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Tutorial: Writing an RSS Reader...

This small tutorial walks you through the steps of writing an RSS Reader application.

RSS stands for 'Real Simple Syndication'. An RSS Reader is an application that polls any number of websites supporting the RSS format and extracts the latest headlines and news stories. It is a great way to stay informed and track information on the web without having to browse webpages every day just to find out if they have changed.

The tutorial uses wxWidgets 2.5, Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and the Lit Window Library.

Requirements

The RSS Reader in this tutorial takes its ideas from the free Rss Reader http://www.rssreader.com

User Requirements

RssReader screenshot

The RSS Reader main window contains three panels:

the channels list on the left side of the window
the headlines list on the top right side of the window
the currently selected news item on the bottom right side of the window

A user must be able to

add channels from a webpage
delete channels
modify channel information

To read a news item, a user must be able to

select a channel
select a headline
the corresponding news item shall be displayed

Data Structures

The application has a

global list of channels

Each channel has

a web address
a title
a cache time after which the channel refreshes its data from the webpage
a list of headlines
a lastread date containing the date of the last refresh

Each headline has

a title
a body containing the news item in html
a published date containing the date the item has been published
a URL pointing to a webpage associated with the news

Next Steps

Note:: If you just want to know what RapidUI looks like, skip steps one and two and read on with step three RSS Reader Tutorial Step 3: Adding RapidUI