Technote Details :: Set encoding for MX RSS Reader - Writer

Altering the encoding used in the site pages and by MX RSS Reader - Writer.

When working with RSS feeds, the feed encoding must match the one specified in the database, in order to be able to display data correctly. Also, for RSS import, the encoding used by the feed is more important.

For import (reading), MX RSS Reader-Writer detects the encoding method used in the RSS file and converts it to UTF8. Thus, the RSS Reader Recordset data is encoded in UTF8.

Caution! After applying the RSS Reader command change the following line:
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
to
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
The default encoding in Dreamweaver is iso-8859-1, but after the RSS Reader command converts it to utf-8 in the page it doesn't change the value of the charset attribute as well. So you have to do it manually, or else your characters might not be displayed correctly.

For export (writing), if the PHP users have the MBSTRING module installed, they don't have to indicate a desired encoding. MX RSS Reader-Writer detects the encoding method used in the RSS file and converts it to UTF8. Else, if they don't have the MBSTRING module installed, they should indicate the desired encoding: iso-8859-1, iso-8859-2, etc. For the ColdFusion and ASP users, it is mandatory to specify the encoding which should be the same used for your database.