how to design a rss news widget?

[Adeel]

Hi,

I am looking for a tool or tutorials which could help me to design a rss based widget similar to BBC or The New York Times widget. I have RSS setup and the widget should be downloaded to user computer, install on its desktop and view the dynamic information updated on RSS (in website database) and i am looking for Windows (not for Mac).

Thanks in advance.

[John Jupp]

Hi Adeel

What you are looking for is a c++ script. If you don't find what you are looking for, we may be able to create a custom version for you. I say may because my c++ script writer is fast asleep at the moment.

[tbp]

Visual Basic Express would be ideal for this! Best of all its completely free!

Visual Studio Express: Visual Basic - Easy to Use

Theres a load of tutorials for it as well, you can download from MSDN and around the net.

Theres a tutorial at:

Coding4Fun : A Simple RSS Feed

And another one here:

Coding4Fun : Aggregating Syndicated Content

These are to display RSS Feeds on a web page, but VB.net is so closely tied in to the net, its pretty much exactly the same to display the info on the desktop instead.

VB.net even compiles the program and creates the installer for you, so someone just has to click on the setup file to install it, as with an other Windows Application.

Quite easy to program in (in my opinion ), and is ideal for creating applications like this.

I did a similar thing last year, writing an application that ran on the desktop and hooked into my adwords account, displaying the spend in near real time, linked to real time sales figures for each advert, so I could see exactly how each ad was performing. It also logged the data so I could spot trends and patterns.

Made it much easier to track my campaigns, and allowed me to get much better conversions!

I could also create one for you at a reasonable cost, if you let me know exactly what you want.

[Adeel]

thanks guys. i mainly work on php but ill give it a go on vb.

CouponCabin.com Coupon Widget | Yahoo! Widgets is quite similar to what i am aiming to achive but the contents should be filtered from RSS.

There is a yahoo widget workshop at Yahoo! Widgets - Workshop and some good examples at Web widgets, desktop widgets, widget resources, samples, tutorials @ Widgipedia.

Any more ideas?

Ciao..

[tbp]

i mainly work on php but ill give it a go on vb.

Yes, im the same, but obviously you can't use PHP if you want it on the users desktop!

Sign up to the MSDN web center at:

Visual Studio Express: Registration Benefits

They offer a full ebook to download for vb express, which if I remember writely detailed full instructions for creating a project extremely similar to what your after.

[Adeel]

thanks for your help. lets start work on that from tonight. i will post it back here once its ready but in the mean time if you guys have other great ideas on how widgets can be useful then please do share them...

Mathew: could you design a widget so i can view lets say only new posts on my desktop..

Ciao..