Archived : Techno Babble
This is the archived version of my b2evolution code blog.
If you require any help regarding b2evolution then
visit it's support forums
You can find my current blogs here
Code : {@link : WafflesOn}
Personal : {@link : InnerVisions}
| « Magento anybody? | tinkering with the bloglist » |
Playing with an RSS reader
Posted on 3rd Jan 2008 in : Plugins & Widgets
SimplePie gets widgetised
After being nudged by Danny about an RSS reader I started a fair while back and never finished, mainly because I didn't have a use for it, I felt obliged to create an RSS Reader widget .... mainly to stop him nagging my arse off 
. Fortunately I'd come across an RSS Reader class a tad ago called SimplePie which would make the task a LOT easier, although it took a bit of pissing about to get it working the way I wanted. If you want to skip all the usual babble you can download the current version of the plugin here ( AM RSS Reader ), it does come with some system requirements which can be found on SimplePies System requirements page.
Installation and usage
Installing is the same as every other widget, download the file, unzip it, upload the am_rss_reader_plugin folder to your blogs folder. Meander over to admin > global settings > plugin install > install new plugin ( damn that's a hell of a path ), click the install link for the plugin. Now wander over to your skins widgets and click add new widget for whatever skin container you want it in. On the widgets settings page choose a custom title for the feed, the maximum number of items you want to display and slap in the feeds url ( note to self : validate the feed url ). If you feel brave you can play with the items html ( see the readme for replacement values ), the chances are that you won't need to change it. Once you have all your settings done, hit save. That's it, you now have the feed in your skin wherever your container is.
So, what can it do?
The short answer is "quite a bit actually", the long answer is that it has a bunch of settings which it utilises in a magic ceremony that results in the RSS feed being spat out, wherever you placed the widget, in a totally customised way. This magic is carried out by unemployed elves who are desperate for work now that christmas is over. So not only will you have a really cool widget, you'll also be helping save the elves, now is that cool or what? Of course this means that the widget stops working around the beginning of december for a few weeks but such is life Rather than repeat all of the settings, what they do, why and how I actually made a readme ( yeah I know, me write a readme, whatever is the world coming to? )
Semi-technical stuff
Due to the fact that I dislike having folder permissions set to "let the world rape me", which is unavoidable on some shared hosting, I decided not to use SimplePies caching system, which uses files, and instead the results are cached in the database. You can set the cache duration to absolutely anything you like, the default is 60 minutes. At the moment I've only enabled the simplest of the SimplePies abilities, ( ie/ you can get post author, content, url, date, title ), but if anybody really wants some of the other functionality that's available with the class then just holler, it's not that difficult to incorporate them.
As always this is a pre-release version, although it's been tested in most 2.x flavours, so if it breaks let me know .... if it doesn't break then it'll be released as soon as I come up with a post that doesn't involve elves
¥
*edit* You can now see the widget in action on my Feeds I read page.
47 comments
¥
Based on your description, I'm not sure if this is a plugin for blog software or not, but if so, I would encourage you to post a new wiki page to our plugins list. http://simplepie.org/wiki/plugins/start
You also said that "it took a bit of pissing about to get it working the way I wanted." What kinds of problems did you encounter? Did you check the documentation? Did you ask your questions on the forums? What things can we do to make these kinds of things easier/simpler?
Thanks!
Congratulations on writing such a cool API
This is a plugin ( widget ) for the 2.x series of b2evolution software that powers my blog. As soon as I do a "real" write up I'll add it to your wiki, thanks for the invitation.
Most of the problems I had were answered by reading your documentations and hints 'n' tips pages, the rest were to do with DIGG not returning any content when called via CURL. I know you've read my post on your forums by now so you'll have already seen my solution. It might be an idea to have a default user-agent for SimplePie_File() though?
Another feature that would be nice would be the ability to get the raw content of the feed without having to use the SimplePie_File() class, but that's just a usability enhancement and not a *problem*, although it did take me a while to find the solution.
I haven't had a chance to play with all of the abilities of SimplePie yet so there may be other suggestions in the future. If I have any I'll make them on your forums as that kinda feels like the appropriate place and would allow your other members to chime in without having to assault their senses by reading my blog
Happy New Year
¥
Hope you are well, we are busy at work (thank goodness) lets hope its a good sign for the New Year
Gz
Hope you and yours have the very best of new years
¥
You got a new server then ?
Or have they just put a new HDD in the Linux Box ?
Gz
¥
Gz
¥
I'm on my way to yours now, I'll give yah a tour when I get there
¥
Even though somebody else wished you a Happy Easter before me !!!
Thanks in advance for upgrading my blog, I look forward to playing with it
Well we finally got all those parcels packed-up and they are on their way to the customers, job well done
Catch you soon.
Gz
I'll move your blog sometime tomorrow, it can take up to 24 hours for the dns changes to show though, but I'm sure you'll be able to tell when it lands
¥
It is most appreciated of you old chap
Gz
¥
Can you email me the details please (URL)
Thanks
Gary
¥
The only draft post I can see is 'Do your relatives follow?'
I am sure I am losing the plot
Gz
¥
I found that that, but is there not a CP for my webspace.
or is it only for the whole server ?
BTW I was looking for the formatting.php page to allow objects and styles, can I find it, can I heck.
Where have they hidden it this time
Hope your having a good day, I am stuffing my face
Gz
, thanks Paul Have a great weekend
Gz
I am well impressed with it.
I am now a fully signed up member of the blogs forum.
Gz
¥
I am very impressed.
My girls have found a use for keljem.com
Kelsey found a good use
and so did Jemma
They only started tonight but were having fun
Gz
Seen yer posts on the forums, even answered one of your questions ( in a bloody long line of questions of yours that I've answered
) .... told yah the members would be able to help you huh? ¥
ps. you need to learn bbcode for the forums, I'll show you some next time I'm at yours ( it's pretty much the same as the bbcode on your blog
) Catch ya on the forums !!!
Gz
Just found this on Ed B's blog.
Enable Javascript and give the page time to load and then wait a few seconds - its well worth it.
Best shopping website ever
Gz
¥
¥
I'm pretty sure the issue is that it was trying to read the feed from h t t p : / /, which it pretty much couldn't do. Therefore I would suggest the default "what feed to read" be b2evolution's news page, or whatever.
And the forum thread where you described how you made it a stand-alone page is in my "watched" list because that is really the coolest functionality imaginable. Lots of feeds out there yah?
Sorry all. We can now go back to ... what was it being discussed here?
I need to add some validation to the plugin for the feed url but having it default to evo news sound like a plan I can live with
We'll hopefully be making a release version soon which will include the checks.You should bookmark all my forum posts, they're all cool
As an aside, and still nowhere near the topic, I've pretty much got the new version of BOPIT running on astonishme, fancy having a play from a plugin developers perspective?
¥
ps. I note you didn't mention the fact that clicking on my smilies work now, after all your bitchin' about it
Hooray!Yeah sure re bopit. I'm seeing where it doesn't do much right now yah? Like I'm guessing reading the xml file is a thing of the past? I was just in astonishme's backside and the controller was active but I didn't see anything that made sense for me to do about it knowing a plugin of mine is updated.
Many things on my plate again. Too much perhaps?
I've just updated the developer notes ( BOPIT for developers ) on the original post, hopefully it explains everything you need to know.
Maybe you just need a bigger plate?
¥
http://www.stumbleupon.com/syndicate.php?stumbler=4857980
It validates fine, any suggestions?
I just added that url to my feeds page with absolutely no problem. It might be worth looking at your php info and seeing if you have curl and/or fsock available.
¥
I tried embedding two copies of the RSS plugin. One on the top and one on the right sidebar but the plugin seems to take the style from the first instance. Even if I type a style under the CSS Class text box, it doesn't take it.
Is this something you can fix?
another idea would be to have this plugin display items from multiple feeds. Great job other wise.
SimplePie does have the ability to combine multiple feeds into a single feed, but I'd need to have a play to see if this is still possible whilst using the database instead of files to cache the feeds.
¥
But it didn't work for me. I kept getting an error on line 363 of the plugin.
Instead of words, is there a way to limit by # of characters?
I'll go find the latest version and zip it up for you so that we're both on the same page. Hopefully that will also cure your error.
The code can probably be amended to limit by number of characters, I picked "words" so that you didn't end up with some gibberish half word when the limit was hit, although there are plans for curing that as well
¥
A login would be cool
¥
http://remysharp.com/2007/05/18/add-twitter-to-your-blog-step-by-step/
Although that had to be conditional commented to keep out IE6.
Thanx v much for the offer of help Mr ¥, and keep those plugins coming.
Page archived : 11th Nov 2009
X