XQuery/Simple RSS reader
< XQuery
The BBC provides a wide range of RSS news feed, e.g. UK Educational news
News Page
[edit | edit source]Reformat the RSS feed as HTML:
declare option exist:serialize "method=xhtml media-type=text/html";
let $news := doc("http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_uk_edition/education/rss.xml")
let $dateTime := $news/rss/channel/lastBuildDate
return
<html>
<body>
<h2>Education news from the BBC at {string($dateTime)}</h2>
{ for $newsItem in $news/rss/channel/item[position() < 10]
return
<div>
<h4>{string($newsItem/title)}</h4>
<p>{string($newsItem/title/description)} <a href="{$newsItem/link}">more..</a></p>
</div>
}
</body>
</html>
Text-to-Speech
[edit | edit source]The Opera browser with Voice extension supports text-to-speech, allowing this news to be spoken. This uses the XML vocabularies VoiceXML and XML Events. [2019-01-26 : Sadly Opera no longer supports VoiceXML]
declare option exist:serialize "method=xhtml media-type=application/xv+xml";
let $news := doc("http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_uk_edition/education/rss.xml")
let $dateTime := $news/rss/channel/lastBuildDate
let $newsItems := $news/rss/channel/item[position() < 10]
return
<h:html xmlns:h="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:vxml="http://www.w3.org/2001/vxml"
xmlns:ev="http://www.w3.org/2001/xml-events"
>
<h:head>
<h:title>BBC Education news</h:title>
<vxml:form id="news">
<vxml:block>
{for $newsItem in $newsItems
return string($newsItem/description)
}
</vxml:block>
</vxml:form>
</h:head>
<h:body>
<h:h1>BBC Education news at {string($dateTime)}</h:h1>
<h:p>
<h:a ev:event="click" ev:handler="#news" >
<h:img src="http://www.naturalreaders.com/images/laba.gif"/>
</h:a>
(Requires the Opera Browser with Voice extension)
</h:p>
{ for $newsItem in $newsItems
return
<h:div>
<h:h4>{string($newsItem/title)}</h:h4>
<h:p>{string($newsItem/description)} <h:a href="{$newsItem/link}">more..</h:a></h:p>
</h:div>
}
</h:body>
</h:html>
Note that the html namespace has been given a prefix, so that the default prefix can refer to the RSS feed.
Generic RSS reader
[edit | edit source]More generally, a reader which could voice any RSS feed would be a useful service.