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

Slashdot News

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:

Business Opportunities Weblog

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, %HEADLINESPLUGIN_SHORTDESCRIPTION%. Note: Don't modify the settings here; copy and customize the settings in Main.TWikiPreferences. For example, to customize the USERAGENTNAME setting, create a HEADLINESPLUGIN_USERAGENTNAME setting in Main.TWikiPreferences.

• One line description, shown in the TextFormattingRules topic:
  • Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Show headline news in TWiki pages based on RSS and ATOM news feeds from external 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

• Name of user agent. Default: TWikiHeadlinesPlugin/2.21

      * Set USERAGENTNAME = TWikiHeadlinesPlugin/2.21

• 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>

• Values taken from configure: (only supported if CPAN:LWP is installed)
  • $TWiki::cfg{PROXY}{HOST} - proxy host, such as "proxy.example.com";
  • $TWiki::cfg{PROXY}{PORT} - proxy port, such as "8080";
  • $TWiki::cfg{PROXY}{SkipProxyForDomains} - domains excluded from proxy, such as "intra.example.com, bugs.example.com";

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)
    • headlinesText: 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: © 2002-2009, Peter Thoeny, TWIKI.NET; 2005-2007, Michael Daum http://wikiring.de License: GPL (GNU General Public License) Plugin Version: v2.21 - 12 Feb 2009 Change History:   12 Feb 2009: {PROXY}{HOST} supports domain with and without protocol -- Peter Thoeny 06 Feb 2009: added {PROXY}{SkipProxyForDomains} configure setting, added USERAGENTNAME plugin setting -- Peter Thoeny 11 Dec 2008: added {PROXY}{HOST} and {PROXY}{PORT} configure settings -- Peter Thoeny 13 Sep 2007: fixed parsing of content:encoded 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 - 12 Jan 2009
-- TWiki:Main.MichaelDaum - 13 Sep 2007