Extension talk:RSS Reader

Working around firewall/proxy issues
You may have to use a proxy server to access sites outside of your firewall if you see the following error: Error: It's not possible to get http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_uk_edition/world/rss.xml

You can do this by adding the following function to lastRSS.php (taken from http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-10878-0.html?forumID=10&threadID=143268&messageID=1585447):

You will also need to change the following lines: to

Many notices appearing
Notice: Use of undefined constant lastRSS - assumed 'lastRSS' in \wiki\extensions\RSSReader\RSSReader.php on line 52

Notice: Undefined index: time in \wiki\extensions\RSSReader\RSSReader.php on line 107

Notice: Undefined index: desc in \wiki\extensions\RSSReader\RSSReader.php on line 123

Notice: Undefined variable: output in \wiki\extensions\RSSReader\RSSReader.php on line 138

Notice: Use of undefined constant lastRSS - assumed 'lastRSS' in \wiki\extensions\RSSReader\RSSReader.php on line 146

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at \wiki\extensions\RSSReader\RSSReader.php:52) in \wiki\includes\WebResponse.php on line 10


 * (but there aren't any trailing spaces!)

Svanslyck 06:32, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

These are notices, due to the configuration of your web server (actually also a coding problem, because this notice should be avoided with an isset clause). In order to make them disappear, just type this at the beginning your RSSReader.php script: error_reporting(E_ALL ^ E_NOTICE);
 * 1) Disable notices

Fatal error in Mediawiki 1.11
Does anyone have this working on MediaWiki 1.11. All I get is Fatal error: Class name must be a valid object or a string in .../extensions/RSSReader/RSSReader.php on line 144 --Valkyrie 03:47, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You need to install also lastRSS, follow the instruction.

Strange Issue
When I install this extension, the code of lastRSS.php appears at the top of my wiki, below the tabs and with the icon on top of it, but above the content and sidebar.as well as this I cannot submit edits to any pages. ^^^ above unsigned comment, contributed by User:12Ghost12
 * Can you link me to the error or send a screen capture? As well as tell me your version of PHP and Mediawiki, also, how did you install the extension. For some reason I think its probably an error with how the extension was installed, or how your PHP handled it. --DFRussia 00:40, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I installed the extension by following the instructions on the extension page. I am using MediaWiki 1.10.0 and PHP 5.1.4.

image
 * Hmm, that's weird (sorry for the slow response, just noticed the image). Well, check for some little things like extra whitespace after the closing PHP tag "?>" and that all the PHP tags are present everywhere the should be "" as the very last thing in a file. --DFRussia 16:10, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

FYI I got the same problem when I used wget to get the lastRSS.phps file, due to all the escaping. (duh)... Cutting/pasting the code workinged fine.

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 [www.fanhistory.com/index.php/Harry_Potter_fandom_on_rss 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 [www.fanhistory.com/index.php/CSI_stories_on_rss this] and other times, I do not. --PurplePopple 13:47, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Weird. This is an error is lastRSS, I did not write lastRSS so I can't tell you off the top of my head, but ofcourse I will look into it and try to fix your problem. Can you give me some information about the version of PHP and MediaWiki you are using? Thank you. --DFRussia 14:12, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Heehee, nevermind. I checked your talk paged and I've pointed that out before. You have recent version of both PHP and MediaWiki. I think it is either a server time issue (like I mentioned on your talk page) or maybe a lastRSS issue. I will try to look over lastRSS and see what could be causing the problem, but it will be hard for me to fix, since I can not observe the bug on my own system. --DFRussia 14:15, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
 * -I was having the same issue and then I synced up the clocks in my user preferences "date & time" page. Problem solved!

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)

$wgOut->addScript working?
Does this line:

$wgOut->addScript(''); //add CSS

seem to be working for anyone? I would just soon comment it out, actually. (Comment Added by User:Jclerner)


 * Are you having issues with that line? I had some issues with the function when I was coding another extension (that I haven't put up on Media Wiki) with it not doing exactly what I wanted.... but it never gave me a specific error or stop the general script from functioning. In other words, if you are getting an error, could you describe the error more? --DFRussia 08:08, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to work with some RSS feeds...
I've tried to add some some .php and .asp RSS feeds, but it wont read them. Only the .xml files. Is there a way or fix to accept .php or .asp RSS feeds? -- Kirjapan 04:23, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I cannot get it to work with this particular feed, any ideas (great script many thanks): http://www.legalservices.gov.uk/xml/rss/cdsnewsupdates/rss.xml


 * For the person having issue with a particular feed, I will check that feed with my installation and see what kind of messages I get. As for Kirjapan, reading .php and .asp RSS feeds is more inside the lastRSS code. I will try to look around and see what I can do, but I doubt I will make much headway, sorry --DFRussia 00:39, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I tried out your feed, and I am getting errors too. It seems like a bug inside lastRSS, I think. I will see what I can do. --DFRussia 01:22, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I tried the above feed in WM 1.11.x and got the feed title and a list of empty bullets. -- michael^roberts^lnssi^com

Not working on my localhost site
This is my 4th attempt to find a reader that works on Mediawiki 1.11. When I install the program, add a newsfeed and then refresh the Firefox browser what I see is the lastRSS.php script. Somehow the script is read straight into the browser window and I cannnot access my site until I remove the include command. Thanks Keveen
 * Whoopsy. Totally gave the wrong response to the wrong person :P. Disregard the previous response (if you look it up in page history). To help you Keveen I would need a bit more info about how you include the scripts and maybe a screenshot of what is happening or a link to the wiki. Cheers --DFRussia 00:37, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Error: It's not possible to get http://www. ...
Hello,

When I try to use RSS reader on the wiki with the syntax:

I get :

What is the problem ?

Dom 10:31, 1 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Hmmm, that's one of my standard error outputs, it means that your server was unable to go and fetch that feed. I checked the feed and it exists, so it might be an issue with your server's way of getting the feed. Are you able to fetch any other feeds? I will check this particular feed on my installation to see if I can fetch it. --DFRussia 00:41, 2 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I tested the youtube feed, and it works perfectly fine. If it keeps failing, try some other feeds and tell me what happens. I think it might be a server issue for you. --DFRussia 01:19, 2 November 2007 (UTC)


 * This issue arises if the web server is not allowing the fopen functions to connect to remote URLs. If you hack , look for the following:
 * if ($f = @fopen($rss_url, 'r')) {
 * Remove the @ sign, and refresh the page. If it has a problem with fopen, it will throw an error.  Nihilist 17:38, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Quickfix for resolving problems with displaying of special characters (e.g. German Umlaute)
Hi,

here´s a quickfix that will allow the correct representation of German Umlaute:

function repairUTF8($inputString) { //function corrects display errors with different charsets of RSS feed sources (ISO and UTF8) //the function manually corrects the german special characters by setting all content to UTF8 and converting special characters to HTML code $wrongChars = array("ä","ö","ü","Ä","Ö","Ü","ß"); $correctChars = array ("&auml;","&ouml;","&uuml;","&Auml;","&Ouml;","&Uuml;","&szlig;"); $outputString = str_replace($wrongChars,$correctChars,$inputString); $outputString = utf8_encode($outputString); $outputString = str_replace($wrongChars,$correctChars,$inputString);

return $outputString; }

Conflict with DPL2 Extension
I've set up RSS Reader and find it works fine, except when the DPL2 (Dynamic Page List) extension is on the same page. Then a string of errors are reported in the file RSSReader.php, as follows: undefined index on lines 74 (number), 89 (width), 107 (time); undefined variable on line 133 (output); and undefined constant (last RSS) on line 146.

--C4duser 18:08, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Apparently DPL2 is outdated and not supported, and DPL should be used instead, however I would not be suprised if DPL causes the same errors as DPL2. I will install DPL at some point and test it. I have exams and lots of work right now, so don't expect any fixes very quickly. If you have a good fix, please mention it here or on my talk page and we'll work it into the official code --DFRussia 03:22, 27 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I am using the latest DPL version. However, this problem is not really serious for me, since I plan to use to reader on a separate subpage where DPL will not be used. A more serious problem is that the reader doesn't render properly most foreign language characters (for example, the tilde in portuguese. The same feed renders properly in Firefox or other readers, but comes out garbled in this reader. I suspect that something is wrong with the choice of encoding.  Anyway, the extension is quite useful. Thanks. --C4duser 04:59, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Does not work with blogger feeds, i just get a little grey line.
For example when i use this properly formated RSS feed from blogger http://blog.shsfirst.org/feeds/posts/default all I get is a grey underline.

Persistent Inability to Access Feeds
Hi! I was playing with your extension, trying to get it to work on our new company MediaWiki instance, but I keep hitting a snag. I've followed the instructions step by step, but keep getting this error message:

Error: It's not possible to get http://www.azcentral.com/rss/feeds/news.xml...

The feed seems to be valid, and lastRSS is generating files in the cache directory, but the contents of the file seem anomalous. I have also verified that the allow_url_fopen = On is set in php.ini, which is an instance of PHP5 running on an 2K IIS server.

http://www.azcentral.com/rss/feeds/news.xml generates rsscache_5e0bee2f55dfa0373ccc86ccff12422a which contains b:0;

Any ideas?

Does this work with Bugzilla feeds?
I generate Bugzilla RSS feeds based on queries (e.g., a list of all open bugs for a given release), and want to include them in certain wiki pages. These work fine in the browser, but http:// /buglist.cgi?bug_id=163%2C147%2C169%2C143%2C165%2C140%2C168%2C142%2C141%2C173&field-1-0-0=bug_id&query_format=advanced&type-1-0-0=anyexact&value-1-0-0=163%2C147%2C169%2C143%2C165%2C140%2C168%2C142%2C141%2C173&title=Bug%20List:%20&ctype=rss simply results in an empty page.

The following works fine: http://mmamania.com/feed/. On the other hand, when I try the 'http://www.legalservices.gov.uk/xml/rss/cdsnewsupdates/rss.xml' feed (mentioned in a previous issue on this page), I just get a list of empty bullets. -- com^lnssi^roberts^michael

How to get rid of PHP Notices and Warnings?
I'm able to read RSS feeds from SourceForge but I'm getting PHP Notice messages. I'm sorry for my total ignorance on PHP, but... how can I get rid of these messages?

Thanks for this great extension! Notice: Undefined index: number in /var/www/wiki.jquantlib.org/extensions/RSSReader/RSSReader.php on line 74 Notice: Undefined index: width in /var/www/wiki.jquantlib.org/extensions/RSSReader/RSSReader.php on line 89 Notice: Undefined index: time in /var/www/wiki.jquantlib.org/extensions/RSSReader/RSSReader.php on line 107 Notice: Undefined index: desc in /var/www/wiki.jquantlib.org/extensions/RSSReader/RSSReader.php on line 123 Notice: Undefined variable: output in /var/www/wiki.jquantlib.org/extensions/RSSReader/RSSReader.php on line 133 Notice: Use of undefined constant lastRSS - assumed 'lastRSS' in /var/www/wiki.jquantlib.org/extensions/RSSReader/RSSReader.php on line 146 -- Richard Gomes at http://www.jquantlib.org/

Oh well.... I finally found how to do it. Put the following code in the beginning of your LocalSettings.php error_reporting(0); ini_set("display_errors", 0);

-- Richard Gomes at http://www.jquantlib.org/

213.123.170.12 23:39, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

1.7
I have mediawiki 1.7 does this extension work? If not, what extensions do? Odessaukrain 06:30, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Warning after install
I get the following warning once I installed RSS Reader. How do I resolve this?

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at $IP/extensions/RSSReader/lastRSS.php:220) in $IP/includes/WebResponse.php on line 10


 * I get these also. And there is definitely no trailing whitespace in either of the two PHP files, nor the CSS file.

Modification
If you want open Links into external Window Change Line

From

to

Have Fun,

greetings

Flo

Hiding Feed Title
Thanks for one really great extension!

I would like to hide/not display Feed title at all. Is it feasible? If not, can one style title?, via CSS?

--- I would also like this functionality. Thanks. --jay

Getting Around allow_url_fopen
Dreamhost hosts my wiki, and they block allow_url_fopen. I looked on their wiki, and they say to use cURL to work around it, and give explanations for replacing the parts of the code that call for an external website (http://wiki.dreamhost.com/CURL_PHP_tutorial), but I can't find anything in the RSSReader.php code (or the lastRSS.php code, for that matter) that matches the "load_file", "load_string," "get_contents," etc. that it says need to be replaced. Where is the RSSReader code fetching the rss file? I don't know hardly any php, so I may be in way over my head trying to get this to work, but I thought I'd try. - Jandy
 * Ok, I created an alternative to lastRSS (cURLRSS) that does not require allow_url_fopen, refer to this section. I have not been able to test it properly (since I am too lazy to install the cURL library), so if you want to hack/test it and tell me any errors you get, that would be great. RSS Reader 0.2.3 does not support cURLRSS by default, you will have to make some modifications in RSS Reader 0.2.3 to load cURLRSS. Basically you will need to ensure that  is called and that   is set. I am go code RSS Reader 0.2.4 soon (hopefully today) and that will support cURLRSS without hacking. Good luck! --DFRussia 06:51, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Allow users to view an entry summary along with title
Has anyone got anything started on this "Allow users to view an entry summary along with title" improvement, or should I just start whacking at it? I'd like to add an attribute like " " so I can see as much of the xml feed as possible. Maybe tuck it away behind some js.

This seems like the biggest step towards greatly improving this ext. --Theothertom 14:24, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Using with Templates and Variables
Does anyone know how to have the tags work with embedded templates. For example I'm trying to add some google finance rss's to my page using a template:

Template:RSSTest finance.google.com/finance?morenews=10&rating=1&q=:&output=rss

Calling the template I get the correct return value:

Gives the feed as expected. However, then using this to generate an RSS feed fails:

Gives:

Error: It's not possible to get ...

If I simply enter the non-templated rss link this RSS extension works as expected. -Thanks, James

User Agent required while fetching RSS XML
I was trying to get a XML feed from google news

http://news.google.com/news?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hl=en&tab=wn&ned=us&q=obama&ie=UTF-8&output=rss

but ended up with Error: It's not possible to get http://news.google.com/news?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hl=en&tab=wn&ned=us&q=obama&ie=UTF-8&output=rss

I checked with wget it was not giving me the feed, so I used -U "Mozilla Version String" and it got the feed. Is there a way around this... It would be great if we could pass on user agent string of the guy trying to view the mediawiki page to php(5)-curl.