Photography Thailand Forum

[gregoire]

Can a forum have an RSS feed (or Atom, or whatever)? It would be very cool to see if anything new is popping up on the forum in an RSS reader (such as bloglines or netvibes).

[Marc Schultz]

I am really not sure Gregoire, I am sorry. I am not an export in webmastering forums and so any special features would require some research. You could research it on the www.simplemachines.org web site which is the web site for the free software that is used to run this Forum. Or if anyone knows anymore about this they are welcome to comment.

[gregoire]

Don't sweat it, Marc. I'm thrilled we have a Thai forum, RSS or no RSS.

I think the solution is right here though: http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=20339.msg163568

One of the great features in SMF is its XML and RSS functions. With one simple option enabled, SMF is capable of generating RSS and XML feeds for your board's news, member profiles and latest topics. Mozilla Firefox displays a special icon in the status bar when it detects an RSS feed on a site and even allows you to add RSS feeds to your bookmarks ("live bookmarks" - creates a folder in your bookmarks list for each feed and then puts the links generated by that feed in that folder, allowing you to easily access them). Anyway, Kelnage indicated that it would be nice to see SMF automatically "advertise" the fact that you've got RSS feeds on your board. Here's how you do that:

First, make sure you've got it enabled (Admin -> Edit Features and Options -> Enable XML/RSS News).

Next:

Themes/yourtheme/index.template.php

Find
Code:

   // Show all the relative links, such as help, search, contents, and the like.
   echo '
   <link rel="help" href="', $scripturl, '?action=help" target="_blank" />
   <link rel="search" href="' . $scripturl . '?action=search" />
   <link rel="contents" href="', $scripturl, '" />';


Add after
Code:

   // If RSS/XML news is enabled, indicate that an RSS feed is available
   if (!empty($modSettings['xmlnews_enable']))
      echo '
      <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="', $scripturl, '?type=rss;action=.xml;limit=20" />';


You can change that to your liking. Check out Sources/News.php for more info on all the XML feeds available. Once again, thanks to Kelnage for mentioning how to "advertise" the feed.

[Marc Schultz]

Thank you kindly for looking into that for us Gregoire. I checked the system settings and as it turns out the XML/RSS News function was already enabled. I just added the additional code you provided to the index.template.php file. Please let me know if it is working now since I am not actually familiar with what this function should/does do.

Many thanks.

[gregoire]

Well if you have an RSS reader, like bloglines, or if your homepage is something like netvibes.com, you can see if there's any new stuff popping up on all your favorite websites. The new stuff just appears in your RSS reader. It's great for keeping tracks of blogs, information websites, and forums without having to actually open them to see if there's any new stuff.

The RSS feed on photographythailand.com now works, which means if you input http://www.photographythailand.com/Forum/ in an RSS reader, it should retrieve the RSS feed automatically. Thanks so much!

Now you might want to consider advertising the fact you have an RSS feed by putting a little RSS logo at the bottom of the forum main page with a direct link to the RSS feed.

Now the forum is on my netvibes.com homepage! Thanks again, Marc.

[bjorn slis]

and for mac/safari users
feed://www.photographythailand.com/Forum

thanks great stuff !

[Marc Schultz]

Thank you Gregoire. I went to NetVibes and see how it works. Interesting. I can see how something like NetVibes can be useful too.

I am not sure how I could add an RSS logo to the bottom of the Forum window. Did you see that mentioned somewhere when you were surfing around on the http://www.simplemachines.org/ and why you suggested it?

[gregoire]

Apparently that link ( http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=20339.msg163568 ) I first gave you is about advertising the fact you have an RSS feed--not just turning it on. So if you follow its instructions you should end up with something somewhere that tells people the forum has an RSS. Good luck :P

[Marc Schultz]

Thank you Gregoire. I did actually add that code already the other day and after that is when you said you were able to start getting the RSS feeds. Actually, adding that code was the only change I made as I already had the XML/RSS News feature enabled.

I am not sure where the availability of the RSS feed for the Forum advertised, but as far as I can tell I have made all the suggested changes.

Anyway, main thing is it is working I guess. I will also add an announcement to the "What's New" section of the Forum.

[gregoire]

You're absolutely right; the main thing is that it works. Anyone looking for it would easily find it too.

Thanks a lot for putting that in place. I now use it all the time. This is how I saw your message had been posted.

[Marc Schultz]

That is great Gregoire. I am glad it is a useful addition and I am always looking for ways to increase Forum functionality.