Atom feed on blogger -- can't figure out coding

Need help figuring out the metatag and other coding I need for site feed

[cbahm]

Hi, I tried selecting the option to enable the Atom feed for my blog, which I create at Blogger.com and send via ftp to my own domain, but the site feed function still does not seem to work. (I signed up at bloglines.com to see if I could get the feed. Didn't work.)

So I read the Blogger.com online help article about "Template Tags Defined" at this url below in hopes that I could figure out how to tweak my template's coding to include this function:

[help.blogger.com...]

And *that* article was no help at all. It's not clear whether I need to use ALL or SOME of the code on the page or -- or how to tweak it for my own site -- or even WHERE in the darned template to place this code. (I did at least figure out that I needed to substitute my own blog ID, which the article didn't state clearly.)

Below is what I created, based on the info on the "Template Tags Defined" web page. But when I tried placing it in my blog's template, it at first messed up the fonts in my template, and when I reloaded the page it then generated only a blank page. Nothing. Nada.

So I removed that coding and my blog now appears normally. But I want a site feed!

Can anyone please review the code below and tell me (1) what changes I need to make and (2) where to place it in my template? I'm sorry to be so clueless -- I'm very, very new to messing with this template, which uses css.

Thanks -- here's the code:

I placed this code just below the <style type="text/css"> tag in my template:

<!-- I AM TRYING TO INSERT META-TAG STUFF HERE TO GENERATE SITE FEED --!>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
<meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="true" />
<meta name="generator" content="Blogger" />
<link rel="service.feed" type="application/atom+xml" title="The Loopy WidgetBlog" href="http://example.com/widgetblog/service_feed/atom.xml" />
<link rel="service.post" type="application/atom+xml" title="The Loopy WidgetBlog" href="http://www.blogger.com/atom/10040629" />
<link rel="EditURI" type="application/rsd+xml" title="RSD" href="http://www.blogger.com/rsd.pyra?blogID=10040629" />

<!-- END OF WHERE I AM TRYING TO INSERT META-TAG STUFF HERE TO GENERATE SITE FEED --!>

<!-- I AM TRYING TO INSERT SOME MORE META-TAG STUFF HERE THAT I THIS IS SUPPOSED TO ALSO BE NEEDED FOR GENERATING SITE FEED --!>
<$BlogSiteFeedLink$> <link rel="service.feed" type="application/atom+xml" title="The Loopy WidgetBlog" href="http://www.example.com/widgetblog/service_feed/atom.xml" />

<$BlogEncoding$> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=<$BlogEncoding$>" />
<BlogSiteFeed>
<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Atom feed" href="<$BlogSiteFeedUrl$>" />
</BlogSiteFeed>
<!-- END OF WHERE I AM TRYING TO INSERT SOME MORE META-TAG STUFF FOR GENERATING SITE FEED --!>

Second piece of coding below was placed within the **sidebar** coding in my template:

<!-- START OF WHERE I AM TRYING TO INSERT THE ATOMFEED BUTTON AND A HYPERLINK TO ATOM FEED --!>
<a href="<$BlogSiteFeedUrl$>" title="Atom feed"><img src="http://www.example.com/widgetblog/images/atomvalid.gif"></a><br>
<a href="<$BlogSiteFeedUrl$>" title="Atom feed" font-size="xx-small">Site Feed</a><br>
<$BlogSiteFeedLink$><link rel="service.feed" type="application/atom+xml" title="The Loopy WidgetBlog" href="http://www.example.com/widgetblog/site_feed/atom.xml"/>
<!-- END OF WHERE I AM TRYING TO INSERT THE ATOMFEED BUTTON AND A HYPERLINK TO ATOM FEED --!>

Please help! I'm feeling very daunted by this right now. I originally wanted to set up both an atom and an rss feed, but I'll be happy to do just the atom feed for now! -- Carolyn Bahm

[edited by: werty at 2:21 am (utc) on June 13, 2005]
[edit reason] Removed Urls, Removed Specifics. See TOS #13 please. [/edit]

[werty]

Carolyn, when setting up my atom feed on my blog it seemed pretty easy...all I had to do was enable the feed in my control panel, and identify the location where I wanted it to go along with the file name.

Then all I had to do on bloglines or the like was put my url of the atom feed, no extra code added to my blog. Eventually I changed the template and placed a graphical link to my rss feed, as well as a subscribe to my feed in bloglines and in yahoo, both which were simple code added to my template, equal to a hyperlinked image.

Are you trying to set up feeds per post, or per the entire blog?

[cbahm]

I'm just trying to set up a basic Atom feed so that people who want to know when my blog has been updated can get notified if they use an aggregator. I did the same steps that you did and later checked with Bloglines but it doesn't show my new postings. (I checked -- it does support Atom.)

So I read articles about site feeds on the Blogger.com site, which is where I found the codes I mentioned.

So ... I'm unsure what to do. I've e-mailed Blogger support with no response yet. Any advice?

[Canton]

Cbahm - I have the EXACT same problem. I tried adding to "My Yahoo" to see if the feed was working properly. I can see the atom.xml file in a browser, but no reader (online or desktop) can see the darned thing.

Even tried Feedburner to get it to work and still NOTHING.

I also have a help request in with Blogger, and given your experience, I don't expect to get a response very soon (alas, but I can't blame them since it's a free service).

At any rate, I also would love to find out how to do this (should be simple, and I've seen countless blogger blogs successfully do this)...if I find anything out I'll post here again. In the interim, if you find anything, please let me know.

I'm going to do testing on my own as well to try to solve the problem.

~Canton

[cbahm]

I finally got a response from Blogger after three weeks and six (or was it 7?) requests for help. The help desk person said "The path setting for your site feed was incorrect so I fixed that for you. If you republish your blog, the Atom file should be generated correctly."

And it worked. But for the life of me, I can't see what is different between the settings he used and the ones I used. ;o/

My "Site Feed Server Path" is: public_html/knitblog/site_feed/

My "Site Feed URL" is:
http://www.example.com/knitblog/site_feed/atom.xml

Which is *exactly* what I had typed in previously. I guess the tech guy knew the right voodoo potion to apply to appease the Gods of XML.

Good luck to you in solving your similar problem --

- Carolyn

[edited by: werty at 10:20 am (utc) on June 25, 2005]
[edit reason] Edited URL. Please see TOS #13 [/edit]