Software: RSS and CaRP

mtrac · Jan 31, 2005

mtrac submitted a new Article:

Software: RSS and CaRP

Introduction

I run a community-oriented VBulletin BBS and VBAdvanced Portal. This article is based on my experience as both a provider and user of RSS feeds.

What is RSS?

RSS is an abbreviation for Really Simple Syndication. You can get the technical details at http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss. Also see http://www.geckotribe.com/rss/about-rss.php. Rather than worrying about what it is, you should think about what it can do for you as an administrator:

You can distribute your board’s latest content to anyone with an RSS reader who wants it. That includes other areas of your board. Users don’t even have to visit, unless they see something that interests them. If you use VB, I recommend this hack: http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=69834.

You can get fresh, free content for your site from throughout the Internet. RSS feeds aren’t limited to news and geek sites; even the venerable Farmer’s Almanac has several. Some sites that normally require registration, such as the New York Times, give RSS users a free pass. But how to pull feeds? With CaRP.

What is CaRP?

A PHP-based Caching RSS Processor available at http://www.geckotribe.com/rss/carp. CaRP can take pretty much any RSS feed, including a non-compliant one, and generate HTML from it. Its power comes from its caching, formatting, and filtering capabilities. It is also fairly easy to use. Two lines of code will get you on your way.

The GPL version is free, but you will probably need to purchase a more capable version as you get deeper into RSS. It’s not expensive. There is a feature comparison at http://www.geckotribe.com/rss/carp/features.php.

Installing CaRP

Download and follow the directions. The semi-automated installation didn’t work for me, and so required manually changing access permissions. For many of you this may be second nature, but the last time I had to worry about, let alone change, *NIX permissions was on a PDP-11/70 around 1983. I used my ISP’s utility. You’ll also need to understand your directory structure, which won’t look like your URL.

CaRP’s author offers an installation service if you get in over your head. You might – I’m not the only one I know who initially had trouble. You can also try seeking assistance at http://www.voy.com/188105/.

All installed! Now what?

Two pieces of advice....

Read more about this article here...

Neutral Singh · Feb 8, 2005

Thanks for the article, it made a very informative reading... keep it up !!

jpapadpapa · Feb 9, 2005

It helped me, as well. I also thought it was written well. Good job.

Kevin · Mar 21, 2005

mtrac, very nice.

Would you mind if I linked to this thread when asked about the topic? The subject of RSS feeds and portals seems to come up every so often so this would be good reading for them.

Thanks,
Kevin

Tdot · Mar 25, 2005

this is a gr8 article.

Can CarP be used to submit news feed to a forum/subforum or vBulletin??

mtrac · Apr 4, 2005

KW802 said:
Would you mind if I linked to this thread when asked about the topic?

Not at all.

mtrac · Apr 4, 2005

Tdot said:
Can CarP be used to submit news feed to a forum/subforum or vBulletin??

Sure can.

That will likely be the subject of my next article. In the meantime, meet Sid: http://www.07020.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=25.

mtrac · Apr 6, 2005

WeatherClicks advised me that their free RSS feed is discontinued effective April 12, 2005.

hocus · May 30, 2005

Thanks for a great posting. I just started using CaRP today and was lost at first until reading this article. I do have a question though.
Is there a CarpConf statement to cause links in the feed to open to target="_blank"? I honestly don't have a clue how to do this within the script and it's running beautifully right now, so I don't want to mess it up. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again and have a happy Memorial Day.....

DaUnknownAdmin · May 30, 2005

After reading the article I decided to jump in feet first so to speak and give it try. I was able to install and setup quite easily. But quickly hit a wall when I tried to use a different site's feed.

I tried using two different site and I got the same error.

[CaRP] Connection refused (111)

I'm guessing that this means the refusal came from the site that I'm linking to. Anyone have any thoughts?

BTW Thanks for the article, I've been wanting to try this and reading this post made it painless.

mtrac · May 31, 2005

hocus said:
Is there a CarpConf statement to cause links in the feed to open to target="_blank"?

See linktarget at http://www.geckotribe.com/rss/carp/docs/conf/display/channel/link.php.

mtrac · May 31, 2005

WhatChaMissin said:
Anyone have any thoughts?

What is the feed's address?

hocus · May 31, 2005

mtrac said:
See linktarget at http://www.geckotribe.com/rss/carp/docs/conf/display/channel/link.php.

Thanks so much for the link. I probably looked right at it and missed it. Everything's working :banana:

great now....

DaUnknownAdmin · May 31, 2005

mtrac said:
What is the feed's address?

http://www.quacked.com/index.php?rss
http://www.editzplanet.com/modules/newbb/rss.php

Thanks in advance for looking at these for me.

mtrac · Jun 1, 2005

Try the following. Also, tell the people at quacked that the links in their feed are bad. If you take a look at it you'll see what I'm talking about. The editzplanet feed is fine as is.

PHP:

<?php
	require_once '/path/to/carp/carp.php';
	CarpConf('outputformat',2);
	CarpShow('http://www.quacked.com/index.php?rss');
	$carpoutput=str_replace('http://www.quacked.com/http:','http:',$carpoutput);
	echo $carpoutput;
	echo '<p>';
	CarpConf('outputformat',0);
	CarpShow('http://www.editzplanet.com/modules/newbb/rss.php');
?>

DaUnknownAdmin · Jun 1, 2005

mtrac said:
Try the following. Also, tell the people at quacked that the links in their feed are bad. If you take a look at it you'll see what I'm talking about. The editzplanet feed is fine as is.

PHP:

<?php require_once '/path/to/carp/carp.php'; CarpConf('outputformat',2); CarpShow('http://www.quacked.com/index.php?rss'); $carpoutput=str_replace('http://www.quacked.com/http:','http:',$carpoutput); echo $carpoutput; echo '<p>'; CarpConf('outputformat',0); CarpShow('http://www.editzplanet.com/modules/newbb/rss.php'); ?>

Didn't work for me :hopeless:

But I appreciate the effort.

[CaRP] Connection refused (111)

[CaRP] Can't open remote newsfeed.

[CaRP] Connection refused (111)

[CaRP] Can't open remote newsfeed.

mtrac · Jun 1, 2005

WhatChaMissin said:
Didn't work for me
But I appreciate the effort.

What happens when you click on the two links you posted initially? Do you get XML?

DaUnknownAdmin · Jun 1, 2005

mtrac said:
What happens when you click on the two links you posted initially? Do you get XML?

Sorry I'm such a n00b, but XML is that this?

Code:

 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> 
- <rss version="2.0">
- <channel>
  <title>Editz Planet.Com :: Forum</title> 
  <link>http://www.editzplanet.com/</link> 
  <description>"Music Evolved" :: Forums module for XOOPS</description> 
  <lastBuildDate>Wed, 1 Jun 2005 12:53:43 PDT</lastBuildDate> 
  <docs>http://backend.userland.com/rss/</docs>

If so, yes they both displayed a page that looks like html code on crack

shiola · Sep 12, 2005

Can someone explain the basic differences between Carp and zFeeder? I've just installed zFeeder, but then recently found Carp and was wondering if I should switch to Carp or stick with zFeeder?

What are the advantages of Carp and zFeeder?

offordscott · Jan 12, 2006

Here' s what I'm testing out. I've added a bit of CSS for formating. And have discovered an alternative way to remove descriptions from items, by setting the "maxidesc" tag to "-1" character length and leaving the "desc" declared in the iorder "tag":

Code:

CarpConf('maxidesc',-1);
CarpConf('iorder','link,desc');

Can anyone tell me if there is anything else (tag, functions, etc), I could/should include or take out to make it run more smoothly in general?

Code:

<style type="text/css">
<!--
#rsschannel {
	border-top-width: thin;
	border-right-width: thin;
	border-bottom-width: thin;
	border-left-width: thin;
	border-top-style: solid;
	border-right-style: solid;
	border-bottom-style: dotted;
	border-left-style: solid;
	border-top-color: #000000;
	border-right-color: #000000;
	border-bottom-color: #000000;
	border-left-color: #000000;
	padding-bottom:3px;
	padding-left:10px;
	padding-right:10px;
	padding-top:5px;
	width: 250px;
	background-color: #FFCCCC;
	clear: both;
	overflow: auto;
}

#rssitem {
	border-top-width: thin;
	border-right-width: thin;
	border-bottom-width: thin;
	border-left-width: thin;
	border-top-style: none;
	border-right-style: solid;
	border-bottom-style: solid;
	border-left-style: solid;
	border-top-color: #000000;
	border-right-color: #000000;
	border-bottom-color: #000000;
	border-left-color: #000000;
	padding-bottom:5px;
	padding-left:10px;
	padding-right:10px;
	padding-top:5px;
	width: 250px;
	background-color: #FFFF66;
}
#wrap {
	margin: 0px;
	padding: 0px;
	height: auto;
	width: 250px;
}

.channeltitle {
	font-size: medium;
	font-weight: bold;
}
.channeldescriptions {
	font-size: x-small;
	font-style: italic;
	font-weight: bold;
}
.itemtitle {
	font-size: x-small;
	font-weight: bold;
}
.itemdescriptions {
	font-size: xx-small;
}
a:link {
	color: #000033;
}

a:visited {
	color: #330033;
}

p {
	font-family: Geneva, Helvetica, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;
	margin: 0px;
	padding-bottom: 7px;
	padding-left: 0px;
	padding-top: 0px;
	padding-right: 0px;
}
-->
</style>
<div id="wrap">
<?php

require_once '/home/content/html/carp/carp.php';  // change to match document_root

CarpConfReset();

CarpClearCache(0);

CarpConf('descriptiontags','i|/i|b|/b|em|/em|strong|/strong');
CarpConfRemove('descriptiontags','a|/a|p|/p|div|/div|pre|/pre|font|/font|span|/span|h1|/h1|h2|/h2|h3|/h3|h4|/h4');

CarpConf('maxitems',5);				// limiting # of items per feed

CarpConf('cborder','title,desc');	
// channel image,link,date,desc,title,url

CarpConf('iorder','link,desc');			 
// item image,link,date,desc,title,url,author

CarpConf('maxctitle',55);					// max channel title length 
CarpConf('atruncctitle','...');					// if channel title is truncated

CarpConf('maxcdesc',65);					// max channel desc length 
CarpConf('atrunccdesc','...');  				// if channel desc is truncated

CarpConf('bcb','<div id="rsschannel">');			// before whole channel
CarpConf('acb','</div>');							// after whole channel

CarpConf('bctitle','<p class="channeltitle">');		// before channel title
CarpConf('actitle','</p>');						// after channel title

CarpConf('bcdesc','<p class="channeldescriptions">');	// before channel description
CarpConf('acdesc','</p>');				// after channel description


CarpConf('maxititle',65);					// set max item title length 
CarpConf('atruncititle','...');				// if title is truncated

CarpConf('maxidesc',345);				// max item description length 
CarpConf('atruncidesc','...');  			// if description is truncated

CarpConf('bitems','<div id="rssitem">');		// before all items
CarpConf('aitems','</div><br />');			// after all items

CarpConf('bilink','<p class="itemtitle">'); // before link
CarpConf('ailink','</p>');				// after link

CarpConf('bidesc','<p class="itemdescriptions">');	// before each description
CarpConf('aidesc','</p>');				// after each description

CarpConf('poweredby','');				// remove "powered by carp" line

//CarpConfAdd('descriptiontags','|img|a|/a');	// for allowing images in feed

CarpConf('shownoitems',1);			// 0 = disabled (shows empty feeds), 1 = enabled (hides empty feeds)
CarpConf('noitems','');				// if filter returned no items

CarpConf('carperrors',0);							// do not display carp errors, 0,1
CarpConf('phperrors',0);			// do not display php errors, 0,-1


CarpConf('cacheinterval',10);		// refresh every ## min 

// set up the filtering
CarpConf('filterout','gambling|poker|advertizing|marketing');

CarpCacheShow('http://search.msn.com:80/results.aspx?q=%22Scott+Offord%22&format=rss&FORM=RSRE');

CarpCacheShow('http://rss.jobsearch.monster.com/rssquery.ashx?WT.mc_n=RSS2005_jsr&fn=660');

CarpCacheShow('http://www.ediets.com/rss/indexxml.xml');

?> 
 </div>

Thanks,
Scott Offord
http://scottofford.com/

Software: RSS and CaRP

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