Extension talk:RSS Reader

Extension rocks!
this extension totally rocks! installed it at http://www.phatnav.com/w/index.php?title=RSSTest --Wikiexpert 01:59, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

How can i uninstall this extension !???
After first time running, now a can´t use the orignal RSS-feed-function from Wiki (last changes in rss format)!!


 * This extension turns off parser caching for all the pages on which the tag is present. This could result in server strain if rss tags are present on many high traffic pages.

How can i make this reverse / turn the parser on ? Thanks, bye


 * You can refer to the install page for install instructions. If you follow those word for word, the extension should install. If you don't want to turn of parser caching, then comment out the line: . However, be warned if your do not disable caching, you will defeat the purpose of having an RSS feed, since the feed will only updated when someone modifies that page (since MediaWiki will cache it until then). I strongly discourage turning cache back on, if you are afraid the re-rendering might cause strain, then make a special page for the RSS feed and don't have any other hard to re-render content on that page.  I am not sure what you mean by "After first time running, now a can´t use the orignal RSS-feed-function from Wiki (last changes in rss format)!!". What original RSS feed function can't be used? Can you link me to where you test this so I can have a look around? I hope this helped --DFRussia 16:25, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Extension is working fine
The RSS Reader Extension is working fine for me on MediaWiki 1.10.1, and I haven't discovered the side effects mentioned above. What I definitely like is that I don't need to install external helper applications like Magpie (that might not be available for my system).

I'm using this Extension to announce new pages and recent edits on my Wikis (side by side in two column layout), and to embed new articles from a Drupal site into the Wiki (one column); vice versa, in Drupal I'm publishing the new pages and recent edits feeds from the Wiki. It's not a real "integration" of both systems, but at least we see what is going on in different parts of the site - that's quite an enhancement, I think.

However, the (lack of) caching is a little drawback; the MediaWiki front page now takes approx. seven seconds to load (opposed to 1-2 secs without fetching the feeds from itself). As far as I understand, Drupal uses a different approach and fetches the feeds only in configurable intervals (depending on the feeds, we're using refreshing intervals between 15 minutes and 24 hrs.). A little caching would widen the possible uses for RSS Reader, at least in our environment (e.g. for matching MediaWiki categories with RSS feeds for the matching Drupal taxonomy terms or something like this).

What I couldn't figure out yet is where the feeds decriptions (headings/subheadings) are configured; the subheading description for the Recent Changes seems to be MediaWiki:recentchanges-feed-description, the subheading description for new pages seems to derive from MediaWiki:tagline; I have no idea where the descriptions for the headings come from (this might be off-topic since most probably I'm the only one using an RSS Reader Extension to announce changes in MediaWiki itself ;). --asb 13:57, 8 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I am glad you are enjoying the extension. My next modification for it is improving and benchmarking the caching. It should do SOME caching now, but I will do my best to improve it and make it actually usefull. I also plan into seeing if it is possible to pseudo-disable parser caching, but I do not think much is possible on that front. I also plan to include some sort of "self" reference to shortcircuit the system to avoid the RSS Reader from honestly fetching the info about its own wiki, since it should be able to get it from the PHP without even honestly fetching it. I have another project I am working on now, but I still try to update this one from time to time, so check back for improvements. (Also, if you want me to try to consider specific cases, link me to your wiki). Oh, and ofcourse, feel free to make requests for improvements. --DFRussia 16:57, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Your plans sound pretty cool, and take your time, there is no hurry.
 * I will gladly make suggestions for improvements if they occur to me, but currently RSS Reader does exactly what it is supposed to do, and so far even without any glitches ;-) --20:18, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I just wanted to add a ditto. I installed it a few hours ago. I don't have it on main pages but wanted to see how it would look on its own pages and stuck it on pages that go about three in if you're clicking through like this one here and looks pretty good so far. Very nice option to have, even if I don't use it much more beyond a few random pages mostly like an rss Reader. --PurplePopple 02:44, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

If rss time<$egCacheTimeMin, the whole page goes blank
I noticed that if the   is out-of-range compared to the settings, the page with the wrong time is not rendered at all. This means only someone with rights to edit LocalSettings.php could fix the problem. The site is using MediaWiki 9.3 on IIS. --DoSiDo 00:24, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the comment DoSiDo. I will see what is the problem and I will hopefully have it fixed in the next release. I do not have MediaWiki 9.3 installed to test it on, and I am not sure if I want to install it... but if you are interested in helping out, it'd be great if you offered to test the code :P (although I might change my mind and just install 9.3) --DFRussia 03:04, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I can't observe the error in 1.10.... which means it is probably some difference in the language most likely, since the code that checks the the time values does not use any mediawiki functions... only PHP. What version of PHP are you running? --DFRussia 04:40, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

=Sometimes= Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. I occasionally get "Warning: strtotime [function.strtotime]: Called with an empty time parameter. in /home/fandomin/public_html/extensions/RSSReader/lastRSS.php on line 159" on pages like this and other times, I do not. --PurplePopple 13:47, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

=Nofollow Tag=

Excellent extension. Works very well for us. Is it possible though to add a NoFollow tag to external links displayed here?
 * Do you mean the links inside this page on MediaWiki, or do you mean the links in general created by this extension on your site? I can add that if that is what you want. --DFRussia 02:43, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Question from my Talk
This is a question from my talk page, posted by 202.156.11.2 and my answer:

How can i display the first few content of my feed? not just the title of my feed.
 * By default, the extension should show both the title of the feed and the titles of the last few entries. If you want an entry summary for each item in the feed, that is not currently implemented (since I did not need/want it for what I was doing) but I can implement it (and was planning to anyways) in the next version. I hope you are enjoying the extension, if I misunderstood your concern please post more here --DFRussia 02:48, 1 October 2007 (UTC)