Creating the subscription button (revised)

One of the things you will want to do for your blog is to give your visitors the option to subscribe to your blog via iTunes. Here's an example of what that might look like:

Click below to subscribe to the podcasts for this class using iTunes.

EMAC 4300 Podcast

Here's the code behind it:

<p>Click below to subscribe to the podcasts
for this class using iTunes.</p>

<p><a href="
itpc://podcaster.mcom.ttu.edu/eyoungblood/rssi.xml"><img alt="subscribe button" src="http://www.depts.ttu.edu/masscom/images/subscribe.png" height="36" width="109" />EMAC 4300 Podcast</a></p>

An important thing to note here is the use of itpc://. This is the iTunes protocol and is used to launch iTunes. Both the image (imgsrc) and rssi.xml are located on a server outside blogger. You'll notice that a href includes the text as well as the image. You can use jut the image if you move the closing A to the end of the image. You can also create your own subscription button and include it with your files (or host it on your own Web site) and do away with the text entirely. If you decide to use just an image, make sure you include the ALT tag information.

For more information on RSS feeds and podcasting, see the links section on the right hand side of the page and Atomic Learning (http://movies.atomiclearning.com/highed/highed). Atomic Learning will go through the rss feeds, but will often be using a tool to help create the rssi.xml file. In particular, you should look at the following episodes:

The item's publication date - 18011
The iTunes duration element - 18013
The iTunes Preview Pane - 18022
Categories and the image channel element -18005
Creating an Item element - 18007
The enclosure item - 18009
Manually updating a podcast's feed - 17976
The basic channel elements - 18002
The enclosure's unique identifier element - 18010
The iTunes item category element - 18012
Basics of RSS feeds - the channel - 18001

The username and password are on the syllabus which can be downloaded from eLearning if you have misplaced your copy. There are a number of other tutorials on Atomic Learning on various aspects of podcasting.

Here's the link for the regular RSS feed.

EMAC 4300 Podcast (RSS)

<p><a href="http://podcaster.mcom.ttu.edu/eyoungblood/rss.xml"><img alt="subscribe button" src="http://podcaster.mcom.ttu.edu/eyoungblood/4300button.gif" width="109" />

EMAC 4300 Podcast (RSS)</a></p>