Geeklog Forums

Ok, I've been able to find a lot of threads on errors people have gotten when trying to enable an RSS feed block.

What I haven't been able to find is a step-by-step on how to actually make an RSS feed block.

I'm trying to make such a block now, but have no idea what to put into the "Block Function" area, into the "Last RSS Update" area, nor what to put into the "Block Content" area.

If there is a "how to" that explains these things, I'd appreciate it if someone could point me to it, or paste it here, or tell me what's in their own block for these areas.

Thanks.

For a portal block, you only need to fill in the general information (name, type of block) and the URL of the RSS feed.

"PHP Block Options" and "PHP Block Options", obviously, only refer to those types of blocks.

bye, Dirk

Ok.

So I can leave all of that stuff empty except for what type of block it is where I select "portal" and the url for the rss feed that goes into the RSS URL area, is that right? That's all I need to worry about doing?

By the way... how can I tell what an RSS url might be for a given sight? That might be a stupid question... but I'm wanting to pull some stories from a few sites that I know about... do I need to contact them and ask for the rss feed url?

Just to fill you in...

my site is a gaming site and I'm trying to pull some feed from a location that says it has an rss feed area. Here is their page that describes where their rss feed is located:

http://ddo.warcry.com/scripts/news/newsfeed.phtml?site=37


I put the following url into the RSS URL area:
http://dnd.warcry.com/scripts/news/rss/37.rdf

but I get in the block an error. In the error log it says "Thu Oct 14 14:04:45 2004 - Geeklog can not reach the feed at http://dnd.warcry.com/scripts/news/rss/37.rdf."

So, I must be doing something wrong...

Also... do I end up needing to set a new feed block for each site from which I want to pull? Or is there a way to grab the feed from multiple sites and have them make "story" entries in one of my topics?

Look out for those (usually orange) RSS or XML icons.


Make sure you have allow_url_fopen=on in your php.ini.

bye, Dirk

I don't have access to the php.ini file I don't think. That's a file for the server right? I'll contact my hosting service and hope they'll make that change for me... unless I'm wrong about where that file sits?

With shared hosting, you usually don't have access to this file. But they may allow you to override certain settings locally (with a .htaccess file).

bye, Dirk

Thanks, Dirk, that's what I thought... I just asked this question on another thread - about how to make an .htaccess thingie so that the allow_url_fopen=on thing might work right.

I've already contacted my hosting service - so if they will allow me to use the .htaccess thing that's what I'll want to do - I just don't know how. I've only ever had an .htaccess file to do file access requirements (forcing a login)....

Ok. I got my host service to make the php.ini file change.

I am getting a new error in the portal block - the log file records "Thu Oct 14 15:32:07 2004 - Parse error in http://dnd.warcry.com/scripts/news/rss/37.rdf: junk after document element at line 2"

I'm getting a slightly different error. Anyway, it looks like that feed is not valid.

Run it through the feed validator and maybe notify the site owner ...

bye, Dirk

Feed validator says it doesn't validate.

I'll notify the site admin of that site. Thanks for all the help Dirk!