Help:Feeds: Difference between revisions

Displaying a feed in Appropedia can be accomplished in two ways:

• with RSS tags, which gives a bold header and links to each post, or
• with a widget, which gives a header in regular font, links to post, and an extract

Using RSS tags

Simplest example, showing all available posts:

<rss>http://blogs.appropedia.org/feed/</rss>

Displays as: <rss>http://blogs.appropedia.org/feed/</rss>

And with a set number of posts:

<rss number=3>http://blogs.appropedia.org/feed/</rss>

<rss number=3>http://blogs.appropedia.org/feed/</rss>

Depending on the format of the blog, there may be a header & byline displayed with the feed. (How do we control this?) E.g.:

<rss number=3>http://feeds.feedburner.com/afrigadget</rss>

Displays as: <rss number=3>http://feeds.feedburner.com/afrigadget</rss>

More RSS tag options

You can add more than one feed in a single <rss> tag to have them display in columns. Do so by adding "|" between the feed urls. Thus, <rss>firsturl|secondurl|thirdurl</rss> will create a reader with 3 columns, displaying items from all 3 feeds. Inside the <rss> tag you can include optional settings, which are detailed below:

number

By default, the reader will display all the items in the feed. If you want to display up to a maximum of a certain number of items, then add number=n (where n is the max number) inside the rss tag: <rss number=10>http://www.appropedia.org/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges&feed=rss</rss> will display the last 10 stories from BBC World.

time

By default, the reader will take the value of $egCacheTime as the amount of time (in seconds) between each local caching of the RSS feed. If you want a certain feed to refresh its cache more or less frequently, then add time=t (where t is the refresh time in seconds) inside the rss tag: <rss time=7200>http://www.appropedia.org/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges&feed=rss</rss> will refresh the cache of stories from BBC World every 7200 seconds (2 hours).
The max and min time allowed for the time argument is governed by $egCacheTimeMin and $egCacheTimeMax in LocalSettings.php. If the specified time falls outside this range, then it will revert to the default $egCacheTime value.

desc=off

Hides the description provided by the feed.

width

If set to a legal value (between $egWidthMin and $egWidthMax) it turns the RSS section into a floating div, alligned to the right, of the width specified (in pixels)

title=off

Hides the title (and description in desc=off of the feed.

Usage notes

• No line breaks between tags.
• Atom feeds don't work.
• RSS 1.0 & RSS 2.0 seem to display exactly the same.

Bugs

E.g. 1 - the following code:

<rss number=5>http://www.appropedia.org/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges&feed=rss</rss>

Creates: <rss number=5>http://www.appropedia.org/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges&feed=rss</rss>

The feed works elsewhere, so it's not clear why it breaks here.

<rss number=5>http://blogs.appropedia.org/feed/</rss>

See also

• See http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:RSS_Reader#The_.3Crss.3E_tag for the most up to date information on reading RSS feeds.

Using a "widget"

See also Appropedia:Widgets.

E.g.:

{{#widget:Feed
|feedurl=http://blogs.appropedia.org/feed/
|chan=y
|num=3
|desc=200
|date=n
|targ=y
}}

Creates:

Notes

Changing targ=y to targ=n doesn't seem to do anything.

Setting date=y adds a line with the date (can't limit it though - gives too much detail, down to the minute.)