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RSS feed question
 
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JC



Joined: 19 Nov 2004
Posts: 29

PostPosted: Mon Jan 24, 2005 12:18 pm    Post subject: RSS feed question Reply with quote

I notice when I go to the main blogharbor page, there is an updated list of blogs, from different blog locations.

I was wondering, then, if I can have a similar feature for my blog.

I would like to take different rss feeds - say about 10 or 20, and "merge" the latest posts from these 10, into one feed, or one rss stream, that then I display in the right hand column. I know how to display an rss stream in one of the side panels, but I'm sure there must be a way to combine feeds into one rss stream, that I can then display.

The title would be something like "News from around the yoga world" or some such.

Maybe if this feature isn't built-in, a really well-featured rss client would be able to do something like this?

Thanks,

JC
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john
Site Admin


Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Mon Jan 24, 2005 4:23 pm    Post subject: Re: RSS feed question Reply with quote

Our service allows you to add an <A HREF="http://demo.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2004/12/24/214163.html" RSS Headline Component to the sidebar of your blog, but it does not allow you to combine those feeds together to create one component which tracks a group of feeds.

There's a service called Bloggdigger:

http://www.blogdigger.com/

which allows you to create "Groups" of RSS feeds and then track an RSS feed which contains the most recent posts from the group. You could create a Group there, then add that feed to the sidebar of your blog using our RSS Headline Component and that should be exactly what you are looking to do.

Of course, if you are looking to track those RSS feeds personally on your desktop rather than publicly on your blog, then you should be able to use almost any RSS client to track a collection of feeds.
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JC



Joined: 19 Nov 2004
Posts: 29

PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 8:46 pm    Post subject: Got it working - but something is still off Reply with quote

Okay, that's great - I have a feed or group of rss feeds, that has its own RSS feed! This is wonderful!!

I have tried this rss custom component to the site (to the left column), but there seems to be a conflict with another rss custom component, that I have in the right column.

Can I have two custom rss compenents? Is there a way that they won't conflict?

Thanks again!

JC
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john
Site Admin


Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 10:10 pm    Post subject: Re: Got it working - but something is still off Reply with quote

What kind of conflict are you seeing? Is there a blog address we could be looking to see what this conflict looks like?
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JC



Joined: 19 Nov 2004
Posts: 29

PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 4:08 pm    Post subject: Site is at: Reply with quote

Hi there - the site is at:

http://integralpractice.blogharbor.com/blog.

I just actually SAVED the change, a couple of minutes ago - 1:05 PM PST.

Thanks for any input!
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JC



Joined: 19 Nov 2004
Posts: 29

PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 4:11 pm    Post subject: Hey - it's working! Reply with quote

Hey, it's working - but I need to put some type of box around the information.

Let me know if you have an idea!
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JC



Joined: 19 Nov 2004
Posts: 29

PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 4:19 pm    Post subject: Couple of things Reply with quote

Well, the rss is working, which is great.

But I see that I need to enclose/encapsulate the component in a box. I need to know how to do this not only for that particular component, but also the email contact I added.

I understand this is fairly basic - but inside of the component, should I add in some "font =" stuff, or what is the best way to change the characterists of the page - sort of like you would treat a separate table?

Thanks again.
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john
Site Admin


Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 10:16 pm    Post subject: Re: Couple of things Reply with quote

Quote:
But I see that I need to enclose/encapsulate the component in a box. I need to know how to do this not only for that particular component, but also the email contact I added.


First, the RSS component you are currently using... There was a problem with our script which prevented the component from taking the correct style, we just fixed that and your RSS headlines now look as you would expect, using the same style and look as the rest of your components.

Quote:
I understand this is fairly basic - but inside of the component, should I add in some "font =" stuff, or what is the best way to change the characterists of the page - sort of like you would treat a separate table?


The RSS tool you are using is an older version, we implemented a newer tool as explained here:

http://demo.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2004/12/24/214163.html

This updated RSS Headline component is better integrated with your blog and will show updates to the headlines faster as the previous version caches RSS feeds longer. You can also customize the structure of your RSS feeds when using this component by modifying a new template called rss_feed, or the style (font, colors, etc.) by CSS through modification of the style template.

Here's how to modify the style template:
  1. Login to your Blog Admin Control Panel through the Login page.

  2. Click on the Look and Feel tab, then the Templates subtab.

  3. Now you see a list of the Templates you can customize. We are going to customize the rss_feed template, which controls structure of all of the content produced by the RSS Headline component, so click Edit in the row that begins with rss_feed.

  4. Now you'll be on a page listing the current styles - there will probably be only one called Standard, so click the Customize button at the bottom of the page.

  5. Last step; you'll be on a page where you see an option to "Copy a pre-defined style to your staging area", click the Go button.

  6. Now you're at the page where you can modify the rss_feed template...

You'll see the content of the template looks like this:

Code:
<div class="component">
<div class="componentHead">{{var name=rss_feed.title escape=html}}</div>
<div class="componentContent">
<div class="componentRSSFeed">
<ul>
{{loop name="rss_feed.items"}}
<li><a href="{{link}}">{{if title}}{{var name=title escape=html}}{{elsif publish_time}}{{publish_time}}{{else}}Untitled{{/if}}</a></li>
{{/loop}}
</ul>
</div> <!-- componentRSSFeed -->
</div> <!-- componentContent -->
</div> <!-- component -->


The loop goes through each of the items in the feed and displays them, in this case, as bullet items of a list. The CSS class componentRSSFeed controls the style of those items.

If you want to change the structure of your RSS Headline component, you could modify this rss_feed template. Or if you are more confortable working with HTML rather than CSS, you could code in a TABLE or FONT tags in here.

If you just want to change the style of the RSS Headlines, the font of the RSS items for example, you would modify the style template as we just wrote about today in these articles:

http://forums.blogharbor.com/viewtopic.php?t=518
http://forums.blogharbor.com/viewtopic.php?t=506

but instead we will alter the componentRSSFeed class. If you added something like this to your CSS customizations, your items would automatically be displayed in 11px Verdana bold:

Code:
.componentRSSFeed {
    font: bold 11px Verdana,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;
}


Quote:
but also the email contact I added


Take a look at this article on creating a custom component:

http://demo.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2004/1/12/13602.html

I think what you would want to do is enter your HTML into the suggested code on that page and your page will have the effect you're looking for.
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JC



Joined: 19 Nov 2004
Posts: 29

PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2005 12:12 pm    Post subject: Thanks! Reply with quote

John,

thanks, that's wonderful information! I appreciate it!
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JC



Joined: 19 Nov 2004
Posts: 29

PostPosted: Thu Mar 03, 2005 8:05 pm    Post subject: One more?? Reply with quote

I know, I know, you are getting tired of me - one thing more, if you would be so kind.

I notice that the rss link, that I'm importing from blogdigger
[url] http://groups.blogdigger.com/groups.jsp?id=1509[/url]
shows the name of the poster - however, in my display of this rss feed, names are not included. I get the names when I check my rss feeder - is there a way to display the name of the poster, do you think?

Thanks again, in advance.
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john
Site Admin


Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Thu Mar 03, 2005 10:51 pm    Post subject: Re: One more?? Reply with quote

Our headlines will display the title and link for each item in the RSS feed... If the information you are referring to is something contained in the body of the item, then there is no way to get that displayed.
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