Headlines Plugin

Page contents

• Description
• Syntax Rules
• Examples
• Plugin Settings
• Style Sheets
• Plugin Installation Instructions
• Plugin Info

Show headline news in TWiki pages based on RSS and ATOM news feeds from external sites

Description

This plugin displays RSS and ATOM feeds from news sites. Use it to build news portals that show headline news.

Notes:

• RSS (Rich Site Summary) is an XML standard used to publish frequently updated works such as blog entries, news headlines and audio.
• Atom is an XML syndication format used for web feeds.
• Syndic8.com at http://www.syndic8.com/ lists many RSS and ATOM feeds.

Syntax Rules

%HEADLINES{"..."}%

Parameter Explanation Default "..." Source of RSS or ATOM feed; this can be an url (starting with http) or a web.topic location for internal feeds None; is required href="..." (Alternative to above) N/A refresh="60" Refresh rate in minutes for caching feed; "0" for no caching Global REFRESH setting limit="12" Maximum number of items shown Global LIMIT setting header="..." Header. May include these variables: - $channeltitle, $title: title of channel (channel.title) - $channellink, $link: link of channel (channel.link) - $channeldescription, $description: description (channel.description) - $channeldate, $date: publication date of the channel (channel.pubDate) - $rights: copyrights of the channel (channel.copyright) - $imagetitle: title text for site (image.title) - $imagelink: link for site (image.link) - $imageurl: URL of image (image.url) - $imagedescription: description of image (image.description) Global HEADER setting format="..." Format of one item. May include these variables: - $title: news item title (item.title) - $link: news item link (item.link) - $description: news item description (item.description) - $date: the publication date (item.pubDate, item.date) - $category: the article category (item.category) Global FORMAT setting touch="..." Touch (edit/save) topics if the feed has updates. Specify a comma-space delimited list of TopicNames or Web.TopicNames, such as "%TOPIC%, NewsLetter". Useful to send out newsletter using MailerContrib, showing new feeds since last newsletter. To update feeds, visit topics with feeds in regular intervals (using cron with wget or the like). N/A

The header and format parameters might also use variables rendering the dc, image and content namespace information. Note, that only bits of interest have been implemented so far and those namespaces might not be implemented fully yet.

Rendering the dc namespace

The following variables are extracting the dc namespace info, that could be used in header and format. Note that some of the variables are already used above. This is done by purpose to use different feeds with the same formatting parameters. If there's a conflict the non-dc tags have higher precedence, i.e. a <title> content </title> is preferred over <dc:title> content </dc:title>.

• $title: channel/article title (dc:title)
• $creator: channel creator (dc:creator)
• $subject: subject text; this will also add an image according to the subject hash list, see above (dc:subject)
• $description: ... (dc:description)
• $publisher: the channel/article publisher (dc:publisher)
• $contributor: ... (dc:contributor)
• $date: ... (dc:date)
• $type: ... (dc:type)
• $format: ... (dc:format)
• $identifier: ... (dc:identifier)
• $source: ... (dc:source)
• $language: ... (dc:language)
• $relation: ... (dc:relation)
• $coverage: ... (dc: coverage)
• $rights: ... (dc: rights)

Rendering the image namespace

An image:item is converted into an <img> tag using the following mappings:

• src: image url (rdf:about attribute of the image.item tag)
• alt: image title (title)
• width: image width (image:width)
• height: image height image:height)

Rendering the content namespace

The variable $content is referring to the <content:encoding> content </content:encoding>.

Examples

Slashdot News

Write

%HEADLINES{ "http://slashdot.org/slashdot.rdf" 
  header="*[[$link][$title]]:* $description" 
  format="$t* [[$link][$title]]"
  limit="4"
}%

to get the latest Slashdot news as a bullet list format:

HeadlinesPlugin ERROR: 501 Protocol scheme 'https' is not supported (LWP::Protocol::https not installed)

Business Opportunities Weblog

Write

%HEADLINES{ "http://www.business-opportunities.biz/feed" limit="2" }%

to get the latest postings on the "Business Opportunities" weblog:

HeadlinesPlugin ERROR: 501 Protocol scheme 'https' is not supported (LWP::Protocol::https not installed)

Plugin Settings

Plugin settings are stored as preferences settings. Do not change the settings here, they are here only for illustration purposes showing the default values. Define the settings in Main.TWikiPreferences. For example, to customize the HEADLINESPLUGIN_USERAGENTNAME setting, add a * Set HEADLINESPLUGIN_USERAGENTNAME = ... bullet in Main.TWikiPreferences.

• Refresh rate in minutes for cached feeds. Set to 0 to disable caching:
  • Set HEADLINESPLUGIN_REFRESH = 60

• Maximum number of items shown:
  • Set HEADLINESPLUGIN_LIMIT = 100

• Use LWP::UserAgent if set to 1, or fallback to TWiki's internal getUrl() method if set to 0:
  • Set HEADLINESPLUGIN_USELWPUSERAGENT = 1

• Timeout fetching a feed using the LWP::UserAgent:
  • Set HEADLINESPLUGIN_USERAGENTTIMEOUT = 20

• Name of user agent:
  • Set HEADLINESPLUGIN_USERAGENTNAME = TWikiHeadlinesPlugin/2011-07-08

• Default header: (variables are explained in the syntax rules)

      * Set HEADLINESPLUGIN_HEADER = <div class="headlinesChannel"><div class="headlinesLogo"><img src="$imageurl" alt="$imagetitle" border="0" />%BR%</div><div class="headlinesTitle">$n---+!! <a href="$link">$title</a></div><div class="headlinesDate">$date</div><div class="headlinesDescription">$description</div><div class="headlinesRight">$rights</div></div>

• Default format of one item: (variables are explained in the syntax rules)

      * Set HEADLINESPLUGIN_FORMAT = <div class="headlinesArticle"><div class="headlinesTitle"><a href="$link">$title</a></div>$n<span class="headlinesDate">$date</span> <span class="headlinesCreator"> $creator</span> <span class="headlinesSubject"> $subject </span>$n<div class="headlinesText"> $description</div></div>

• Values taken from configure: (only supported if CPAN:LWP is installed)
  • $TWiki::cfg{PROXY}{HOST} - proxy host, such as "proxy.example.com";
  • $TWiki::cfg{PROXY}{PORT} - proxy port, such as "8080";
  • $TWiki::cfg{PROXY}{SkipProxyForDomains} - domains excluded from proxy, such as "intra.example.com, bugs.example.com";

Style Sheets

The default HEADER and FORMAT settings use the following styles. See the style.css file defining the default CSS properties (indentation illustrates enclosure).

• headlinesRss: output of the HeadlinesPlugin (div)
  • headlinesChannel: channel header (div)
    • headlinesLogo: channel logo (div)
    • headlinesTitle: channel title (div)
    • headlinesDate: channel date (div)
    • headlinesDescription: channel description (div)
    • headlinesRight: channel copyright (div)
  • headlinesArticle: one news item (div)
    • headlinesTitle: article title (div)
    • headlinesDate: article date (span)
    • headlinesCreator: author of article (span)
    • headlinesSubject: subect category of the article (span)
    • headlinesText: article text (div)

Plugin Installation Instructions

This is a pre-installed plugin. TWiki administrators can upgrade the plugin as needed on the TWiki server.

Plugin Info

• One line description, shown in the TextFormattingRules topic:
  • Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Show headline news in TWiki pages based on RSS and ATOM news feeds from external sites

Plugin Author: TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny, TWiki:Main.MichaelDaum Copyright: © 2002-2013 Peter Thoeny, TWiki.org © 2005-2007 Michael Daum wikiring.de License: GPL (GNU General Public License) Plugin Version: 2013-02-16

Perl Version: 5.8 Plugin Benchmark: GoodStyle 100%, FormattedSearch 99.5%, HeadlinesPlugin 94% Plugin Home: http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/HeadlinesPlugin Feedback: http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/HeadlinesPluginDev Appraisal: http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/HeadlinesPluginAppraisal

Related Topics: VarHEADLINES, TWikiPlugins, AdminDocumentationCategory, TWikiPreferences