Intimidating

It’s all good, Feed readers and some browsers use that code to keep track of feeds. It’s not really for “viewing with the naked eye” as it were.

I get mails from visitors to my site that ask if there is something wrong with my site. Why does anyone put a button on a site that is only understandable for a few?

I suppose one make a button so that other people can use it. But how then?

Button? You mean like these:

https://www.fridgemagnet.org.uk/buttons/

You’ll notice that site points to:

https://kalsey.com/tools/buttonmaker/

Theo8, don’t fret about it. Search here and on the web and learn about RSS, you will be glad you did. It is not a “few people” who us it. Just about every news service uses it, as well as Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. – you probably even “use” it, but do not know it – in your browser’s home page I’d be willing to bet.

I know you are right, and I know it is useful. But I still do not understand why I get that page of XML when I click RSS when the only thing I really need for my RSS-reader is the url. Or does the page have some use in itself?

Your browser is simply doing as instructed. When directed towards a file, it must either display the contents of the file or download it. In this case, it is displaying the contents of the file. Here are a few things that you could do to improve the situation:

1. Urge your visitors to buy a Mac and use Safari (it styles and reads RSS feeds for you).

2. Urge your visitors to use Firefox and install the “Sage” extension: https://sage.mozdev.org/

3. Edit any template that has the RSS link and add feed: in front of the RSS link. For example: <a href="feed:<?php bloginfo('rss2_url'); ?>">RSS</a>

feed: is a new protocol which, theoretically, should launch the user’s default RSS reader. This will not work on all systems.

4. Add a javascript popup to the feed link which explains the link and how it must be used in an RSS reader and offer “Ok” to continue and “Cancel” to (of course) cancel. Please don’t ask me how to do this. I’ll leave that to the experts. For example, see the RSS link at: https://txfx.net/

5. Add some CSS styling to your feed to make it look more like a regular web page: https://fernando.dubtribe.com/archives/2005/05/14/rss-style-for-your-wp-feed/

or

6. Sign up with Feedburner and use their “Browser Friendly” feature: https://www.feedburner.com/ An example of a “Browser Friendly” feed: https://feeds.feedburner.com/macmerc

But I still do not understand why I get that page of XML when I click RSS when the only thing I really need for my RSS-reader is the url. Or does the page have some use in itself?

The xml *is* the information. That’s what the RSS-reader is reading and what it understands. Your problem is that your browser doesn’t understand what the xml represents and just dumps it as so.

Excellent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_aggregator
leads to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_news_aggregators