RSS feed to integrate into Xara website

[garycwood84]

I want to insert an RSS feed of a Google Blogger blog into my Xara website. I've tried the RSS Widget in the Content Catalogue, but when I select it, I see a "Bad Gateway" error, so cannot configure it.

Does anyone know of an RSS widget that I could use instead, please?

[Acorn]

I want to insert an RSS feed of a Google Blogger blog into my Xara website. I've tried the RSS Widget in the Content Catalogue, but when I select it, I see a "Bad Gateway" error, so cannot configure it.
Does anyone know of an RSS widget that I could use instead, please?

This was reported a time back and Xara has done nothing! Please open https://www.talkgraphics.com/showthr...SS-WIdget-Fail and add your comments/concerns to the Thread to promote it into Xara's attention.

http://www.webrss.com/&title=WebRSS_mx is dead.
http://www.webrss.com/ is dead.

C:\Users\[userid]\AppData\Local\Xara\XtremePro\15\Cache\designs\eng \components\layoutcomponents\widgets\webrss.xwr is a useless file that needs to be updated.

All RSS viewers now seem to need a subscription, free or otherwise, so there is a lot of dis-benefit involved in including one into your site for end-users.

i have no simple solution at present.

Acorn

[garycwood84]

Thanks, @Acorn.

I've been experimenting with https://rss.bloople.net/, which seems to do what I need. I'm just creating a box on my site and setting it as a placeholder for the code that that tool generates. It works fine to get the news articles from my blog. However, I need to be able to style it. At the bottom of the page Bloople page, once you've created the feed, it says you can style it as follows:

The HTML generated by this code contains CSS hooks so you can style the output in your stylesheet.
The title of the feed is displayed in a <h3> tag, with the class feed-title.
The feed description is displayed in a <p> tag with class feed-desc.
The feed icon is displayed in an <img> tag with class feed-title-image.
Each feed item title is displayed in a <h4> tag with class feed-item-title.
Each feed item description is displayed in a <p> tag with class feed-item-desc.

But I don't know how to create these styles in Xara. I know you're pretty good at coding... any chance you can point me in the right direction, please?

[Acorn]

Thanks, @Acorn.
I've been experimenting with https://rss.bloople.net/, which seems to do what I need. I'm just creating a box on my site and setting it as a placeholder for the code that that tool generates. It works fine to get the news articles from my blog. However, I need to be able to style it. At the bottom of the page Bloople page, once you've created the feed, it says you can style it as follows:

But I don't know how to create these styles in Xara. I know you're pretty good at coding... any chance you can point me in the right direction, please?

Happy to help but can we work on a common RSS Feed so we can compare like-for-like?

I chose http://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml for a starter.

I used the IFRAME output, copied into the Placeholder body of a box. You need to add width and height: <iframe src="//rss.bloople.net/?url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.bbci.co.uk%2Fnews%2Frss.xm l&showtitle=false&showempty=true&type=html" width="100%" height="100%"></iframe>.

The final wrinkle to be able to use CSS on the IFRAME is to give it an ID: id="bbcnews": <iframe src="//rss.bloople.net/?url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.bbci.co.uk%2Fnews%2Frss.xm l&showtitle=false&showempty=true&type=html" width="100%" height="100%" id ="bbcnews"></iframe>.

No point in tweaking CSS until we are aligned.

There probably has to be a Refresh button added at some point.

Acorn

[garycwood84]

Thanks, Acorn - really appreciate your help. I think I've recreated what you describe, so happy to continue.

Key things I need to change:

• the font and size of the headlines for each post
• the body text font and size for each post
• the line spacing of the body text
• if possible, image sizes - because all of the items in the feed I'll actually be using include images.

One question: is there a particular reason to use the iframe option and not the default Javascript option? I ask because the problem with using an iframe is that I need to know in advance what the maximum height is, whereas with the script option, I don't have to set a height.

[Acorn]

Thanks, Acorn - really appreciate your help. I think I've recreated what you describe, so happy to continue.

Key things I need to change:

• the font and size of the headlines for each post
• the body text font and size for each post
• the line spacing of the body text
• if possible, image sizes - because all of the items in the feed I'll actually be using include images.

One question: is there a particular reason to use the iframe option and not the default Javascript option? I ask because the problem with using an iframe is that I need to know in advance what the maximum height is, whereas with the script option, I don't have to set a height.

We can do both.
The problem with the JavaScript on is if the number of feeds is long, they disappear off the bottom of the page and you cannot control the Xara page height dynamically (well easily, as you need code).

Make a standard 960px page. Create a tall, narrow box and add the JavaScript code and Preview. The bottom will be cut-off.
Do the same for the IFRAME code and you have a box with scrollbars so it is bounded.

Acorn

[garycwood84]

Thanks, Acorn. That makes sense. I'm coming at this from Adobe Muse, which dynamically changed the page length, as content grows, but you're right, of course, that it won't work that way in Xara WD.

We can stick with the iframe approach, and presumably I can turn off the borders and scrollbar if they are not needed? The length of the content I'm pulling in will be fairly consistent, because I restrict it to only showing the first X words, and then there's a link to the full article on the blog that generates the RSS feed.

[Acorn]

Thanks, Acorn. That makes sense. I'm coming at this from Adobe Muse, which dynamically changed the page length, as content grows, but you're right, of course, that it won't work that way in Xara WD.

We can stick with the iframe approach, and presumably I can turn off the borders and scrollbar if they are not needed? The length of the content I'm pulling in will be fairly consistent, because I restrict it to only showing the first X words, and then there's a link to the full article on the blog that generates the RSS feed.

Yes, all doable.

Busy for a few hours so perhaps you can compose what you what the feed to offer up so I have a starter.

Acorn

[Acorn]

Sorry, but busy elsewhere with family.

Just realised that changing IFRAME CSS of a page from elsewhere is tricky and requires JavaScript, jQuery and a lot of huffing.

As you are happy that the size of the feed will be constrained, I have included a demo of the feed script wrapped in a DIV in the box's Placeholder body, together with the CSS to change the contents presentation.
The DIV needs an ID, which I included as 'bbcnews'.
The CSS is not checked at all and the selectors might not be accurate.

In the Page head is a lot of CSS play stuff to control the container.
You can probably remove all of it.

Do note, you want the rss-js page and not the index page.
The index page was for the IFRAME approach.
Included for reference as I intend to use that elsewhere.
RSS Musings.xar

Acorn

[Acorn]

Just found this: http://www.surfing-waves.com/feed.htm.

It seems more promising.

Acorn