Question about RSS

Apologies if this is a dumb question: If RSS is enabled in “Edit Backlight Settings”, is the feed automatically created or do I have to create the feed outside of Backlight 3?

Is there anything that needs to be enabled for the feed to be created?

Thank you!

If enabled, then anyone using an RSS feeder can subscribe to your site by just searching for your site in the reader.

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That’s all there is to it. Turn it on, you have RSS feeds both for the main site, and for individual albums.

That seems to be the question I have regarding the RSS. There are two things to turn on in the edit settings and I’m not clear what each part does. I have both turned on but the only time it seems to feed into an RSS reader is when I add an album. If I add photos to an existing album the RSS does not seem to pick them up. Is there more info on it somewhere?

Thanks.

Did you read the descriptions in the info bubbles?

The site feed shows the most recently added albums. The album feed shows most recently added images for that album.

I did read the bubbles. So if I were to enable RSS, I should not expect to see any photos in the feed for a particular album until a new photo is added?

I presume there are no other settings for RSS other than the ones that are listed in “Settings”, correct?

Matthew - I thought I understood the info in the bubbles but it does not work as I anticipated. As I said, it did show a new album in the feed when I added that album to my site, but it does not seem to pick up any photos I add to any other existing albums. Does it only pick up new photos I add to the specific album that it already identified? I have both items checked as on in the settings.

We provide a feed. How any particular reader chooses to represent that feed is entirely the responsibility of the reader. In my experience, most readers will not backfill a feed with prior items. For example, if you subscribe to a feed on June 1, the reader will show you a new post on June 2, but will not display posts from May.

If you’d like to see exactly what’s in your feed, you can do that by visiting the feed URL directly in your browser.

There are no other settings.

Thanks, Matthew!

Each album has its own feed, and will update to show new images.

The site has a global feed that will update to show new albums, not new photos.

For example, here’s the site feed for The Turning Gate’s new Backlight instance, currently a work-in-progress. You can see quite plainly that it shows albums, not photos.

Here’s the feed for one of those albums. It shows items for individual images, and the feed will update when images are added to the album.

Thanks - I’ll keep playing with it. Maybe its the reader I’ve been using - I’ll try another one.

Terry

Sure. I would reference the feed itself as the source of truth, though, rather than relying on the reader.

Agreed - thanks!

Here’s all the things for RSS, in video.