|
RSS
Sept 10, 2007 6:01:10 GMT -5
Post by amanda on Sept 10, 2007 6:01:10 GMT -5
I want to add an RSS feed to my Greymatter installation but I've got no idea how to do it. I've found various downloads with instructions such as this: web.petefinnigan.com/gm-rss.htm but they don't fill me with confidence, and I don't know enough to choose which modification I should actually use. Can anyone help with instructions for a complete beginner? I don't know much about how RSS works - for example, if I follow the installation instructions next what am I left with? How do I actually use the RSS feed?
|
|
|
RSS
Sept 10, 2007 17:23:50 GMT -5
Post by coldstone on Sept 10, 2007 17:23:50 GMT -5
This is a grey area for me too, one that I have been meaning to explore. I know there are also ways to get rss feeds from your site, offered by other websites, but I can't remember where I saw them in use with greymatter just now.
|
|
|
RSS
Sept 24, 2007 7:06:13 GMT -5
Post by petefinnigan on Sept 24, 2007 7:06:13 GMT -5
Hi,
The installation and setup of gm-rss is not simple if you dont have some experience with GM and perl unfortunately. This was the best we had around a year ago as a semi-builtin option to get feeds working with GM. I started to rewrite this as a completely builtin feature a long time ago and I need to get back on with it. Unfortunately I have been busy with work, new baby and more. I am hoping to enlist Coldstones help to get this working soon (I will reply to your email Coldstone..:-) ), to build it in and do it properly is also unfortunately not exactly trivial.
In the meantime if you want to get the gm-rss working please download the zip from my site and read the readme included. a lot of the notes on my page are about fixing problems with missing perl modules. The readme does give step-by-step instructions. have a go and feedback your problems and I will try and help.
cheers
Pete
|
|
|
RSS
Sept 24, 2007 17:19:28 GMT -5
Post by coldstone on Sept 24, 2007 17:19:28 GMT -5
Thanks for the info Pete. No pressure, but rss built in will rock.
|
|
|
RSS
Oct 17, 2007 15:44:34 GMT -5
Post by sellthekids on Oct 17, 2007 15:44:34 GMT -5
hi!
i am trying to get Pete's RSS solution working and i am having issues. mainly, the rdf file is empty after running the gm-rss.cgi!
while i did contact my ISP to have the proper PERL modules installed, since i could not get it working, i went ahead and did the work-around using: RSS.pm XML-Simple.pm xml_atom_simplefeed.pm XML-parser.pm
here is some background: * i have GM 1.7.3 installed and running. works great!
*i am trying to install the gm-rss 2.1.0; the readme is dated 29Aug2006
here are some questions born out of that readme: *the gm-rss.cgi - my first line is #!/usr/bin/perl -w this path is correct for my webserver. is the # right? i understand that is a comment symbol. if i uncomment it, my gm-rss.cgi errors out; i have left it as above.
*in the gm-rssconfig.cfg it states to rename the rdf file without an extension. then in step 8 we rename example.rdf i assume we keep the extension when renaming the actual file (mine is called sellthekids.rdf).
*step 12 - uh, what? shouldn't these links be specific to my site? i.e. - <a href="http://www.sellthekids.com/sellthekids.rdf"><img src="http://www.sellthekids.com/images/rss1.gif" alt="RSS 1.0 FEED" title="RSS 1.0 FEED" border="0" vspace="0" hspace="0" width="80" height="15"></a> there is no reference to example.com to be changed now...it appears replaced by web.petefinnigan.com. i assume step 12 really means, replace web.petefinnigan.com with info local to my site.
so, doing all this, when i run the gm-rss.cgi, i get a page that says: "Greymatter - RSS Generator (2.1.0)"
that's it! no other info, despite having two open, current entries.
what am i missing? i hope it might be apparent to someone.
my only recourse is to move along to another toolset (wordpress?) but i am not excited about that. i do need RSS working though and i am grasping at straws here....
any help would be much appreciated!
|
|
|
RSS
Oct 18, 2007 3:48:30 GMT -5
Post by petefinnigan on Oct 18, 2007 3:48:30 GMT -5
Hi, The instructions are not well written i grant you as I have modified the original bananabob code and added RSS2.0 and Atom 0.3 and also made it work with later versions of GM. Its a long running saga but we are re-developing the feeds code to add it into the core GM without the need to have the external modules such as RSS.pm, sorry but its taking some time as I am quite busy with work at present.:-( Let me try and answer some of your questions:- #!/usr/bin/perl -w This is correct syntax to call the perl interpreter, providing your path is right then leave it as it is. I have updated instruction 1 in the readme to include the "#" to avoid confusion. In gm-rssconfig.cfg add the feed file name without an extension - this is because the code now generates RSS1.0, RSS2.0 and Atom 0.3. The earlier versions only generated RSS1.0 (rdf) so the extension was added. For your version dont add a file extension, so set it to "sellthekids" (no quotes obviously). For step 8, the zip included only the example.rdf from the earlier bananabob version of the feeds code. I have added example.rss and example.xml to the zip to avoid confusion. I have also updated instruction 8 in the readme. Basically you set the base name without extensions in gm-rssconfig.cfg and then gm-rss.cgi generates the three files based on the basename specified with the three extensions for each feed type. Yes, you are right the references to web.petefinnigan.com need to be chnaged to your own domain, in your case www.sellthekids.com, i have updated the readme to state what needs to be done. I have edited gm-rss slightly to make the "use XML::RSS" and use XML::Atom::SimpleFeed; the defaults rather than the local copies. This was confusing I guess for most people. can you confirm that you have pointed to the correct locations for your files? OK, down to the main issue, why doesn't it work. I ran the gm-rss on your site and got the header message. I also tried the verbose and debug modes but didnt get anything. I am not convinced about those working correctly as the command line argument doesnt work on my test blog. I added a hard coded debug to the gm-rss a while ago. can you find the lines: #PF added explicit debug and verbose #$debug = $true; $verbose = $true if $debug; and uncomment the $debug-$true line for me and let me know when its done, then I can run the gm-rss again on your site and hopefully work out what your problem is. My gut feeling is that because the header prints out for the script and it doesnt generate an internal error its likely to have found all the perl modules and config and entries files so that leads me towards the templates not being set up right. My entry page template has been moddd like this: {{smartentrymusic}}{{smartentrymood}}</p><br /> <span class="rss:item" style="display:none;"> <p> {{entrymainbodyfirstwords 40}}....<a href="{{pagelink}}">[Read More]</a> </p> </span> <P ALIGN=JUSTIFY> {{entrymainbody}} </P> <br /><br /> {{entrymorebody}} </p> </div> and my extended entry template like this: {{smartentrymusic}}{{smartentrymood}}</p><br /> <span class="rss:item" style="display:none;"> <p> {{entrymainbodyfirstwords 40}}....<a href="{{pagelink}}">[Read More]</a> </p> </span> <P ALIGN=JUSTIFY> {{entrymainbody}} </P> <br /><br /> {{entrymorebody}} </p> </div> please let me know how your templates look and also add the debug and I will test it for you. cheers Pete
|
|
|
RSS
Oct 18, 2007 10:15:27 GMT -5
Post by sellthekids on Oct 18, 2007 10:15:27 GMT -5
wow - hi pete thanks for the super fast reply!
yeah, i could see that you had taken the ebanana readme and updated it. i figured that nothing i was reading microgranularly was causing issues, so i did what i assumed you meant in step 12...no biggie.
i also was unable to get verbose mode to run. dunno why. i am not a perl guy, so i am trying not to muck about, although the programmer in me wants too!
i have uncommented the debug line and made sure it runs. thanks for offering to look at that.
in other "i am a dummy news": i did not have a file for either the xml.rdf or the rss.rdf. um, sorry. so now i have all three: sellthekids.rdf sellthekids.rss.rdf sellthekids.xml.rdf all three are located in /var/www/html/ and my index file's path is /var/www/html/index.html.
in regards to the hack to use my own local perl/xml files: i created a sub-dir pathed: /var/www/html/perl_modules/. all four files are located there and have been renamed .PM. the path edits have been made to gm-rss.cgi to look as such:
#use XML::RSS; require '/var/www/html/perl_modules/RSS.pm';
#use XML::Atom::SimpleFeed; require '/var/www/html/perl_modules/xml_atom_simplefeed.pm';
lastly, in a bout of frustration, i went ahead and simplified my entry page template to look as follows:
<h3>{{entrysubject}}</h3> <span class="rss:item"> <p> {{entrymainbody}} </p> </span>
both current and extended entries look the same.
i probably haven't mentioned enough my thanks for your time and help. reading some of your posts i can see your personal & professional lives are busy and i want to thank you for taking the time to look into my issue!
again, thanks and kind regards,
--brently
|
|
|
RSS
Oct 18, 2007 10:26:30 GMT -5
Post by Carlos Phelps on Oct 18, 2007 10:26:30 GMT -5
Tips for you on the *.pm files they just need to be on the @inc path and Perl will find them. Something like this should work.
use lib '/var/www/html/perl_modules'; use XML::RSS; use XML::Atom::SimpleFeed;
If you have access to the shell on you system you can check the @inc path by entering the following
perl -V
Good luck, Carlos
|
|
|
RSS
Oct 19, 2007 3:21:03 GMT -5
Post by petefinnigan on Oct 19, 2007 3:21:03 GMT -5
Hey thanks for the perl libs tip Carlos.
Hey Brently: I had a look at the debug output and the script prints out the file names and then does no more. It should after printing out the names start to read the entries and start to create the files.
I notice that you said you named your files sellthekids.rdf sellthekids.rss.rdf and .xml.rdf, you need to have three files named sellthekids.rdf, sellthekids.rss and sellthekids.xml - the links to the icons on your home page are right and the code should generate them right but you may have the wrong files created empty by hand. This again was my fault as i was too fast adding the files to the zip today and Windows nicely added .rdf to the end for me..:-(
No matter, the main issue is why gm-rss is not doing anything.
The key thing I note from the debug output is that the debug of gm-config.cgi is not showing any output i.e.
DEBUG - gmmailhacknotice = DEBUG - gmuploadfilesallowed =
but testing on my test blog shows the same: The first difference i see is (This is yours)
DEBUG - postdateformat = usa DEBUG - postdateheader = On DEBUG - posttimeheader = At DEBUG - posttime = no DEBUG - DEBUG - = DEBUG - DEBUG - = DEBUG - --> = DEBUG - rdf_file = /var/www/html/sellthekids.rdf DEBUG - rss_file = /var/www/html/sellthekids.rss DEBUG - atom_file = /var/www/html/sellthekids.xml
mine:-
DEBUG - postdateformat = eur DEBUG - postdateheader = On DEBUG - posttimeheader = At DEBUG - posttime = yes DEBUG - rdf_file = /home/htdocs/hosted/plsql/web.petefinnigan.com/testblog/entries/petefinnigan.rdf DEBUG - rss_file = /home/htdocs/hosted/plsql/web.petefinnigan.com/testblog/entries/petefinnigan.rss DEBUG - atom_file = /home/htdocs/hosted/plsql/web.petefinnigan.com/testblog/entries/petefinnigan.xml DEBUG - templine line = (8|Test|test post 2|07/04/07|02:07 PM|O|Y|||yes )
Mine loops through the entries. Yours has the lines:
DEBUG - DEBUG - = DEBUG - DEBUG - = DEBUG - --> =
which must be read from the rss config, one line looks like an HTML comment.
Also as mine goes from the file names to read the entries that also leads me to beleive that gm-rss cannot find the entries file or at least cannot open it.
so, no solution yet but some more suggestions:-
1) can you check yor gm-rssconfig file and see if there is anything after the posttime entry?
2) can you check permissions on gm-entrylist and that its in the same directory as gm-rss.cgi.
3) can you also rebuild everything, although I dont think that this is the issue as your first entry at least has the span rss:item in it.
4) can you check the apache error_log to see if any of the file opens failed and recorded an error?
5) I have fixed the debug so that it prints out the config parameters correctly and I have also added a few more debug statements. Can you download the new zip file and install just gm-rss.cgi and run it again. don't forget to change the paths to your local perl modules and also to turn on debug. As it now prints out all your parameters its probbaly best if you turn debug on, run it and save the output and then turn debug off again. If you could email me the output or put it somewhere on your site and let me have the location that would be better than making the contents public. My email is pete at petefinnigan dot com
Sorry cannot be more help but I dont think we are far from fixing it.
cheers
Pete
|
|
|
RSS
Oct 19, 2007 9:51:59 GMT -5
Post by sellthekids on Oct 19, 2007 9:51:59 GMT -5
hi pete! thanks again for spending time on this. i am going to owe you a vacation.... per your last post here are some answers: * there is nothing after "posttime = no" in my gm-rssconfig.cfg * gm-entrylist.cgi is set to 666, no execute permissions. it is in the same location as gm-rss.cgi (i have a dir named cgi-bin (/var/www/cgi-bin/) where all the cgi files are located). i checked the install manual and this appears correct. i changed my gm-rssconfig.cfg to look like yours; all this means is that it now uses "eur" and has posttime set to yes. i know this doesn't do anything to fix my issue...just figured it would make reading other differences easier. i have pulled the error log from the server and will send it along. it does have errors, but these are related to PERL and i have zero PERL knowledge. can't we do some TSQL or C# or something? oops, forgot you are an Oracle man...real DBs scare me. i will also send along the debug output. i was still unable to get it to run in verbose mode. everything has been rebuilt and i added a new entry that has no special formatting (i.e. the post title is now just plain font used by greymatter.) i was hoping my post titles were crashing the gm-rss.cgi but no luck. i think that is it. again, much appreciated for your time and trouble. ttfn!
|
|
|
RSS
Oct 22, 2007 10:50:38 GMT -5
Post by petefinnigan on Oct 22, 2007 10:50:38 GMT -5
Hi guys,
Just wanted to close this one out. We solved the issue off line last week. The problem was found via the Apache error_log and was due to the wrong version of XML:RSS being installed. As soon as the correct versions of the Perl modules were installed the feeds code worked properly.
cheers
Pete
|
|