Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 13

Thread: rss

  1. #1
    rlhanson's Avatar
    rlhanson is offline Master Glow Jedi
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Chapman, Kansas
    Posts
    531

    Default rss

    I have a client which is a public relations company....
    she has multiple enewsletters published in her icontact community which offers the rss subscribe feature...

    How would I have her site update automatically with just the titles of the enews releases instead of the whole messages?

    Any thoughts or help would be greatly appreciated!

    Thanks in advance!
    Thank you,
    Lynne Hanson
    RL Hanson-Online

  2. #2
    charlesh's Avatar
    charlesh is offline Master Glow Jedi
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Atlanta, GA - better than you imagined it would be.
    Posts
    189

    Default

    I'm assuming that her titles and news bodies are stored somewhere in the database?
    Code:
    <?
    $sql = "SELECT * FROM news limit 5";
    $result = mysql_query($sql);
    while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)){
    ?>
     
    <item>
         <title><?=$row['title']; ?></title>
         <author><?=$row['author']; ?></author>
         <link>http://MYSITE.com/news.php?id=<?=$row['id']; ?></link>
    </item>
     
    <?
    }
    ?>
    Just remove the author and link items. Hope this gets you pointed in the right direction.


    Charles

  3. #3
    rlhanson's Avatar
    rlhanson is offline Master Glow Jedi
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Chapman, Kansas
    Posts
    531

    Default

    Thanks for the response CharlesH...

    Here's the webpage where her articles are located:
    Anton Communications Publisher Profile - iContact Community

    I want the list like what is shown in the 2nd box down on the right: "Publications"

    The site offers the rss feed, but you see the whole messages - I'd like to have just the titles...

    Thanks again!
    Thank you,
    Lynne Hanson
    RL Hanson-Online

  4. #4
    bdominick's Avatar
    bdominick is offline I am a Glowru!
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Posts
    76

    Default

    Lynne, if I understand correctly, your client is Anton Communications and they have an account with iContact Community, but you have no access to the source for the iContact server software. If this is so, then your best hope would be a configuration option to alter the RSS format. That is, in your account interface, maybe they let you customize the RSS output (I highly doubt this, but it would be cool).

    However, even if the above is true, I can think of a potential workaround -- a way to re-feed the feed, so to speak. It's only of use if you have control over the link(s) to the feed, or if your client is the only one making use of the feed (in which case the solution is easier still). Do I have your situation right? How is the feed to be used (by your client or the public?)
    Last edited by bdominick; 06-11-2008 at 12:13 AM.
    Brian Dominick
    | WebRoot Solutions
    | Server Administrator, Software Developer
    http://mywebroot.com

  5. #5
    rlhanson's Avatar
    rlhanson is offline Master Glow Jedi
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Chapman, Kansas
    Posts
    531

    Default

    Hi Brian! Thanks for your response.
    Yes, I do not have access to there server software and no, they don't offer to customize the feed.

    How is the feed to be used (by your client or the public?)
    This is the page she has been having me update manually each time she sends out a new release:
    Anton Communications - Public Relations by Genevieve Anton, Southern California

    It has the client news release title, headline, and date of release.

    I like it the way icontact has it displayed here:
    antonpr&#039;s Member Profile - iContact Community

    I found a rss to js thing last night - the results are here: test

    I'm concerned about visitors who don't have javascript enabled though. I don't know how we would get the headline unless I coded some sort of id into the news release headline - if that's even possible....

    I have an aggregator script someone made and let me use on another site, but it's been a couple of years and I was pretty lost on the whole concept at the time.

    Just an fyi: I am doing her site maintenance (as her designer is super busy) so I have access to the ftp but not neccessarily her control panel.

    Thanks so much for your help!
    Last edited by rlhanson; 06-11-2008 at 08:24 AM. Reason: added a link :)
    Thank you,
    Lynne Hanson
    RL Hanson-Online

  6. #6
    bdominick's Avatar
    bdominick is offline I am a Glowru!
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Posts
    76

    Default

    Hi Lynn. So if you're just trying to use the feed on your client's own site, the javascript option looks pretty good. I've used it before. Yeah, some users don't have javascript enabled, but in those cases they just don't see the feed -- it's not like it screws everything up.

    There is another option. You could use a server-side application to generate a custom display of the feed (titles only) and then use an iframe to include that display in the page. This option doesn't require js, though it does require a modern browser. For this method you would have to install something on the site, though -- probably I'd recommend a simple PHP script that imports and displays RSS. One that caches the RSS would be optimal, since it wouldn't require calls to the iContact server during parsing or page loading (like the js solution does). But in terms of page loading, the PHP solution should be a good bit faster than the js solution.
    Brian Dominick
    | WebRoot Solutions
    | Server Administrator, Software Developer
    http://mywebroot.com

  7. #7
    bdominick's Avatar
    bdominick is offline I am a Glowru!
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Posts
    76

    Default

    Or, if you went with the server-side option, you could also just change the name of client_news.htm to client_news.php and call the RSS script right from the page, skipping the iframe and making the whole thing browser neutral.
    Brian Dominick
    | WebRoot Solutions
    | Server Administrator, Software Developer
    http://mywebroot.com

  8. #8
    rlhanson's Avatar
    rlhanson is offline Master Glow Jedi
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Chapman, Kansas
    Posts
    531

    Default

    Hi Brian -
    Thanks for the advice. I found a php script I downloaded on Wednesday - I'll let you know how it works out once I have an opportunity to test it out!

    Thanks again.
    Thank you,
    Lynne Hanson
    RL Hanson-Online

  9. #9
    bdominick's Avatar
    bdominick is offline I am a Glowru!
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Posts
    76

    Default

    Great. It should be pretty easy to tell what to alter to get just the headline/link to show up, but if it's not, feel free to paste the script here and I can show you what to alter. Sounds like you've got it figured out.
    Brian Dominick
    | WebRoot Solutions
    | Server Administrator, Software Developer
    http://mywebroot.com

  10. #10
    rlhanson's Avatar
    rlhanson is offline Master Glow Jedi
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Chapman, Kansas
    Posts
    531

    Default

    Hey Brian -

    Well, turns out my client is on an asp server so I have downloaded a rss2html asp script. I don't know if it's the script or the feed but I can't get the date to show up using either the asp or the javascript solution.

    So here's the page I would like it to look like:
    Anton Communications - Public Relations by Genevieve Anton, Southern California

    Here's the asp page:
    Anton Communications - Public Relations by Genevieve Anton, Southern California

    And the js page:
    Anton Communications - Public Relations by Genevieve Anton, Southern California

    rss2html.asp
    Code:
     
    <%
    Response.Expires = -1
    ' =========== RSS2HTML.ASP for ASP/ASP.NET ==========
    ' copyright 2005-2008 (c) www.Bytescout.com
    ' version 1.26, 28 May 2008
    ' =========== configuration =====================
    ' ##### URL to RSS Feed to display #########
    URLToRSS = "Anton Communications"
    ' ##### max number of displayed items #####
    MaxNumberOfItems = 7
    ' ##### Main template constants
    MainTemplateHeader = "<table>"
    MainTemplateFooter = "</table>"
    ' #####
    ' ######################################
    Keyword1 = "" ' Keyword1 = "tech" - set non-empty keyword value to filter by this keyword
    Keyword2 = "" ' Keyword1 = "win" - set non-empty keyword value to filter by this 2nd keyword too
    ' #################################
    ' ##### Item template.
    ' ##### {LINK} will be replaced with item link
    ' ##### {TITLE} will be replaced with item title
    ' ##### {DESCRIPTION} will be replaced with item description
    ' ##### {DATE} will be replaced with item date and time
    ' ##### {COMMENTSLINK} will be replaced with link to comments (if you use RSS feed from blog)
    ' ##### {CATEGORY} will be replaced with item category
    ItemTemplate = "<tr><td><font face=Tahoma, Humanst521 BT, Verdana, Arial><font size=2><strong>{DATE}</strong><br/><strong>{CATEGORY}<br/></strong><a href=" & """{LINK}""" & ">{TITLE}</a><BR></font></td></tr>"
    ' ##### Error message that will be displayed if not items etc
    ErrorMessage = "Error has occured while trying to process " &URLToRSS & "<BR>Please contact web-master"
    ' ================================================
    Set xmlHttp = Server.CreateObject("MSXML2.ServerXMLHTTP.3.0")
    xmlHttp.Open "GET", URLToRSS, false
    xmlHttp.Send()
    RSSXML = xmlHttp.ResponseText
    Set xmlDOM = Server.CreateObject("MSXML2.DomDocument.3.0")
    xmlDOM.async = False
    xmlDOM.validateOnParse = False
    xmlDom.resolveExternals = False
    If not xmlDOM.LoadXml(RSSXML) Then
    ErrorMessage = "Can not load XML:" & vbCRLF & xmlDOM.parseError.reason & vbCRLF & ErrorMessage
    End If
    Set xmlHttp = Nothing ' clear HTTP object
    Set RSSItems = xmlDOM.getElementsByTagName("item") ' collect all "items" from downloaded RSS
    RSSItemsCount = RSSItems.Length-1
    ' if not <item>..</item> entries, then try to get <entry>..</entry>
    if RSSItemsCount = -1 Then
    Set RSSItems = xmlDOM.getElementsByTagName("entry") ' collect all "entry" (atom format) from downloaded RSS
    RSSItemsCount = RSSItems.Length-1
    End If
    Set xmlDOM = Nothing ' clear XML
     
    ' writing Header
    if RSSItemsCount > 0 then
    Response.Write MainTemplateHeader
    End If
    j = -1
    For i = 0 To RSSItemsCount
    Set RSSItem = RSSItems.Item(i)
    ' fix for the issue when a description from a previous item 
    ' is used if current item description is empty provided by George Sexton
    RSSdescription="&nbsp;" 
    RSSCommentsLink="&nbsp;"
    for each child in RSSItem.childNodes
    Select case lcase(child.nodeName)
    case "title"
    RSStitle = child.text
    case "link"
    If RSSLink = "" Then
    If child.Attributes.length>0 Then
    RSSLink = child.GetAttribute("href")
    if (RSSLink <> "") Then
    if child.GetAttribute("rel") <> "alternate" Then
    RSSLink = ""
    End If
    End If
    End If ' if has attributes
    If RSSLink = "" Then
    RSSlink = child.text
    End If
    End If
    case "description"
    RSSdescription = child.text
    case "content" ' atom format
    RSSdescription = child.text
    case "published"' atom format
    RSSDate = child.text
    case "pubdate"
    RSSDate = child.text
    case "comments"
    RSSCommentsLink = child.text
    case "category"
    Set CategoryItems = RSSItem.getElementsByTagName("category")
    RSSCategory = ""
    for each categoryitem in CategoryItems
    if RSSCategory <> "" Then
    RSSCategory = RSSCategory & ", "
    End If
    RSSCategory = RSSCategory & categoryitem.text
    Next
    End Select
    next
    ' now check filter
    If (InStr(RSSTitle,Keyword1)>0) or (InStr(RSSTitle,Keyword2)>0) or (InStr(RSSDescription,Keyword1)>0) or (InStr(RSSDescription,Keyword2)>0) then
    j = J+1
    if J<MaxNumberOfItems then
    ItemContent = Replace(ItemTemplate,"{LINK}",RSSlink)
    ItemContent = Replace(ItemContent,"{TITLE}",RSSTitle)
    ItemContent = Replace(ItemContent,"{DATE}",RSSDate)
    ItemContent = Replace(ItemContent,"{COMMENTSLINK}",RSSCommentsLink)
    ItemContent = Replace(ItemContent,"{CATEGORY}",RSSCategory)
    Response.Write Replace(ItemContent,"{DESCRIPTION}",RSSDescription)
    ItemContent = ""
    RSSLink = ""
    End if
    End If
    Next
    ' writing Footer
    if RSSItemsCount > 0 then
    Response.Write MainTemplateFooter
    else
    Response.Write ErrorMessage
    End If
    ' Response.End ' uncomment this for use in on-the-fly output
    %>
    table within client_news2.asp (I didn't code the page so no laughing at the <font> tags, etc!)
    HTML Code:
    <table width="90%" border="1" align="center" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" bordercolor="#254D67">
        <tr bgcolor="#254D67">
          <td width="35%" align="center" valign="top"><strong><font size="2" color="#ffffff" face="Tahoma, Humanst521 BT, Verdana, Arial">Client</font></strong></td>
          <td width="55%" align="center" valign="top"><strong><font size="2" color="#ffffff" face="Tahoma, Humanst521 BT, Verdana, Arial">Headline</font></strong></td>
          <td width="10%" align="center" valign="top"><strong><font size="2" color="#ffffff" face="Tahoma, Humanst521 BT, Verdana, Arial">Date</font></strong></td>
        </tr>
        <tr class="style1">
          <td width="35%" align="left" valign="top"><span class="style1"><font face="Tahoma, Humanst521 BT, Verdana, Arial">Cynthia Britain Studios</font></span></td>
          <td width="55%" align="left" valign="top"><div align="justify" class="style1"><font face="Tahoma, Humanst521 BT, Verdana, Arial"><!--#include virtual="RSS2HTML.asp"--></font></div></td>
          <td width="10%" align="center" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
        </tr>
      </table>
    Also, if I include description, then the entire e-newsletter shows up (how do I get the 1st few words?) like icontact does here:

    Anton Communications Publisher Profile - iContact Community

    If it's a major undertaking to help me figure this out - let me know - I will go with the js solution for now. Seems I never have easy questions!

    Thanks in advance!
    Thank you,
    Lynne Hanson
    RL Hanson-Online

Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14