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Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Help and How-to >  Managing sites and settings >  Managing e-mail and RSS
Manage RSS feeds
Manage RSS feeds

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a way for you to make news, blogs, and other content on a Web site available to subscribers.

In this article

Overview

A site owner can manage RSS support for the following:

  • Site collections
  • Top-level sites and subsites
  • Web applications
  • Lists

RSS support is enabled in Central Administration at the Web application level. When enabled at this level, RSS support is also enabled by default at the site collection level, but an owner of the top-level site can disable RSS support at the site collection level. All new sites that are created in an RSS-enabled site collection are also RSS-enabled.

Whether any of the lists for a subsite that you create are RSS-enabled by default depends on the choices that you make when you enable or disable RSS on a site, subsite, or workspace.

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Manage RSS feeds for a site collection

When RSS support is enabled in Central Administration, it is automatically enabled by default at the site collection level. However, a top-level site owner can choose to disable or re-enable RSS support at the site collection level.

Before starting this procedure, make sure you are on the top-level site of the site collection.

  1. On the Site Actions menu Site Actions menu, click Site Settings.

     Note    On a site for which the Site Actions menu is customized, point to Site Settings, and then click the settings that you want to view.

  2. On the Site Settings page, in the Site Administration section, click RSS.

    3.  Note    The RSS link does not appear on the Site Settings page if RSS support is not enabled in Central Administration.

  3. On the RSS page, in the Site Collection RSS section, select or clear the Allow RSS feeds in this site collection check box..

    4.  Note    The Site Collection RSS section is available only if you are a site collection administrator and you are on the top-level site.

  4. In the Enable RSS section, select or clear the Allow RSS feeds in this site check box.
  5. In the Copyright box, type the text of the copyright notice.

    6. Depending on the type of RSS reader that you use to view an RSS feed, the copyright may or may not appear at the bottom of the RSS feed.

  6. In the Managing Editor box, type the name of the managing editor for the RSS content.

    7. The name of the managing editor appears at the bottom of the RSS feed.

  7. In the Webmaster box, type the name of the webmaster for the RSS content.

    8. The name of the webmaster appears at the bottom of the RSS feed.

  8. In the Time To Live (minutes) box, type the number of minutes that users should wait to check for updates to an RSS feed.

    9. The number of minutes appears at the bottom of the RSS feed.

  9. Click OK.
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Manage RSS feeds for a list

When RSS support is enabled in Central Administration and at the site collection level, you can manage RSS support for the following types of lists in your sites: document libraries, picture libraries, form libraries, announcements lists, calendar lists, blogs, surveys, and discussion boards.

  1. If the list is not already open, click its name on the Quick Launch.

    If the name of your list does not appear, click View All Site Content, and then click the name of your list.

  2. On the Settings menu Settings menu, click List Settings.
  3. On the Customize page, under the Communications section, click RSS settings.

    4.  Note    The RSS settings link is not available if RSS support is not enabled both in Central Administration and at the site collection level.

  4. In the List RSS section, select whether you want to enable or disable RSS for the list.
  5. In the RSS Channel Information section, select whether you want to truncate multi-line fields to 256 characters. You can type a title, description, and image URL for the channel elements of the RSS feed.
  6. In the Columns section, you can show or hide columns in the RSS description by selecting the appropriate check boxes. Next to the column name, enter the number for the order of your column in the view.

    7.  Note    If only one column is included in the feed, the column value alone will appear in the body of items in the feed. If more than one column is included in the feed, the item body will consist of each column name and its value.

  7. In the Item Limit section, you can limit the number of items and days to include in an RSS feed.
  8. Click OK.
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Manage RSS feeds for views

When RSS support is enabled in Central Administration and at the site collection level, you can manage RSS support for views in the following types of lists:

  • Document libraries
  • Picture libraries
  • Form libraries
  • Announcements lists
  • Calendar lists
  • Blogs
  • Surveys
  • Discussion boards

In the Item Limit section, if you select Limit the total number of items returned to the specified amount, an additional property tag <treatAs>list</treatAs> is added to the RSS feed. This tag indicates that RSS readers will treat the feed as a list whose entire contents are present in the feed, rather than as a feed that includes only recently added or changed items. For more information about RSS list extensions, see the XML Developer Center on MSDN.

 Note    In public views, users will not be able to see the Edit View page so a site owner might want to expose the link to the list. This is important in cases where the site owner creates the view explicitly for RSS.

  1. If the list is not already open, click its name on the Quick Launch.

    If the name of your list does not appear, click View All Site Content, and then click the name of your list.

  2. On the Settings menu Settings menu, click List Settings.
  3. Under the Views section, click the view whose feed you want to subscribe to.
  4. Click the RSS icon to browse to the RSS feed of this view.
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See Also