Rake in feeds with blogger beta and OPML (updated)

I am not sure about classic blogger, but I can definitely tell about blogger beta, that it has a number of options to choose from as far as feeds are concerned. If you have the right idea, you can use all of these feeds to offer your readers the flexibility to choose what they wish to read and how.

Full posts feed of your blog:
http://[your blog].blogspot.com/feeds/posts/full (updated as per blogger buzz)

Summary posts feed of your blog:
http://[your blog].blogspot.com/feeds/posts/summary (updated as per blogger buzz)

Full post feed for a label (topic):
http://beta.blogger.com/feeds/[blog id]/posts/full/-/[label name]

Summary feed for a label (topic):
http://beta.blogger.com/feeds/[blog id]/posts/summary/-/[label name]
(or)
http://[Your Blog].blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/-/[label name] (updated as per Phydeaus3)

Full comments feed:
http://beta.blogger.com/feeds/[blog id]/comments/full
(or)
http://[your blog].blogspot.com/feeds/comments/full (added as per blogger buzz)

Summary of Comments feed:
http://beta.blogger.com/feeds/[blog id]/comments/summary
(or)
http://[your blog].blogspot.com/feeds/comments/summary (added as per blogger buzz)

Phew! Did I miss some thing? With so many feeds to play, you can offer your readers with tremendous flexibility in choosing what they want to read and how. Realizing the benefits of this (especially in my blog where there are a many topics(labels)), I have revamped my feed subscribe section in the side bar. Using drop-down menus, I have tried to ensure that the readers get to choose what they want.

I picked up the code for the drop-downs from an article in Improbulus’s “A consuming experience”. However, the code for the drop-downs required some modification (I guess due to the differences between beta blogger and classic blogger). Here’s how a typical drop-down code looks:

<select id="feedURLs" onchange="var feedURL=this.options[this.selectedIndex].value;var feedTxt=this.options[this.selectedIndex].text;showFeed(feedURL,feedTxt)">
<option selected="selected" value="clear" >Select Full or Shorter Feed</option>
<option value="FULLFEEDURL">Full Site Feed</option>
<option value="EXCERPTSFEEDURL">Excerpt Site Feed</option>
<option value="HEADLINESURL">Headlines only Site Feed</option>
</select><br/>

Here is the modified version of this code that works with blogger beta:

<select id="feedURLs" onchange="var feedURL=this.options[this.selectedIndex].value;var feedTxt=this.options[this.selectedIndex].text;showFeed(feedURL,feedTxt)">
<option selected="selected" value="clear" />Select Full or Shorter Feed
<option value="FULLFEEDURL"/>Full Site Feed
<option value="EXCERPTSFEEDURL"/>Excerpt Site Feed
<option value="HEADLINESURL"/>Headlines only Site Feed
</select><br/>

Basically the </option> tag is eliminated to get this thing working here. I dressed up all the essential feeds of my blog using FeedBurner and then used them in the drop-downs. Feedburner also lets you create the OPML file for all the feeds that you have burned using it. Once you have the OPML file, upload it somewhere and provide a direct link to your readers so that they may download and incorporate it in their feed reader. To learn about OPML click here. To find out your blog id in beta, just scroll to the bottom of your blog and hover the mouse cursor on the link which reads "posts(atom)". The number after "feeds/" is your blog id.

Another update: If you wish to post HTML code in your blog you can use this tool to encode HTML code such that it can be displayed just the way it should appear to a reader. I had found this link in John’s FreshBlog.