Headlines Plugin
<--
Contributions to this plugin are appreciated. Please update the plugin page at
http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/HeadlinesPlugin or provide feedback at
http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/HeadlinesPluginDev.
If you are a TWiki contributor please update the plugin in the SVN repository.
-->
Show headline news in TWiki pages based on RSS and ATOM news feeds from external sites
Description
This plugin displays RSS and ATOM feeds from news sites. Use it to build news portals that show headline news.
Notes:
- RSS (Rich Site Summary) is an XML standard used to publish frequently updated works such as blog entries, news headlines and audio.
- Atom is an XML syndication format used for web feeds.
- Syndic8.com at http://www.syndic8.com/ lists many RSS and ATOM feeds.
Syntax Rules
%HEADLINES{"..."}%
| Parameter |
Explanation |
Default |
"..." |
Source of RSS or ATOM 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. May 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. May 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 |
touch="..." |
Touch (edit/save) topics if the feed has updates. Specify a comma-space delimited list of TopicNames or Web.TopicNames, such as "%TOPIC%, NewsLetter". Useful to send out newsletter using MailerContrib, showing new feeds since last newsletter. To update feeds, visit topics with feeds in regular intervals (using cron with wget or the like). |
N/A |
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. Note that some of the variables are already used above. This is done by purpose to use different feeds with the same formatting parameters. If there's a conflict the non-dc tags have higher precedence, i.e. a <title> content </title> is preferred 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 $content is referring to the <content:encoding> content </content:encoding>.
Examples
Slashdot News
Write
%HEADLINES{ "http://slashdot.org/slashdot.rdf"
header="*[[$link][$title]]:* $description"
format="$t* [[$link][$title]]"
limit="4"
}%
to get the latest Slashdot news as a bullet list format:
Business Opportunities Weblog
Write
%HEADLINES{ "http://www.business-opportunities.biz/feed" limit="2" }%
to get the latest postings on the "Business Opportunities" weblog:
Plugin Settings
Plugin settings are stored as preferences settings. Do not change the settings here, they are here only for illustration purposes showing the default values. Define the settings in Main.TWikiPreferences. For example, to customize the HEADLINESPLUGIN_USERAGENTNAME setting, add a * Set HEADLINESPLUGIN_USERAGENTNAME = ... bullet in Main.TWikiPreferences.
- Refresh rate in minutes for cached feeds. Set to
0 to disable caching:
- Set HEADLINESPLUGIN_REFRESH = 60
- Maximum number of items shown:
- Set HEADLINESPLUGIN_LIMIT = 100
- Use LWP::UserAgent if set to
1, or fallback to TWiki's internal getUrl() method if set to 0:
- Set HEADLINESPLUGIN_USELWPUSERAGENT = 1
- Timeout fetching a feed using the LWP::UserAgent:
- Set HEADLINESPLUGIN_USERAGENTTIMEOUT = 20
- Name of user agent:
- Set HEADLINESPLUGIN_USERAGENTNAME = TWikiHeadlinesPlugin/2011-07-08
- Default header: (variables are explained in the syntax rules)
* Set HEADLINESPLUGIN_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 HEADLINESPLUGIN_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 | 
"
}%
Copyright © 1999-2025 by the contributing authors. All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors.