An rss news block that not only updates itself, but automatically breaks feed into "read more" sizes. This way a webmaster could set-up a front news page with 10 feeds and forget it.

This can be done with any of the XOOPS RSS aggregating modules. The only thing is the teaser length is set by the author of the feed, not by the feed user. The problem here is some show very long full article views, others just the title, and others with title and short caption.

It can be done, but it will require trial and error on your part to get the feeds showing the information that you want.

Quote:

Well, for my purposes, the teaser is critical. The whole here is to "set it and forget it." This means once I set up the feed, the last thing I want to go is come back and tweak it.

I suppose I should say, that I'll have about eight feeds on each of my pages.

Currently, I'm using automatic fead generators such as rssexpress lite and rss-to-javascript to create the feed code that I then paste into either a news module box or a custom box.

I've noticed, however, that these feeds take a bit of time to load and display, especially if you have eight of them on a page. This must be fixed. I don't want to lose visitors over it.

Also, I'm thinking they each use "carp" as the engine that powers them, so I'll be looking at carp myself.

Any ideas about what I should do about the loading time of these feeds? I use them on my front page. What can I do while they're loading to keep visitors entertained?

r.

The loading time is the time it takes the other sites content to get to your site. With RSS pages there is always going to be a delay, my only suggestion is to use fast sites, and use a module that has timeout settings. So that if the feed is for some reason not available it does not continue hanging waiting for the feed.

I use xhld which is easily duplicable, and has the setting that I spoke of.

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

Say, Rocket, thanks for the tip on xmline, it looks like what I've been looking for -- but how do you get the feeds to display like they do on your site?

What I get is the catagory and the update and expand links.

Also, how do you set the amount of characters feeding in?

I didn't see that.

And what about images?

I tried uploading an image, but one didn't appear in the feed.

thanks

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

Hmm,

Let's see, I create a custom blog, get the feed id number than past the following code into the new block (after fixing the the error you mentioned in the last line of code of xmline_blocks.php)


include_once(http://blacklog.com . '/modules/xmline/blocks/xmline_blocks.php');
$options = "20|5|100";
b_xmline_custom($options);


right?

also, choose php script for the block, ok.

R.

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.

I'll be damned -- it works. One thing, though, the more goes to the xmline page where the full feed is. I want it to go to the source of the feed -- the webpage where the feed
orginates.

Also, this "more" is a lot farther down the page than I would like.

And I suppose I can add css to the custom box -- or can I?

By the way, how do I place images in the feed? I placed an image in module/xmline/images/upload then pasted the code to the same box above, but got nothing.





R.