Headlines Plugin

Description

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

Note: Syndic8.com ( http://www.syndic8.com/ ) is a good site listing many RSS feeds.

Syntax Rules

%HEADLINES{"..."}%

Parameter	Explanation	Default
"..."	source of RSS 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. Can 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. Can 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

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. Nnote, that some of the variables are already used above. This is done by purpose to use different feeds with the same formating parameters. If there's a conflict the non-dc tags have higher precedence, i.e. a <title> content </title> is prefered 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 refering to the <content:encoding> content </content:encoding>.

Examples

Write

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

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

Write

%HEADLINES{"http://www.business-opportunities.biz/feed" limit="3"}%

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

Plugin Settings

Plugin settings are stored as preferences variables. To reference a plugin setting write %<plugin>_<setting>%, for example, %HEADLINES_SHORTDESCRIPTION%

• One line description, shown in the TextFormattingRules topic:
  • Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Build news portals that show headline news based on RSS news feeds from news sites.

• Refresh rate in minutes for cached feeds. Disable caching: 0, default: 60
  • Set REFRESH = 60

• Maximum number of items shown. Default: 100
  • Set LIMIT = 100

• Use LWP::UserAgent, or fallback to TWiki's internal getUrl() method, Default: yes
  • Set USELWPUSERAGENT = yes
• Timeout fetching a feed using the LWP::UserAgent, Default: 20
  • Set USERAGENTTIMEOUT = 20

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

      * Set 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 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>

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)
    • headlineText: article text (div)

Plugin Installation Instructions

• Download the ZIP file
• Unzip it in your twiki installation directory. Content:

  File:	Description:
  data/TWiki/HeadlinesPlugin.txt	plugin topic
  pub/TWiki/HeadlinesPlugin/style.css	default css
  lib/TWiki/HeadlinesPlugin.pm	plugin perl module
  lib/TWiki/HeadlinesPlugin/Core.pm	plugin core

  Check if above examples show a news feed instead of variable.
• Optionally, run HeadlinesPlugin_installer.pl to automatically check and install other TWiki modules that this module depends on. You can also do this step manually.
• Alternatively, manually make sure the dependencies listed in the table below are resolved.

  Name	Version	Description
  Digest::MD5	>=2.33	Required. Download from CPAN:Digest::MD5
  LWP::UserAgent	>=5.803	Optional. Download from CPAN:LWP::UserAgent

Plugin Info

Plugin Author:	TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny, TWiki:Main.MichaelDaum
Copyright ©:	2002-2006, Peter Thoeny; 2005-2006, Michael Daum
License:	GPL (GNU General Public License)
Plugin Version:	v2.11
Change History:
23 Jul 2006:	improved atom parser; if a posting has no title default to 'Untitled'
26 Apr 2006:	added lazy compilation
10 Feb 2006:	packaged using the TWiki:Plugins/BuildContrib; minor fixes
03 Feb 2006:	off-by-one: limit="n" returned n+1 articles; make FORMAT and HEADER format strings more robust
23 Jan 2006:	released v2.00
05 Dec 2005:	internal feed urls must be absolute
02 Dec 2005:	added web.topic shorthand for internal feeds
29 Nov 2005:	fixed CDATA handling
21 Nov 2005:	added ATOM support; extended RSS support; added dublin core support; added content support; optionally using LWP to fetch feeds to follow redirections; corrected CPAN dependencies ; recoding special chars from html integer to entity encoding to increase browser compatibility; added css support; use getWorkArea() if available
11 May 2005:	TWiki:Main.WillNorris: added DevelopBranch compatability
31 Oct 2004:	Fixed taint issue by TWiki:Main.AdrianWeiler; small performance improvement
29 Oct 2004:	Fixed issue of external caching if mod_perl or SpeedyCGI is used
02 Aug 2002:	Implemented caching of feeds, thanks to TWiki:Main/RobDuarte
11 Jun 2002:	Initial version (V1.000)
Perl Version:	5.8
TWiki:Plugins/Benchmark:	GoodStyle 100%, FormattedSearch 99.5%, HeadlinesPlugin 94%
Plugin Home:	TWiki:Plugins/HeadlinesPlugin
Feedback:	TWiki:Plugins/HeadlinesPluginDev
Appraisal:	TWiki:Plugins/HeadlinesPluginAppraisal

-- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny - 11 May 2005
-- TWiki:Main.MichaelDaum - 23 Jul 2006