It’s been a while since my last post, and I apologize. I said after my May 1st reboot I wasn’t going to post unless I really had something to say — and, well…I haven’t.
And I don’t entirely have much to say right now, either. But I do have a topic for discussion. I just went round-and-round with Brian Livingston, an editor at WindowsSecrets.com, about his article entitled CSS Support is Poor in RSS Feed Readers. Brian believes that we web producers should be using CSS in our RSS feeds to make our content more readable — he talks about colors, typefaces, sizes, etc.
My personal stance, even as a CSS advocate and an author of a forthcoming CSS book, is that CSS has no place in RSS. RSS, in my opinion, should be for content, not presentation — and as all of us web standards geeks know, content doesn’t belong in CSS, it belongs in markup.
Part of the reason I believe this is that I still see RSS (which, of course, stands for Really Simple Syndication) as a means for syndication, not just as something I’ll aggregate in my desktop feed reader. If I’m syndicating your content, I don’t want to also be syndicating your branding and identity.
Where do you stand? Does CSS have a place in RSS feeds?
001 // Stuart Frisby // 07.08.2006 // 3:12 PM
Hell No! I always describe RSS as ‘removing site stodge’, which means getting rid of all non-content. I was annoyed enough when I started seeing Ads in my feed reader, but adding CSS support would kill the appeal of RSS for me, and I’m sure, a great number of others.
I use RSS not as a site specific web browser, but as a method for reading articles. It should be my choice if I then click through to read the entry in all of it’s presentational glory.
002 // paul haine // 07.08.2006 // 3:28 PM
No, I don’t think it does - if people want to read your article with your presentation then they can stop playing silly buggers and just go to your website.
How would it even work, anyway? It strikes me that either the styles would need to be included within the content, which is hardly ideal, or that the feed reader would have to grab the stylesheet from the web and then pick and choose what styles it applied and what it ignored…seems like a lot of effort for very little gain.
003 // trovster // 07.08.2006 // 3:30 PM
First of all I was thinking a resounding ‘No!’ (exclamation mark included). RSS is about sharing content in an aggregat-able way. I agree with Stuart that it’s a method of reading articles and it’s a great way of easily sifting through what I want/need to read. And of course, the main benefit is that I don’t have to do anything, it all just comes to me, when it’s updated, not manually checking your favourite site twice a day…
…however…
Just because I’m reading an article, why don’t that mean I can’t have a style it should have been presented in. Of course this should be separate, so stylistic-integration in to other sites is still possible, but why shouldn’t the data come with the option for styling?
Maybe in the meta data about the RSS feed, where site name, author, updated timestamp, site link etc are featured, a link to an XSLT to give the reader the ability to read the content an a specifc stylistic environment.
I know many aggregators (and online readers such as Netvibes and Live) have a preview (on site). The online readers styling is often very bad (from what I’ve seen), with no paragraph gaps and bad typography. And I know desktop aggregators can also stifle the creative juices. So why not, when in this preview mode, the aggregators use the XSLT and transform the CONTENT to how the publisher intended it to be seen. Obviously, this would have to be restricted.
Maybe what is needed is a standard-form XSLT for RSS/Atom, like RSS is for content-based XML.
In conclusion, of course CSS should stay out of RSS. But, I think styling the content in RSS shouldn’t be left completely to the manufacturers of the aggregators, with a option for the publishers to present the content with their colour scheme and typography.
004 // Baxter // 07.08.2006 // 3:32 PM
I just can’t see any possible benefit to including css, and I can see TONS of downsides, most of which have already been mentioned.
So no. Quite frankly I think it’s one of the dumber ideas I’ve heard recently, and flies in the face of what RSS (and CSS, for that matter) are ostensibly all about.
Now user customization of their own feed reader using CSS, that might be something I could get behind. Maybe.
005 // James John Malcolm (AkaXakA) // 07.08.2006 // 3:39 PM
Of course not! That’s what your site is for!
Also, a feedreader is a UA of which the user expects to see the content in a uniform manner. Screwing that up is for that reason alone not advisable.
006 // franky // 07.08.2006 // 5:26 PM
Hell no keep CSS out of RSS. RSS is meant to read and not to watch. Another (personal) reason to keep RSS ‘clean’ is that I use RSS on my PDA.
007 // Dave Cardwell // 07.08.2006 // 6:26 PM
I’d have to side with the nays on this one. If you want your RSS presented in a way you find more readable, choose a feed reader that allows you to define custom styles.
Imagine the havoc by-feed styles would play on web-based feed readers.
008 // Brian // 07.08.2006 // 7:24 PM
I couldn’t agree more. It’s like complaining that your text editor has poor support for page layout or image transparency. It’s not meant to. If you want full CSS support open that feed aggregator you have called a web browser and bask in the glory of CSS. For me the real draw of a feed reader is the effiency of content presentation, not making that contect look pretty.
009 // roberthahn // 07.08.2006 // 8:01 PM
I would normally agree with all of you, but I can think of a use case where I could really use some CSS in my Atom feed. — and that’s with RSS aggregators that insist on using bizarre font sizes for headings. I’m pretty adamant about using heading tags for headings, but I’m not impressed with the less-than-professional looking results I get in RSS readers when they choose to use, say, the Safari WebKit to render my h1 tags at roughly 3ems more than the body text.
So, if I could have one wish, it would be to specify relative font sizes in CSS for my content, nothing more.
@Paul Haine: You can specify a stylesheet for any xml document by adding a tag like this:
<?xml-stylesheet href=”my-style.css” type=”text/css”?>
which, by the way, is part of the xml standard, ergo we could add it to all RSS and Atom feeds without having to modify any standards. Likely, I could just add this tag to my feed to tame my content a bit more.
Maybe I’ll go try that now and see how it pans out. :)
010 // roberthahn // 07.08.2006 // 8:04 PM
oops. my bad. I love Atom so much I forgot that my blogging package (Typo, v2.6.0) doesn’t support it out of the box. I’m actually using RSS. phooey.
011 // Jeff Croft // 07.08.2006 // 8:15 PM
Robert-
That’s kind of a separat thing, though. What you want is a user stylesheet so you can define what feeds look like to you on your RSS reader. Most RSS readers (NetNewsWire comes to mind) already use CSS for this.
That’s a different issue than you wanting to force what you consider to be good style on everyone by actually putting style information in your feed (be it RSS or atom).
I’m all for user stylesheets in RSS readers so the consumer of the feed can view it however he/she likes. I’m just not for the producer of the feed including style information.
012 // Jeff Croft // 07.08.2006 // 8:15 PM
And yes, it is valid to include a stylesheet with XML (be is CSS or XSLT). However, it’s also valid to use the BLINK tag in some DOCTYPES — but that doesn’t mean you should do it.
013 // roberthahn // 07.08.2006 // 8:42 PM
I understand what you’re saying there, Jeff.
What I’m worried about is a situation where content providers (certainly not you, me, or many of those reading our blogs) would be tempted to ‘hack’ their html in order for the headings to ‘look right’ with respect to the body text in RSS readers. If that sort of approach were to gather steam, wouldn’t that be arguably worse than adding the xml-stylesheet tag (which can be ignored at will by various aggregators)?
On a philosophical level, I agree with most (all?) of the posters here. On a pragmatic level, I still want that control available to me if aggregators are going to provide it, because I don’t trust that the aggregators would style it to my tastes. And at the end of the day, these kinds of options have always been user-deselectable, so I’m not really seeing a downside here.
014 // Jeff Croft // 07.08.2006 // 8:54 PM
Yeah, I would say that approach would be worse than adding a stylesheet. But i still think no style at all would be better. :)
The downside is simply that people using RSS feed readers expect it to be styleless (not structureless, just styleless), and expect that feed items will be displayed in the manner that their feed reader of choices normally does. When you add style information to your feed, you muck with users expectations, and that seems like a bad move to me.
Also, if you add style information to your RSS feed, you considerably blur the line between RSS and the (X)HTML version of your website. To me, the web site version of your content is where you get to control the presentation. The RSS feed is where the user gets to control the presentation. If you don’t like the user controlling the presentation, then I’d suggest you simply not offer an RSS feed.
015 // roberthahn // 07.08.2006 // 11:07 PM
I’m all for letting the user decide what the presentation ought to be. I simply don’t trust the aggregators to present it correctly. I have those exact same feelings about people who prefer user-enabled stylesheets in their web browsers. Yes, even in the web space the end user can still override your wishes on presentation. The distinction you make about user control of presentation in feed land is moot.
I am reminded of the days of yore when Gopher and HTTP were competing for mindshare. Despite the fact that Gopher was faster, and delivered only unstyled content (which definitely reduced overhead - very significant to the most of us using modems to get on the net), HTTP won out in part because it enabled rich presentation. People, despite the fact that HTTP was slower and had more overhead, still preferred it over Gopher.
I stressed enabled there only because it was our choice to make our pages look good. We could have made our pages look every bit as rich (and almost as fast) as Gopher-served content. We didn’t; most of us wanted something that looked nicer.
Does CSS belong in RSS feeds? No. Honestly: I don’t think it belongs there either.
Should we prohibit people from wanting to do it anyway? No. At least, with <?xml-stylesheet?> we don’t have to hack the existing standards to enable people to make their own decisions on the matter.
016 // Jeff Croft // 07.08.2006 // 11:36 PM
I can understand that, but I think it’s out of your control. It’s like if you write an article for a magazine, and you don’t trust the designers doing the page layout. That’s a bummer, but you’re a writer, and the design is out of your control. If you choose to write an article (or provide an RSS feed), then you’ll just have to deal with the fact that the design of the magazine (or display of the aggregator) is out of your control.
Oh, I agree. The standard supports it, and by all means it should be valid to do it. But again, just because it’s valid doesn’t mean we as content producers should do it.
017 // Kevin Hamm // 07.09.2006 // 12:22 AM
Someone else style your content, be it a committee (the programming team that developed whatever aggregator is being used) or an individual (the end-user of the RSS reader, one would hope) certainly leaves most anyone who has spent the time creating and coding their CSS slightly less than enthused. After all, we spent the time, we want the recognition. Heck, I want the recognition for the stupid olive-on-a-toothpick that I drew as my first foray into the wilds of Illustrator! However, some people who want to read what I write, crazy tho they be, would just like to read it, not have to deal with whatever madness I’ve concocted for my site.
And after thinking about this and reading the comments and then thinking again, it clicked that this discussion is really another facet of the Good Design vs. Fugly-but-functional currently being waged across the blogs.
Design, especially for software/computers/internet/et al, is both art and science. The art comes in when making the science part look good. The science is figuring out how to reasonably (not necessarily logically) guide newbies without insulting the pros through whatever your particular application does. After going through all the work to find that one particular solution that does all this, using that solution almost should be a sort of ‘contract’ between you and your readers.
In which case, the answer to your question is ‘no, CSS should not be in your RSS feed, however the full content of your site probably shouldn’t be, either.’. If you want them to use your app, make them, it’s certainly possible.
018 // Jeff Croft // 07.09.2006 // 1:35 AM
I do generally agree with this philosophy. As I suggested in the comments above, if you don’t want people to syndicate your content or view it in their own style of presentation (whether that be by a user stylesheet or by way of the agfgregator they’re using), then simply don’t offer an RSS feed.
However, you point your comment directly at me, and that is fairly misguided. I don’t want people to “use my app.” I want people to enjoy my content. I provide a presentation here on the (X)HTML/CSS version of this site that I think works well. However, if it’s not working for you, I invite you to subscribe to the feed, syndicate the content, or do whatever else you like with it (within the confines of the law, of course).
That might not work for all apps — if it doesn’t work for you, don’t offer an RSS feed. It does work for me, though, so I’ll keep offering mine.
019 // Paul D // 07.09.2006 // 1:50 AM
RSS, in my opinion, should be for content, not presentation
I agree 100%. If we’re going to start styling RSS feeds, let’s just give up on RSS altogether and push the whole darn website to people’s feedreaders, and turn feedreaders into web browsers. And then we’ll just be back where we started before RSS came along.
020 // Kevin Hamm // 07.09.2006 // 1:59 AM
Whoops, sorry, I’m posting from the office of a nightclub, and apparently the booze has attacked. Sorry that this is my introduction to you. (Note to Self: Order more Johnny Walker Black.)
When I wrote ‘you’ I didn’t “you, Jeff Croft, designer who has convinced me to switch development to Django” (which you have, but that’s another story), not at all.
The ‘you’ to whom I referred is the person who gets all bent over knowing that, GASP!, their content is going out without styling. (Again, I plead nightclub. Great new mix of Depeche Mode’s People are People is currently thumping the powerbook.)
Sorry if I offended, didn’t mean to. Just had an epiphanal moment and had to share.
021 // Jeff Croft // 07.09.2006 // 9:34 AM
No problem, Kevin! :)
022 // Chris Wible // 07.09.2006 // 10:20 AM
The cool thing about feeds is the potential uses for them - because it is strictly content. Hell, I’m not even sure I like images coming in to my feed reader. I like to be able to read the text and decide if I want to go to the source. Usually, if I like what I read, I go to the site to see the post in its original context (and give the writer a pageview). If css was used in feeds it’d be the beginning of bad things… think what the folks that make Explorer would do with it - make all these stupid wysiwyg feed writer gizmos… and then it’d only be a matter of time before my feedreader was filled with css-powered advertising. People’d sell ads in their feeds - not that they don’t already but they’d become more and more intrusive. And, with some of the more advanced techniques out there, I’m sure someone would think of a way to make horrible things happen with :hover and dynamic css texty things…
NO. NO. NO.
023 // Matt // 07.10.2006 // 4:07 AM
Even as a designer, the answer is definitely no. RSS is content, and if one want to make sure the user sees it the way she wants them, develop an aggregator and insist people download it. Or, you know, she could use her website, which is - gasp - an aggregator. It’s only one person’s content usually, but it’s aggregating it.
This whole argument I think brings up a more pressing issue in the new-fangled Web 2.0 that’s underlying the whole community: do we really want to allow full control to the user? Look at Digg: tons of of the Diggerati preach this “we have no editors unless you count the entire world” mentality, which is great and all. There’s usually something pretty cool there every time I go. But there’s also a lot of crap with crap comments. To relate this to design and CSS, look at MySpace. I’m not even bringing up the whole “ugly design is the new design” argument, mostly because it’s bunk. But what MySpace does is allows users to do whatever they want with their own content and the content they provide (music, structure, social network, etc). The result is hardly pretty and is filled with mostly crap with tiny nuggets of good content. (Very tiny.)
Point being: We can’t have it both ways. Just like we can’t free our information (RSS) and still control it (CSS), we can’t expect the masses to create content as well as a small, elite core of people controlling it. We have to be ready for the floodgates of crap - crappy aggregators, crappy bandwidth wasters and crappy downright stealing - unless we build a wall of some sort between the creator and the user. There is reason the media are called gatekeepers, and as much as everyone on the Internet seems to hate that idea, it’s what keeps your voice being drowned out by the ocean of information (and crap) floating out there.
It sounds crazy, but it’s what keep content viable. People pay for magazines edited, designed and written by their favorite people. People pay (with their eyeballs, gross) for your content and design, and as soon as you start giving it away with RSS, you lose the ability to capitalize on what’s most important - your content. You allow people to timeshift, to redesign, to edit, to download their PDA, etc. The people who are wigging out over losing the control on design should really be asking themselves when they first allowed themselves to lose control over their content.
024 // Malcolm Tredinnick // 07.10.2006 // 6:13 AM
I’m kind of in the “no” camp. However, if truly stick my purist principles a conflict arises: I can’t use styles and I would prefer not to use deprecated elements (e.g. strike), so now I can’t strike out text, which is a not unreasonable way of showing before/after differences in an edit (omitting the “before” can change the meaning sometimes).
Admittedly, that’s a bit of a contrived case, since I can use the strike element and still be generating valid documents (even XHTML 1.0). But there are other cases, too, where presentation changes semantics. I really don’t know the answer there.
Also, people strongly advocating styles as required in RSS presentation seem to only consider RSS readers. What about things like the PlanetPlanet aggregator? In an installation of that, you want consistent styling throughout all the entries. And just trying to make it safe so that you cannot be sabotaged by either vandals or typos is hard. Sam Ruby had some posts about this a while ago.
025 // Fredrik Wärnsberg // 07.10.2006 // 7:21 AM
I think that a remotly linked stylesheet definitely in it’s place. That’s still separating the style and content. Using inline CSS however, shoulnd’t be done.
I can’t think of no reason at all why styling your RSS with a remote stylesheet would be a bad thing. The only problem is that few RSS-readers support it.
026 // Nate K // 07.10.2006 // 7:58 AM
I would say an emphatic NO! As others have stated, I have removed some from my list of feeds simply because they chose to incorporate ads. I don’t want to see their ads, and don’t want them forcing me to see them through an optional avenue (kinda like receiving spam..).
Also, I use Safari as my RSS reader. I have everything organized and can see my most recent articles according to their headline color. I would be upset if sites were able to change the colors/fonts of my RSS feeds. In fact, as you said in your article, I would hate them so much I would remove them. I like RSS - but I like it for what it is: CONTENT.
So, my vote is CSS has NO place in RSS feeds.
027 // Chris Harrison // 07.10.2006 // 8:06 AM
In a word, hell no. CSS needs to be kept out of RSS feeds. If you want people to see stuff as you intended, don’t provide full text in feeds. It should (hopefully) encourage subscribers to come to your site to read the full article in all its glory.
028 // Nathan Borror // 07.10.2006 // 8:11 AM
People should spend less time concerned about how their content looks and more on how it sounds. If someone feels the need to style RSS they’re probably compensating for something else.
Just my opinion :)
029 // Baxter // 07.10.2006 // 8:50 AM
Nathan has nailed it, I think. If your content is good enough, it will be just fine stripped of all presentation. Of course, good content is hard to create, but the answer is better content, not insisting on tarting it up to make it more palatable.
030 // Brady J. Frey // 07.10.2006 // 1:29 PM
I can see the fine line we’re walking here… but I choose to get my news via RSS feeds over email newsletters because I’M in control of when and how I read. I’d also like my application to then display consistency on how I read that content - otherwise, it’d be similar to a newspaper with unique designs per article.
Code your content, let the newsreader display it how you define it as a user. Don’t like how it looks? Download a new style for NetNewsWire.
031 // Screwlewse // 07.10.2006 // 1:30 PM
I like RSS without styling. I subscribe for good content, not for presentation.
Not only that, but how confusing would that make designing for Feed Readers. We think it is bad having to code away for several different browsers, add several rss readers too?
No thanks.
032 // roberthahn // 07.10.2006 // 9:12 PM
Speaking as someone who I suspect is perceived as “wigging out over losing the control”, I will defend my honour thus:
All I’m trying to say is that if you don’t like CSS support, choose aggregators that either don’t support it, or permit you to set things up the way you like it. Please don’t take the choice from me, or any other designer who feels as I do.
If you want to read more of my thoughts on the matter, I’ve decided to add a post about this on my site. Thanks!
033 // Peter Holloway // 07.11.2006 // 8:42 AM
I would stop reading RSS feeds if they permitted CSS formatting. I spent ages trying out every web/browser based RSS reader and being disappointed when clicking on an item displayed the web page and not the text. I’m all for content only, and all the content, not just a summary.
034 // Jordan Ryan Moore // 07.11.2006 // 2:46 PM
Well, here’s another echo — NO — at least with regards to embedded/inline styles. Only supporting external stylesheets could create the potential to leave it up to the user whether or not he trusts the author to provide a decent stylesheet; however, I believe the only stylesheets that are officially supported in RSS are XSLT, which very few browsers or feed readers support 100%.
Also, has anyone ever considered RSS on mobile devices? Just something to think about it…
@Malcolm Tredinnick:
You really shouldn’t be using the strike element anyway — you should be using the del element for editing markup.
035 // Sheldon Kotyk // 07.11.2006 // 6:12 PM
Sure. Lets add CSS to the RSS feeds. Then, while we’re at it, a little font tag here and there just to make sure it is using comic sans. Oh and then lets make sure we force people to see green text on a blue background.
I like looking at sites so I use sage and I have it redirect me to the site so I don’t actually read the feed.
I however, like the fact it only takes a few ms to pull up a feed. If I want to read the article, I’ll wait for the design.
036 // Tim McElwee // 07.11.2006 // 8:47 PM
I’m going with no. As a Sage user in Firefox, it’s really nice to be able to create or choose a personal CSS formatting that is suited to my reading habits and preferences. That’s the key, though. My preferences. I choose the feed and then I choose how to read it. This is one instance where the promise of personal customization can effectively come true.
037 // Nick Wilson // 07.12.2006 // 9:04 AM
I think a lot of people here are associating RSS (which is only data) with the way they read RSS feeds in their news agregators (which are pieces of software that display RSS data).
I agree completely with Robert that externally linked CSS should be allowed, and can be appropriate to use. Software is then free to ignore it if necessary, meaning that both consumers and producers of the feed have some control - producers can choose to style content if they wish, users are free to ignore that style if they wish.
I don’t think that providing what amounts to suggested stylistic information along with RSS is bad, or something designers “shouldn’t” do. You’re effectively saying “here’s my website with my content beautifully presented. Here’s the content in a data-only form. And hey, here’s a way of presenting that raw data prettily if you want - but feel free to ignore that guideline if you want”.
I just have a problem understanding why it’s such a hideous crime to offer guidance on how best to display the data you created. Sometimes it’s only by styling content that you can truly express all of the subtle emphases you intended to convey; even accessibility gurus with semantics coming out their ears can’t always get everything across in class attributes and ids, and need the help of a bit of styling to make it clear what was meant. Maybe that shouldn’t be the case, but sadly it (usually) is.
Apologies if this was a ramble, just wanted to say that I broadly agree with Robert.
Finally, kudos Jeff on a great site and some excellent content!
038 // Jeff Croft // 07.12.2006 // 9:26 AM
Nick, your comments do make sense, but I’d still love to get an answer to this question: If the RSS version of your content included attached stylesheet(s) containing presentational information, what makes it different from your web site? Why do you need both, if both are going to be basically the same thing (a version of your content with style information attached)?
039 // Matt // 07.12.2006 // 2:48 PM
@ Jeff: The second nail, same place: on the head. (Nathan being the first.)
RSS is the (near) equivalent of the AP wire. AP provides the content as text and images, but allows users use as needed. Crops can be made, size and play and at the paper’s discretion, trimming (and editing, but the analogy breaks down here) and styling. Imagine how awful newspapers would look if AP demanded their headlines be a certain point size or font or with a certain logo attached. The conent is still theirs, they still get paid and they still get credit. Sure, AP offers guidance (photos go with the story, here’s an alternate lede, here’s a better crop, warning over graphic content). But as a subscriber, the newspaper gets ultimate decision to run as much or as little as they want - as long as it’s still bearing the (text) AP credit.
While no one is getting paid for RSS, the whole point of providing RSS is for the content. It’s a different language that wasn’t meant for reading in a web browser. CSS is meant for web presentation, be it a website, a email-listerve, or an online news aggregator. The wire (RSS) is just really simple syndication. The first syndicates were AP, UPI, KRT (now MCT) and all the other ones. Now looking at BlogBurst, it’s the same story. Providing RSS is an implicit contract are providing the raw data to the user for them to present in any way they see within the confines of the law.
I really want to see the other side on this one. I really do. Some devils just can’t get advocates, I guess. :)
040 // Ryan Parman // 07.12.2006 // 7:30 PM
A resounding no — to inline styles.
Being the co-developer of the SimplePie project, I’ve seen ALL SORTS of inline CSS in RSS feeds. What happens? Parsers and aggregators that support CSS might have a conflict between the feed’s styles and the aggregator’s built-in styles.
If you’re working with SimplePie, or MagpieRSS, or another web-based feed parser, you’re essentially working with webpages. I can tell you that web designers don’t want somebody else’s inline styles to override anything they’ve done. It’s a major PITA.
Because of this, several feed parsers/aggregators will actually strip out inline CSS. Now, are we talking about including an XSLT stylesheet? If so, it’s not as big of a deal because you can just ignore it (and most do). If you look at the feed in a browser it looks great. Anything else can ignore it.
So yes, RSS should just be content. In actuality however, this isn’t really even an issue.
041 // roberthahn // 07.12.2006 // 10:40 PM
For those of you following this, I’ve written up another article on how styled feeds could be put to use that answers Jeff’s remaining question to me: “If RSS content can have style, behavior, and everything else that we’re used to finding on the web, what’s the point of RSS?”
042 // Pat // 07.14.2006 // 3:36 PM
RSS contains the content, just like HTML does. It offers the barebones… If you want to see it styled, you’d go to the website. News readers have their default styles so that feeds look integrated and uniform.
043 // Marten Veldthuis // 07.15.2006 // 9:26 AM
I can certainly see good uses of CSS in feeds, an obvious example would be images in the content. The default styling for images inline to text is pretty crappy, and you might want to float images to the left or right side.
It’s a tough call, there’s obviously a lot of ways to abuse CSS were it possible to use, and already I’ve seen people coloring code fragments, assuming it’ll be displayed on a dark background like on their site, forgetting about the fact that I might have a white background in my feed reader. It’s not even intentional like all the “omg, we’ll get ugly ads in feeds” I’m reading here in the comments, he probably just didn’t think about it.
044 // Simon Wiffen // 08.23.2006 // 5:43 AM
Again another resounding no from me. RSS is the ultimate separation of content and presentation. I want to be able to specify how ALL my RSS feeds appear in my reader but I certainly don’t want other people toying with the display. As many have said before, that’s what their sites are for. Give me the content, mark it up so it’s semantic and let me read it how I want.
045 // Steve Williams // 05.31.2007 // 10:36 AM
Firstly, my site isn’t finished yet so bear with me :o)
If there was a way to incorporate CSS in RSS feeds I would welcome it, as it would save a lot of unecessary use of the font tag in the tag. But at the moment, whenever I try and use inline styles in my tag I get errrors relating to invalid characters used, uually relating to the semi-colon used to separate different property:value statements in the inline CSS.
Of course, this only comes into effect when people choose to display the article summary ( tag) instead of the web page ( tag) in their RSS reader software. If they choose to display the web page, you don’t have the problem.