How can I get started making a C# RSS Reader?

Question

I have been wanting to make a RSS reader for a while now (just for fun), but I don't have the slightest idea of where to start. I don't understand anything about RSS. Are there any good tutorials on RSS and how to implement it in an application (not a tutorial on how to make a RSS reader, that would be too easy).

Answer 1

See

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb943474.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.servicemodel.syndication.syndicationfeed.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb943480.aspx

Basically there is a lot of stuff in the .Net 3.5 framework that does the grunt-work of parsing and representing feeds; it's not hard to write a 30-line app that takes in a feed URL and downloads the feed and prints the title and author of all the items, for example. (Works for RSS 2.0 (not others!) or Atom.)

Answer 2

If you are focusing on creating an RSS Reader and not on RSS parsing logic, you might want to delegate creation/reading RSS feeds using this free RSS Library called Argotic on CodePlex.com