Extension:RSS

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**MediaWiki extensions manual**
RSS Release status: stable
300px
Implementation	Tag
Description	Display RSS feeds on a wiki page
Author(s)	K. Elliott-McCrea, mutante, D. Kinzler, Rdb, Mafs, Alxndr, T. Gries, C. Reigrut, K001, J. De Dauw, J. Phoenix, M.A. Hershberger
Latest version	2.25.1 (2017-04-21)
MediaWiki	1.23+
PHP	5.4+
License	GNU General Public License 2.0 or later
Download	Download extension Git ^[?]: Download Git master browse repository (GitHub) commit history repository contributors (GitHub) code review README RELEASE-NOTES
Example	https://spookyverse.de/wiki/Vorlage:TV-Termine and https://spookyverse.de/wiki/Vorlage:RSS_News (see main the wikis' mains page where the rss feeds are displayed)
Parameters $wgRSSUserAgent $wgRSSDateDefaultFormat $wgRSSNamespaces $wgRSSUrlNumberOfAllowedRedirects $wgRSSFetchTimeout $wgRSSItemMaxLength $wgRSSAllowImageTag $wgRSSProxy $wgRSSCacheAge $wgRSSAllowLinkTag $wgRSSCacheCompare $wgRSSUrlWhitelist
Hooks used ParserFirstCallInit
Translate the RSS extension if it is available at translatewiki.net
Check usage and version matrix.
Issues	Open tasks · Report a bug

The RSS extension renders ("displays") one or more RSS feeds on a wiki page in a standard or user-definable format. Since version 2.00, the extension is compatible with Extension:WikiArticleFeeds which generates RSS or ATOM feeds from MediaWiki pages (authoring tool).

Download[edit]

The extension can be retrieved directly from Git ^[?]:

Browse code
Some extensions have tags for stable releases.
- Browse tags
- Select the tag
- Click "snapshot"
Each branch is associated with a past MediaWiki release. There is also a "master" branch containing the latest alpha version (might require an alpha version of MediaWiki).
- Browse branches
- Select a branch name
- Click "Continue"

Extract the snapshot and place it in the extensions/RSS/ directory of your MediaWiki installation.

If you are familiar with git and have shell access to your server, you can also obtain the extension as follows:

cd extensions/
git clone https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/mediawiki/extensions/RSS.git

Installation[edit]

Download and place the file(s) in a directory called RSS in your extensions/ folder.
Add the following code at the bottom of your LocalSettings.php:
```
wfLoadExtension( 'RSS' );
```
Done – Navigate to Special:Version on your wiki to verify that the extension is successfully installed.

To users running MediaWiki 1.27 or earlier:

The instructions above describe the new way of installing this extension using wfLoadExtension(). If you need to install this extension on these earlier versions (MediaWiki 1.27 and earlier), instead of wfLoadExtension( 'RSS' );, you need to use:

require_once "$IP/extensions/RSS/RSS.php";

Usage[edit]

Use one section between <rss>-tags for each feed. The rss element may contain parameters if you provide them as attributes to the rss element:

Parameters in the RSS tag
optional tag attributes	comment
`template="name"`	'name' (default: rss-item) is the name of a page in the MediaWiki template namespace (default: MediaWiki:Rss-item), which comprises the name of another template (default: MediaWiki:Rss-feed since version 1.90; Template:RSSPost before version 1.90) and a list of named variables of RSS Feed channel subelements (item), these values then being passed to this other template to finally format the RSS items. Note that when a template is specified here, the extension doesn't pass to it the name of a - default - formatting template. The template specified here needs to take care of that by hard-coding the name of the other template. I.e the default template process is completely aborted.
`templatename="Pagename"` or `templatename="Namespace:Pagename"`	'Pagename' is the name of a template page which is used in the default template MediaWiki:Rss-item (defining the channel subelements) to finally format the RSS items; the template can be in the template namespace (first example denotes a page Template:Pagename) or any other namespace (second example uses the full specified form Namespace:Pagename)
`max="n"`	show at most `n` channel subelements (items)
`highlight="term1 term2 ..."`	highlight terms in different colours
`filter="term1 term2 ..."`	show only RSS items with at least one of the `term`s
`filterout="term1 term2 ..."`	do not show any RSS item containing any of these terms
`reverse`	display the RSS items in reverse order (since Version 2.25 seems to be a bug regarding the reverse sorting which may be worked around like this: in \extensions\RSS\RSSParser.php edit line 62: `$this->reversed = true;` -> this needs to be set to false if entries should be sorted as dates desc (newest first) when the reverse variable is used in <rss>)
`date="(Y-m-d H:i:s)"`	date format string^[1] (since r111347)
`item-max-length="1000"`	limits the number of character in item descriptions (since r111350) This is not correctly working in v2.18 see task T32377.

Tracking category[edit]

All pages in a wiki which use the RSS extension are automatically added to the RSS tracking Category:Pages_with_RSS_feeds.

Templates for channel subelements and styling the RSS Feed[edit]

A manual setup is not necessarily required. You can skip this complicated documentation section.

One template name has been changed: MediaWiki:Rss-feed since version 1.90; Template:RSSPost before version 1.90.^[2]

The RSS extension renders feeds on wiki page by using two templates in the MediaWiki system namespace, which can be changed, or which wiki admins can redirected to user-editable namespaces. The mechanism is perhaps not easy to understand, but after its installation, the extension starts with a useful set of templates; a manual set-up is not required.

If a template is not specified, then the one in MediaWiki:Rss-item is used and determines only which RSS feed channel subelements (items) are used. The other template MediaWiki:Rss-feed determines how the complete feed is shown on wiki pages i.e. how and which channel items are shown are listed.

This is the template MediaWiki:Rss-item (since version 1.90) which determines which item elements are used^[2]

{{ MediaWiki:Rss-feed \
| title = {{{title}}} \
| link = {{{link}}} \
| date = {{{date}}} \
| author = {{{author}}} \
| description = {{{description}}} }}

The selected items are passed to the other template MediaWiki:Rss-feed (since version 1.90)^[2] which determines how the RSS Feed is rendered on the wiki pages. It iterates over each <item> of the RSS feed and substitutes the value of each element found there, e.g. <title>, <link>, <date>, <author>, etc.

Basic MediaWiki:Rss-feed template:

; '''<span class='plainlinks'>[{{{link}}} {{{title}}}]</span>'''
: {{{description}}}
: {{{author}}} {{{date}}}<!-- don't use newline here -->

An alternative improved MediaWiki:Rss-feed template requires the Extension:ParserFunctions:

<!-- The second is an improved version which requires Extension:ParserFunctions --> \
; '''<span class='plainlinks'>[{{{link}}} {{{title}}}]</span>''' \
{{#if: {{{description|}}} \
|: {{{description}}}}}{{#if: {{{author|}}} \
| {{#if: {{{date|}}} |: — {{{author}}} {{{date}}}}} \
| {{#if: {{{author|}}}|: — {{{author}}}}} {{#if: {{{date|}}}|:{{{date}}}}}|}}<!-- don't use newline here -->

Example[edit]

The following code renders the four recent items of the wikimedia blog feed on the present page and highlights some terms. The layout depends on the content of feed template MediaWiki:Rss-feed and also of the item template MediaWiki:Rss-item as mentioned above:

<rss max=4 highlight="community wiki foundation">https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/feed/</rss>

Wikipedia celebrates 20 years of free, trusted information for the world: 14 January 2021 — Wikipedia, the world’s largest free online encyclopedia, turns 20 years old on 15 January. This birthday commemorates two decades of global efforts to support free knowledge, open...; Wikimedia Foundation 2021-01-14 14:00:03
The infinite potential of human collaboration: On November 2, 2000, a space capsule carrying three astronauts arrived at the International Space Station (ISS). It was appropriately named “Expedition 1,” and it was the beginn...; Heather Walls 2021-01-11 21:41:00
Pandemics and politics: 2020 through the lens of Wikipedia: This is my sixth annual post sharing the list of Wikipedia’s most popular articles of the year, and each year I’ve had to come up with different ways of saying “people really love the latest pop cu...; Ed Erhart 2020-12-28 21:24:02
What Wikipedia saw during election week in the U.S., and what we’re doing next: Election Day in the United States was a critical moment for the country, with impacts that will extend well beyond one election cycle. For many Americans, it was an anxiety-inducing event. While vo...; Ryan Merkley 2020-12-17 16:10:34

Configuration settings[edit]

Add any one of the following settings you want to customize to your LocalSettings.php.

Configuration settings in RSS.php
parameter	default	comment
$wgRSSCacheAge	3600 (one hour)	Store entries in memcached for this many seconds
$wgRSSCacheCompare	false	Check cached content, if available, against remote. $wgRSSCacheCompare should be set to `false` or a timeout in seconds which is less than $wgRSSCacheAge after which a comparison will be made.
$wgRSSFetchTimeout	15 (since version 1.94) 5 (until version 1.93)	read timeout in seconds
$wgRSSUserAgent	'MediaWikiRSS/<Version> (+https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:RSS) / MediaWiki RSS extension'	User-Agent to use for fetching feeds
$wgRSSNamespaces	null	Ignore the RSS tag in all but the namespaces listed here `null` means the <rss> tag can be used anywhere
$wgRSSUrlWhitelist (since version 1.94)	array() (deny any URL = no whitelisted URLs)	URL whitelist of RSS Feeds, the whitelist is empty by default and no URLs are allowed. If there are items in the array, and the used feed URL isn't in the array, it will not be allowed. Use array( "*" ) if you as admin want to allow anyone to use any feed Url. In case your whitelist entries are ignored, please use square bracktes for the array instead, e.g. $wgRSSUrlWhitelist = [ 'URL1', 'URL2', 'URL3', ];
$wgRSSAllowedFeeds (until version 1.93)	array() (allow any URL )	DEPRECATED: URL whitelist of RSS Feeds: if there are items in the array, and the used URL isn't in the array, it will not be allowed (originally proposed in bug 27768)
$wgRSSUrlNumberOfAllowedRedirects (since version 2.10)	0 (no redirects are allowed)	Maximum number of redirects to follow (defaults to 0). This should only be used when the target URLs are trusted to avoid attacks on intranet services accessible by HTTP.
$wgRSSProxy	false	Optional proxy server url and port number to be used for fetching feeds. false: no proxy used If you need a proxy for certain urls and not for others: Example for disabling proxy use for certain urls in RSSParser::fetchRemote how to use a regular expression for a conditional proxy switching.
$wgRSSDateDefaultFormat	"Y-m-d H:i:s"	default date format^[1] for RSS publication dates (since r111347)
$wgRSSItemMaxLength (deactivated in version 2.12 r113297; will be activated later.)^[3]	200	default maximum length of item descriptions (since r111350)
$wgRSSAllowLinkTag	false	to allow active links in feed items
$wgRSSAllowImageTag	false	If you allow to see images in feed items. Do not confuse this parameter with $wgAllowImageTag of MediaWiki core, Display of images causes privacy problems, because the image is fetched in the browser context, so the (image-) server log will contain data of the requesting browser, see the discussion here. Note that since 2013 due to the MediaWiki sanitizer, image tags which have the form `<img src="blah"/>` are not parsed correctly by the MediaWiki core sanitizer and are not displayed irrespective of this setting (see task T48443). If you want the image to show, set this to true in LocalSettings.php and in \extensions\RSS\RSSParser.php remove this part at lines 485 if ( isset( $wgRSSAllowImageTag ) && $wgRSSAllowImageTag ) { $extraInclude[] = "img"; } else { $extraExclude[] = "img"; }

Technical history and attributions[edit]

RSS extension is a heavily modified version of the engines RSS by Mafs, RSS by Rdb78, RSS by Duesentrieb, and RSSFeed by Mutante.

References[edit]

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 https://php.net/date
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2
Former versions before 1.90 used the name Template:RSSPost in the template MediaWiki:Rss-item which thus had the default value
```
{{ RSSPost | title = {{{title}}} | link = {{{link}}} | date = {{{date}}} | author = {{{author}}} }}
```
↑ bug30377