Saturday, February 20, 2010

How will demonstrate an XML Feed On Your Website

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) has begun in a very massive way. Just as satellite television beams extra channels into your home than you can see, RSS allows you display an endless supply of alternative public content. Whilst RSS XML feeds are plenty, are not so plentiful in the method of clear, simple instruction when it comes to make use of these feeds. 

If you are one of each of the webmasters who uses a content management system that makes using RSS XML feeds as easily as you enter a feed URL you are lucky in that respect. For others, a trend they offered opportunities to be offered by developers of software and usage instructions will typically be filled with technical jargon. More crying, "Use my feed", but fewer tell you how. 

One of the best and easiest ways I've found to point out that content from an RSS XML feed on one of each of my websites is to use a complete PHP parser. Now, do not worry about what that means, think of it as something that someone (already) created a black box that produces it easy for you to use content from RSS feeds and display it on your site. 

For this guide, I used Magpies, because it is compact, works well and is distributed under the GPL, which essentially suggests that it is free for you to use. Now Magpies is written in PHP, so you need a compatible hosting account that allows you to execute PHP scripts. 

By using this guide, I assume you have some basic information about websites eg you know a way to FTP, change file permissions, etc. covering the basics of running a website is beyond the scope of this article. 

Instead, let's cowl, what is most likely the hardest step that displays content from an RSS feed on your site. 

1. Download the latest stable release of Magpies. 
2. Extract the contents of the ZIP file on your computer. 
3. The key files you want from the ZIP package is rss_cache.inc, rss_fetch.inc, rss_parse.inc, rss_utils.inc. You may also want extlib folder together with Snoopy.class.inc file within it. 
4. Produce a replacement file to display your RSS feed. I've called mine, index.php. Inside this file, copy and paste the contents of the file below and save it. 
5. Upload all the files and folder listed in step 3 and four to your hosting account. Place them in the specified location, but the guarantee (that) Snoopy.class.inc file is still within the extlib folder. 
6. Then visit the file you created in step 4 using your web browser. 

It is the basics of it. Once you've got it all, customizing the way you present the content of the diet is relatively easy. Simply refer to the Magpies website for management on how to try to do so.

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