Yeah ... Yeah I know, why do you have to read all the B.S. from this guy, just get to the point already.

Doing up the block style was easier that I thought. I actually stumbled across that after making a couple of changes then refreshed and saw the changes held. So it does not hurt to experiment even on production site. Seems right now xmline uses the block named below for the display of the custom blocks. And I stumbled in while playing.

What did I do?

I set up some styles on the module templates and tweaked styles in the xmline css file in the xmline/include dir too affect the display of the expanded pages. Again, images cannot be displayed in the "custom" blocks that's strictly a rss text feed. As other's have mentioned it would take quite a bit more investigation to alter the image idea. Images are in the expanded portion... that's good enough for me right now.

On the front page of servicelance the look is controlled by the block template and a simple style tweak. I'm still playing with it to display it more to my liking. I know how just have not done it yet.

But here are the changes you need to know for the blocks.

ie., this will not affect the story title only the block text.

In the XMline templates section of your web site open xmline_block_spotlight.html

Change this line



to this



You could do fonts in px or pt as well I used em. You can also ad padding to inset the block content so it does not hug the borders.

To remove additional vertical spacing above below item. description remove <br /> statements to shift up or down.


Quote:

In my reference to blog code like Drupal. The major difference to XOOPS and xmline module combination. The content you pull in with xmline works on the FIFO (first in first out) principal. So the content never really resides in any database on your site for future reference. You might get it indexed but that will lead to dead links on your site. However your internal "expand" url's will all be indexed but they will not work as expected since the content is ever changing.

Drupal on the other hand has it's own "built-in" aggregator and allows admin/user categorical freedom to feed the aggregated content to site visitors based on a determined taxonomy. Since Drupal also is a "blog style" storage medium it happily catalogs that information for future SE reference based on, taxonomy, that word again. For instance google would index the drupal site and all content beneath the link because it's there visible all the time, while the RSS feeds in XOOPS do not do that at all.

All that for a single line of code

Have fun!

regards,
rocket98

council,

Which post do you want me to respond to?

This one or THIS ONE

I guess when things work well the level of excitement is raised a bar or two?

Quote:

Yes but remove the URL paste code in just like you see in Read Me. Only thing you need to change is the $options



Yes choose php script from pull down, then preview, if it works then save. Now position block somewhere.

Hi council,

I followed instructions for a change!

The feeds are placed in blocks which are then set to the specific ID of the feed you have subscribed too.

In the readme file included with xmline you'll find this:



The only "real thing" to pay attention to in this piece of code:

$options = "feedid|numberofmsgs|characterlength";

Place a new feed in xmline. Now look at the URL for that feed when you are accessing or editing the feed. You will see digest_id=whatevernumber , that number corresponds to "feedid" or position "1" above. The other two should be self explanatory. Number of messages is just that. You'll note I have 2 here, 3 there. Number of characters is up to you on my site URL I have anywhere from 200 to 360 characters showing.

Some feeds you could show 500 characters but that might not leave much for your readers when they click "more...". What you do here has nothing to do with Expanded View on secondary page. If you pull a rss feed with 10,000 characters that will show up when expanded. Some people do allow you to pull their entire feed others are very iffy on subject.

Your old feeds are dumped as soon as the updates come in that's aggregation. To store locally requires a Wordpress or Drupal some other kind of blog, I'd lean to Drupal or civicspace.org. I have wordpress running on that same domain (1gb storage 50gb bandwidth w/rollover) with 300plus pages of content google, msn, yahoo they love it. I put the sit eup with feeds on Saturday evening... my first mac mini has good position considering the number of sites.

In xmline preferences you can also play with length of feed titles to make them fit your block better try 30 to begin with it all depends on width of your blocks.

Place this piece of code with corresponding digest_id into a new block, change number of messages (teasers), and character length of messages. This extra block will not display images only the expanded version of the feed displays the images. These are just the teasers.

Make sure you select PHP Script from the pull down. Now preview. If everything is working you will see block displayed with content... NOW SAVE. Position block using XOOPS methods. If you see nothing and you are sure you have done everything right check this out.

This fix is from a email i received from php_pp in regard to blank screen on preview and lot's of my head scratching. I could not get the extra blocks working spent a good 20 minutes on it :) . Then I asked a question and was rewarded!! Thanks D.J.

There is a typo in the module's extra block function:

xmline/blocks/xmline_blocks.php the last line



change to



------------------------------------------
As far as other images go. The ones from Amazon are from amazon, the rest belong to rss, xml and rdf

Positioning of the blocks on my URL site. I played with the theme and moved the left column over beside the right column. The left side is now the Center column. I removed the other columns left-center and right-center since i won't be using them and they were difficult to get to maintain perfect width. So the layout goes center, left, right.

Sorry for the lengthy post I don't talk that often.

The rest is history, as they say!

regards
rocket98

p.s. would really love it if someone who can make modules would look at reblog.org and figure a module out for xoops, reblog gives a new level of control to feeds as you now see them. pick and choose and plug in that commerce info.

"A reBlog facilitates the process of filtering and republishing relevant content from many RSS feeds. reBloggers subscribe to their favorite feeds, preview the content, and select their favorite posts. These posts are automatically published through their favorite blogging software."

reBlog = CONTROL

xmline is a great module and performs the same based on the couple of days I have used it on my site URL . You can create as many blocks as you like relative to the number of feeds you have coming in. Depending on the feed you can set number of characters incoming, which might be your teasers.

Trick really is to keep the user on your site. In either module clicking "title" of a post takes you back to posting site not your own. xmline does handle this nicely with a "more..." button so user is pulled into site for extra content. But if the feed does not produce much content to begin with you're stuck with less than a paragraph (small one) and lose the user anyway. Because xhld handles the initial interaction a bit differently it's easier to keep people on site with xhld. Have a look at my site URL under the software sections, that is xhld. The news section is xmline (small css probem I'm having with menu).

xhld is another excellent module released by GIJOE of myAlbum fame. I use it for other feeds yet they both do the same thing with minor differences. xhld is far easier to mod style wise if that's your thing it's tables just apply styles. It also fires when the page is pulled by end user... not automatically as scheduled for some reason . Judging by what I see on screen xhld allows more feed formats. ie., I have not been able to get xmline to pull an .rdf feed but it's fine with rss and xml, atom. Allot of this still depends on the RSS publisher to have feeds that actually work. Sometimes it hit and miss while the larger sites 100%. Hit and miss means you set it all up, then go look at what it pulled, and that feed is blank for no reason. Both of these modules should have a link into a FEED VALIDATOR, so admin can easily check feed for compatibility.

All in all both of these modules are very good, just the ticket. They do the same thing with slight difference in formats and operation. Point is they do the job very nicely. xhld is duplicable where xmline is not (bonus points to xhld). xmline allows multiple feeds under a category so under 1 cat I might have 8 feeds (bonus points to xmline) anbd probably 30 on same page now nicely tucked away. On xhld i have not looked for categories I don't think it allows at this point.


A issue I have right now with xmline module (discovered today).

You can set up cron based on php_pp's instruction

- I did this and my cronjob fired every 2 minutes (even though I set it for 4 hours to begin with) then my inbox was inundated with confirmation emails over the period of hours I was retired, couple hundred messages. That's a good way to get noticed by sites you're hooked into.

Issues with xhld

Can't seem to get it to fire automatically I'm on broadband it should not take that long to open a page, so I figure it's updating in background which makes it very slow for any modem users out there. Would like categories then ability to stuff things in that category. Running in duplicable mode I understand the module directory can have a different name I thought I could do something like: macnews or digitalphotography or macsoftware, but I end up having to append a number to the end of the directory... exactly what GIJOE says, I was just hoping it would work based on directory name sans numbers.

Over all, as suggested there are a few rss aggregators available for xoops. These two are on my "A" list right now.

... whew

Have fun
regards
rocket98

Quote:



Feature request:

Hi Martijn, here is a request. Let me build a single product link as a block. The product would be picked by ASIN off Amazon site, any product. I only want to sell 3-5 different products on different pages based on where I show blocks, left, centre or right columns.

ie., Say I have newsfeeds coming in for a specific topic, hmmmmm... maybe something like soccer, then I would like to be able to find some individual products on amazon related to Soccer and plug those into blocks which might only be visible on my Feed page. Alternately if i have multiple feeds coming in on various topics I might want to place a Book, a Skill Saw or a Video camera on that Feed page... not an entire node catalog just individual items. The other stuff with the full meal deal on the amazon store is good as well, but give Admin's option to completely shut it down except for blocks with pre determined products coded by ASIN.

From Admin when I plug in the ASIN I should also be able to select between small, med, or a large images and wheather or not to display product info etc. Make this template based so guys like me who love tinkering are able to rearrange the screen a bit instead of being locked into one idea. Style it up with some css and leave it open.

I visited your site it looks great but too much like everything else out there. Give us some options to set up a few different blocks with live amazon feeds based on single ASIN's and you'll make a few heads turn. Every single one of these things I look at (with exception of a plug in for WordPress) expects the world to shop at your door, and it's not going to happen when a couple hundred thousand affiliates already use one product or another.

Just my thoughts on the topic in no particular order :)


Regards
rocket98

Quote:

Hi Chris,

I thought the Pic Up Photo block was the random one. At least it appears to be random images on my sites.

Regards
rocket98

Thanks Mithrandir.

Silly me. Maybe this could be something for a wishlist.

Merry Christmas

Best Regards
rocket98

Hi,

I just ran across a problem configuring block display for Anonymous or Registered users. I can't seem to get two different views for anonymous and registered users. Maybe 2am is not when I should be fiddlin' with these settings.

ie., for anonymous users I want right column shut off and then for logged in users I want right column visible with various block content. Any blocks which could be visible for right column log-in users would show up in left column for anonymous users. You get it? Anonymous users have 2 col. display while log-in users has 3 col. display.

Scratching my head here, figure I've gone through the steps a dozen times already but can't get the desired effect.

In Group settings I have nothing checked for anonymous right column then I make the changes to the blocks. I look at the web page and everything is fine... but these same changes affect log-in users as well. So I can't actually change the block settings to the different format display. Column on, Column off.

In Block settings for the Anonymous Group I have right column blocks set to display in left column. I do the opposite in Registered users Block setting yet I'm going in circles.

Any changes I make for one group affects the other.

running 2.0.7.3, theme is modified 7dana.

Any advice would be helpful... no I'm not drinking.

Regards
rocket98

I think XHLD is a bit too strict in what it will pull for a feed and what it will not pull or ignore.

Try to make this feed work:

http://www.gizmodo.com/index.xml
http://www.gizmodo.com/index.rdf
http://www.gizmodo.com/atom.xml

(and a few others)

Maybe I've done something wrong which is likely (should be a no brainer) but XHLD will not pull this feed for any version of the RSS/XML/Atom available. XHLD is running to strictly. I don't think it can be expected that everyone in the world will have a perfectly formatted RSS/XML/Atom feed. And if I can use this particular feed in a dozen other aggregator/readers then it's quite possible it should work in XHLD as well.

Regards,
rocket98

Example of my site using zfeeder and the above mentioned feed:

zFeeder

And here is my site using xhld which I gotta admit is strict, but sweet

my feeds

Not finished styling this section yet and may take a few seconds to load since it pulls first presents second