Your own RSS Logo
If you want to let visitors to your website know that you have an RSS feed they can subscribe to, you need to have an orange logo, which more or less has become the internet standard.
Where can I get such a logo? Will it clash with the colours on my website? Does its size fit my font sizes? And what should it read (RSS, XML, ATOM)? Do I get one for free?
There is only one answer: no logo! Not an ordinary one, that is. Instead of searching the net or having to tinker in your graphics program, go by blechtrottel brodaktschns' advice to use CSS.
Pros and Cons of CSS
- text, colours and size, as well as shape (to some extent) can easily be adapted to one's very own needs. Even customers that cannot make up their minds should thus not manage to waste your precious time. :-)
- no copyright worries
- no ugly rendering when the browser cannot load images or the user has turned them off
- very good accessibility, since we are dealing with a text link
- extra HTML code
- due to IE 5's problems with CSS, hacks can hardly be avoided
Examples
<a style="font: bold 0.75em sans-serif; color: #fff; background: #f60; padding: 0.2em 0.35em; float: left;">RSS</a>
<a style="font: bold 0.75em sans-serif; color: #fff; background: #f60; padding: 0.2em 0.35em; float: left; text-decoration: none; border: solid 2px; border-color: #f80 #960 #960 #f80;">RSS</a>
Semantically clean, this code works in IE from version 5 (which needs the float: left;)
<a href="javascript: void(0);" style="font: bold 0.75em sans-serif; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: #fff; background: #f60; padding: 0.2em 0.35em; margin-right: 0; border: solid 1px #f60; float: left;">RDF</span>
<span style="color: #000; background: #fff; padding: 0.2em 0.35em; margin-left: 0; border: solid 1px #f60; float: left;">Newsfeed</span></a>
Here, an extended logo is made up from two span tags. This too works in IE 5 and up. In order to retaliate IE 5, which needs extra CSS, Mozilla browsers have problems with float and clear. Sometimes a 1px gap between the spans pops up.
Final Note
The code examples are to be taken as suggestions. They do not represent the markup non-plus-ultra. Hints and tips are always welcome.
In the meantime Microsoft have announced that in Internet Explorer 7 they will use the very same logo for RSS feeds as Mozilla Firefox. Should this become the industry's standard these tips may become outdated.