We have a new feature for testing: Password-protected RSS feeds for
Manila sites.

Previously, there was no way to read RSS feeds for Editors Only Manila
sites in an RSS news reader. This is because Manila uses a cookie for
authenticating membership, and most (all?) news readers don't know
anything about Manila's authentication system.

This feature enables basic HTTP authentication for the RSS feeds in
Editors Only Manila sites, so that any RSS news reader which supports
subscribing to password-protected feeds can be used to read the RSS
feeds in Editors Only Manila sites.

*** How to test

1. Download the following file, and import it using the Open command in
Frontier's File menu:

http://jake.userland.com/gems/manilaEditorsOnlyRss01.fttb

2. In the table window that opens, there's a script named install. Run
the script.

3. Verify that HTTP authentication works with your Editors Only site's
RSS feed:

In a web browser, make sure you're *not* logged into the site.

Next, enter the site's RSS URL into the browser's address bar. The
browser should present you with a username/password dialog.

Enter the email address and password that you use to log into your
Manila site and click OK. You should see the RSS feed displayed in the
browser.

4. Send an email to the mail list, and let us know that it worked, or
if it didn't, what happened.

*** Subscribing to password-protected feeds

Some RSS readers support the use of HTTP authentication for reading
password-protected RSS feeds. Radio UserLand and NetNewsWire, for
example, both do. In these RSS readers, the username and password are
part of the URL used to subscribe to the password-protected RSS feed.

To subscribe to a password-protected RSS feed in Radio UserLand or
NetNewsWire, use the following format for the RSS URL:

http://[username]:[password]@[domain]/[path]

For example, if the RSS feed is here:

http://www.example.com/xml/rss.xml

...and your username/password is me@..., and myPassw0rd, then
use this URL to subscribe to the feed:

http://me%40example.com:myPassw0rd@www.example.com/xml/rss.xml

Note that the '@' character in the username must be replaced with %40
(the URL encoding for the '@' character). This is important for Manila
sites, since members use their email addresses as their logins, and
email addresses contain '@' characters.

Make sure that when using this URL format, that you replace the '@'
character in your email address with %40.

*** Notes

This feature also works with the recently released discussion group RSS
feeds. If your site's discussion group RSS feed is enabled, then you
can use the same URL formatting to subscribe to the discussion group,
that you use to subscribe to the site's home page.

*** Feedback

If you have any comments, questions or bugs to report, please send them
as a reply to this message.


Thanks,
-Jake