of RSS Compatibility" discusses RSS version compatibility in more detail. The extension mechanisms make it possible for each branch to track innovations in the other. For example, the RSS 2.* branch was the first to support enclosures, making it the current leading choice for podcasting, and as of mid-2005 is the format supported for that use by iTunes and other podcasting software; however, an enclosure extension is now available for the RSS 1.* branch, mod_enclosure. Likewise, the RSS 2.* core specification does not support providing full-text in addition to a synopsis, but the RSS 1.* markup can be (and often is) used as an extension. There are also several common outside extension packages available, including a new proposal from Microsoft for use in Internet Explorer 7. The most serious compatibility problem is with HTML markup. Userland's RSS reader—generally considered as the reference implementation—did not originally filter out HTML markup from feeds. As a result, publishers began placing HTML markup into the titles and descriptions of items in their RSS feeds. This behavior has become expected of readers, to the point of becoming a de facto standard, though there is still some inconsistency in how software handles this markup, particularly in titles. The RSS 2.0 specification was later updated to include examples of entity-encoded HTML; however, all prior plain text usages remain valid. The primary objective of all RSS modules is to extend the basic XML schema established for more robust syndication of content. This inherently allows for more diverse, yet standardized, transactions without modifying the core RSS specification. To accomplish this extension, a tightly controlled vocabulary (in the RSS world, "module"; in the XML world, "schema") is declared through an XML namespace to give names to concepts and relationships between those concepts. Some RSS 2.0 modules with established namespaces: Ecommerce RSS 2.0 Module Media RSS 2.0 Module OpenSearch RSS 2.0 Module Several BitTorrent-based peer-to-peer applications also support RSS. Such feeds (also known as Torrent/RSS-es or Torrentcasts) allow client applications to download files automatically from the moment the RSS reader detects them (also known as Broadcatching). Aggregators Atom Podcasting Syndication