RSS feed doesn’t update, and how do I style the feed?

Just a guess but when you post, does your system ping NetNewsWire to let them know you posted? If not, it would explain why there seems to be a delay unless you unsubscribe.

NetNewsWire syncs all my news from my NewsGator account these days, so I guess no, it doesn’t.

But then I don’t really know how newsreaders work. Isn’t the responsibility on the newsreader you use to check the feeds periodically to let you know there’s new stuff? That how NetNewsWire works, anyway. My Pixelpost installation on the main domain works fine and I didn’t have to tell it to go see anyone in particular when it ‘pings’. Perhaps it’s set up automatically.

What should I look into?

Yes that is how it works exactly. The problem (if you wish to call it a problem) is that any service cannot keep everybody updated to the second. They probably have thousands of feeds to oversee. Many systems will check each feed on a scheduled basis. The basis will vary by the service. It could be once every 5 minutes, it could be once every 24 hours. It depends on that service.

This why I asked about pinging. When you ping, you reach out (so to speak) and let them know you have a new post instead of waiting for them to check you feed at the regularly scheduled interval.

Your WordPress installation allows you to ping anybody you want. Look under Settings>Writing

“Also, I have WP set up with text wrapping around images aligned left or right, but when the feed picks up my posts it strips the formatting out and the posts don’t look quite right. It’s a minor thing but is there a way I can ‘style’ the content of the feed?”

owen-b – to style feeds, try this plugin:

Feedstyler

You do need to know how to write inline css to use it, but little coding editors, like PSPad will convert structured css to inline css.

As a start, you can take the css which sets up the images in your onsite css file, and then use that to help you style your rss feeds.

I’ve done this, but have had a few problems with captions and image borders – but then I’m no css wizard!

You can see my reasonably styled feed here: https://feeds.feedburner.com/BlogFromItaly

At least the images look better now, and float to the left, and right where told to do this.

Someone who is good with css should find this quite easy, and someone who is even better could set up a styled feed using the information here: https://mondaybynoon.com/2006/08/14/beginning-to-style-your-rss-feed/

Best,

Alex

“Also, I have WP set up with text wrapping around images aligned left or right, but when the feed picks up my posts it strips the formatting out and the posts don’t look quite right. It’s a minor thing but is there a way I can ‘style’ the content of the feed?”

owen-b – to style feeds, try this plugin:

Feedstyler

You do need to know how to write inline css to use it, but little coding editors, like PSPad will convert structured css to inline css.

As a start, you can take the css which sets up the images in your onsite css file, and then use that to help you style your rss feeds.

I’ve done this, but have had a few problems with captions and image borders – but then I’m no css wizard!

You can see my reasonably styled feed here: My feed

At least the images look better now, and float to the left, and right where told to do this.

Someone who is good with css should find this quite easy, and someone who is even better could set up a styled feed using the information here: beginning-to-style-your-rss-feed

Best,

Alex