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A big thanks to all the testers!

This release fixes all reported bugs and adds MANY new features, including a greatly improved and integrated administration section, many new global configuration options, and tagging/categorization functionality using automatic content analysis and relevant term extraction.

Full details and download: http://phlooid.com

Here's the changelog:

- FIXED - Leaving Trim Intro parameter blank on Edit Feed page caused nothing to be stored in intro column
- FIXED - Misaligned table columns on feeds listing page. Now properly aligned left.
- FIXED - Broken image on some admin pages
- FIXED - Warning if PEAR XML/RSS package is not installed

- ADDED - Completely new integrated backend administration
- ADDED - Integration with Yahoo's Term Extraction API for sophisticated tagging of content items
- ADDED - Replaced messy post-import status messages with clean AJAX-based log status window
- ADDED - Many new global configuration features:
- optionally include orignal link in content items, and make it conform to accessibility guidelines
- optionally extract most relevant tags in content and store as meta keywords
- optionally auto-publish content
- ability to set # of days content items will remain published
- optionally produce clean XHTML from content items using HTML Tidy
- ability to capture or set author_alias
- ability to capture feed category and store as tag
- ability to store Joomla section and category as tags
- descriptive help text for all parameters

- CHANGED - Temporarily reduced cache expiration for magpieRSS from 1 hour to 15 minutes for testing puposes
- CHANGED - Some code refactoring and clean up

I just got this project approved for the Joomla forge, so as soon as I get up to speed with the forge system I'll announce some sort of way to get support and report bugs, but for now just use this thread for questions, problems, etc.

So have at it...

Thanks!

Looking good so far but I think (i hope) you forgot to update the version number in the software to 0.2

Brian

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Having had a quick look at this new version I just want to say that this is how all components should be. The interface is great and every option is well documented clearly explaining exactly what everything does.

IMHO all component developers should download this component to have a look at how you should make your components.

I am sick of downloading components and not knowing what to do or what the options mean. For example there is little value in having an option that says classic view yes/no if you have no idea what classic view does.

This component clearly explains what each option does etc

Brian

_________________
"Exploited yesterday... Hacked tomorrow"
Blog http://brian.teeman.net/
Joomla Hidden Secrets http://hiddenjoomlasecrets.com/

hmmm, i thought i had updated all occurrences of version number: xml installation file, code headers, and it's also stored in the configuration table.

where are you seeing the old version number?

No my problem was I downloaded the original version again - oops

Brian

_________________
"Exploited yesterday... Hacked tomorrow"
Blog http://brian.teeman.net/
Joomla Hidden Secrets http://hiddenjoomlasecrets.com/

Wow, I don't know what to say except - many thanks.

I've also been frustrated in the past with components that were just too difficult to understand, buggy, and/or not documented. I'm doing my best to try not to make the same mistakes.

All the best.

Ok, cool.

I think i'll impose a better organizational structure on my downloads section to make it clearer to navigate. I'll also be uploading the releases to the forge...

A quick note:

I've noticed that several people have downloaded the previous (0.1) version of Feed Gator since I made the announcement to this thread.

Please be advised that the current version is 0.2. If the file you downloaded is called anything except com_feedgator0.2.zip, then you have downloaded the wrong version.

Thanks.

This seems to be a GREAT component!
I took a look a the presentation and am about to try it for sure.

Just a couple of fast questions:
- Can you control feed content to appear on specific sections/categories? For ex: if I'm in "tennis" section, will the RSS news feed show tennis news if I set it up to do so? Same with other contents.
- I noticed your menu on the right with scrollable parts (headlines, great news feeds, etc...): how did you manage to do so?

Yes. This is actually the first feature listed on the component description page (http://phlooid.com/joomla_goodies/jooml ... gator.html)



For most of the right navigation animations I'm using a combination of the Scriptaculous (http://script.aculo.us) and Rico (http://www.openrico.org) javascript libraries (with some help from Javascript classes that I've developed). The login module uses xajax (http://www.xajaxproject.org/) for client-server communication.

If I can find some time (and if there seems to be interest) I plan to post tutorials on how some of the things on the site work...

Thanks for your reply stephenrs,

sorry, probably I didn't explain myself properly.
What I meant is if you can set the RSS feed to show multiple feeds, that is a different set of news for each specific content (one for content A, a different one for content B, and so on).

luxxx,

i'm not sure i understand what you mean about showing multiple feeds, but in general, Feed Gator is used to import feeds. once you have them imported you can show them on your site in many ways using the default Joomla components or other available modules and components.

maybe it would be best if you downloaded the component and tried it out. i'll be happy to answer any questions about how to use it, and welcome any feature requests.

Thanks again. I'll try it asap and check if I manage to do what I was talking about. If not, I'll do my feature request!
Sorry if I insisted that much, I just wanted to avoid yet another aimless installation!

thx
lux

I k now what you mean about aimless installations but this one is really worth it

Brian

_________________
"Exploited yesterday... Hacked tomorrow"
Blog http://brian.teeman.net/
Joomla Hidden Secrets http://hiddenjoomlasecrets.com/

Yes please! And keep up the good work on this component, it's much appreciated.

In the rss2joomla thread some guy said he was able to mod the script to pull the entire article not just the short description.. I gues he is scraping it somehow.  Would Feed Gator be able to do this?

this is on the features/todo list and nearing the development queue (but probably not for the next version), as well as being able to auto detect a feed on any site (like feedburner).

an update to this: what i was referring to is that on the features/todo list i'm considering adding the ability to follow links back to original content for feeds that come from other feeds (like the slashdot.com feeds). the current version of feed gator already imports entire articles if they are provided with a feed, such as with the [content:encoded] tag. this should be just fine for most purposes.

Awsome..  sounds like the rss2joomla thread and the feed gator thread should combine their efforts.

Regards,
glen

Sorry, this is becoming embarrassing...but I cannot get it to work.

- I installed your component as normally do.
- I created a couple of feeds (using joomla's pre-installed samples) and published them in two different categories (normal com_content ones)

but nothing happened.

- I tried creating a menu item directing to com_feedgator, but I cannot create a related category where to publish the feeds

What am I doing wrong?

0. FIRST go through the Feed Gator configuration (Components->Feed Gator->Configuration) and make sure things are set up the way you want them. the configuration options affect the way content is processed and stored in your content database. any changes there will only apply to future imports.
1. then make sure you create your feeds using the feed gator administration interface. go to Components->Feed Gator->Manage Feeds, and click the 'New' button to create a feed
2. import the feed(s) by clicking "Import All" or clicking the checkbox(es) next to the feed(s) you want to import, then clicking the Import button at the top of the screen
3. once the import is finished you can display the content in many ways (this will mainly depend on your comfort level with the workings of Joomla)

you can manage the content that is imported by Feed Gator as if you had typed it in yourself. this is maybe the best way to think of it.

one way to display your content is to create a menu item that displays all of the RSS content imported to a particular section in blog format:

let's say you are importing your feeds into a section called 'RSS feeds'.

0. make sure the items that you imported are published by checking your content listing (refer to Joomla docs on how to do this if you don't know).
1. create a new menu item (again, refer to Joomla docs if this is unfamiliar). the menu item should be of type Content Blog Section. and you will select 'RSS feeds' from the select box when prompted.
2. make sure the menu item is published and you can see it on your site (Joomla docs...)

when you click the menu item from the front end of your site you should see the imported RSS content items.



Feed Gator is a backend-only component. all front end display is handled by the standard Joomla features as described above, so you will not create menu items to point to Feed Gator directly.

hopefully this will help you get started.

if anybody sees anything that i've missed or not stated correctly here, please chime in - i'm writing this from memory.

good luck, and let me know how it goes.

This update is for DEVELOPERS ONLY PLEASE, or for anyone who has experienced the problem described below:

In some fairly rare cases, when performing an import with Feed Gator, the progress bar may tick on indefinitely, or you may receive an XML response error. This can happen for a few reasons, including trying to process a feed that cannot be fetched by any of the available RSS parsers.

The attached file replaces admin.feedgator.php and fixes this problem (as well as a couple of other minor issues) and should be copied to the following directory:

http://your.site.name/administrator/com ... _feedgator

If you are not experiencing this problem, or if you are not sure how to replace component files in your Joomla folders, or don't know what to do with a file that ends with .php.txt, please ignore this post. The changes will be included in the next release.

If you're comfortable dealing with files on your server, this is a safe update, so you should replace the file if you want to continue to help test the most current revision of the code. This introduces better handling of bogus or problemmatic feeds, and will give you slightly more import feedback information in some instances.

Thanks.

Thanks stephenrs,

well, that's exactly my main problem.  Progress bar ticks indefinitely.
I tried replacing your new file but still the problem remains. I tried with several feeds that work with other components. It looks like my site doesn't digesti it!

I'll wait for your next release and do all again...

luxx,

what version of PHP are you using? and

can you provide one or more of the feed urls your are trying to import?

thanks

Hi Stephen:

Thank you again:

I downloaded and installed the new file as you have instructed.  I don't think the problem is the server limitations because it is a dedicated server I own but maybe I am missing something.

I tried the slashdot feed but that did not change things.  I still had the bar go across the top (the progress bar using ****** marks.  The lower bar was apparently to view the extended window to right to see the extent of the progress bar (sorry about missing this)).

I have been using this in firefox and thought maybe I would try it with IE.  When I did click the import all button in IE I received a warning that there was a script error and asked if I would like to go on with scripts on the page.  The error says it is in this file:

http://insidemagic.com/im/administrator ... task=feeds

Line 298 and character 6 with error code 0.  "xajax" is undefined.

Does this help at all?


Otherwise, it still has the progress bar going across without ending off the screen but no content shows up.  I wonder if there is a permission missing or a database error my configuration is causing.

Hi
I have the same problem as insidemagic - the ticker goes on and on in firefox and displays the error message as described above in IE. Hope you can fix this - been looking for a component like this for quite some time.. 

insidemagic & vegardha,

what version of PHP are you using?

also, if there's anything that either of you can think of that you have installed or modified on your system that might somehow make your installation "unusual" please let me know. this is a tircky one that i'd like to get fixed, but i'll need to find some way to replicate it.



have you tried the update posted above?

best,

ss

Hi Stephen:

Here is the set up for my php and joomla.  I hope this helps.  Thank you, Stephen. 


Database Version: 4.0.25-standard
PHP Version: 4.4.1
Web Server: Apache/1.3.34 (Unix) mod_auth_passthrough/1.8 mod_log_bytes/1.2 mod_bwlimited/1.4 PHP/4.4.1 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 mod_ssl/2.8.25 OpenSSL/0.9.7f
WebServer to PHP interface: apache
Joomla! Version: Joomla! 1.0.8 Stable [ Sunshade ] 26-Feb-2006 05:00 UTC
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.1) Gecko/20060111 Firefox/1.5.0.1
Relevant PHP Settings:
Safe Mode: OFF
Open basedir: none
Display Errors: ON
Short Open Tags: ON
File Uploads: ON
Magic Quotes: ON
Register Globals: OFF
Output Buffering: OFF
Session save path: /tmp
Session auto start: 0
XML enabled: Yes
Zlib enabled: Yes
Disabled Functions: none
WYSIWYG Editor: No WYSIWYG Editor
Configuration File:
========

$mosConfig_cachetime = '900';
$mosConfig_caching = '1';
$mosConfig_db = 'xxxxxx'
$mosConfig_dbprefix = 'jos_';
$mosConfig_debug = '0';
$mosConfig_dirperms = '';
$mosConfig_editor = 'mosce';
$mosConfig_enable_log_items = '1';
$mosConfig_enable_log_searches = '1';
$mosConfig_enable_stats = '1';
$mosConfig_error_reporting = '-1';
$mosConfig_favicon = '/images/favicon.ico';
$mosConfig_fileperms = '';
$mosConfig_fromname = 'xxxxxxxxxx';
$mosConfig_gzip = '1';
$mosConfig_helpurl = 'http://help.joomla.org';
$mosConfig_item_navigation = '1';
$mosConfig_lang = 'english';
$mosConfig_lifetime = '900';
$mosConfig_link_titles = '1';
$mosConfig_list_limit = '30';
$mosConfig_live_site = 'http://xxxxxxxxxx.com/xx';
$mosConfig_locale = 'en_GB';
$mosConfig_mailer = 'mail';
$mosConfig_mailfrom = '=======';
$mosConfig_ml_support = '0';
$mosConfig_multipage_toc = '1';
$mosConfig_offline = '0';
$mosConfig_offline_message = 'This site is down for maintenance.
Please check back again soon.';
$mosConfig_offset = '0';
$mosConfig_offset_user = '-5';
$mosConfig_pagetitles = '1';
$mosConfig_password = 'xxxxxx'
$mosConfig_readmore = '1';
$mosConfig_secret = 'XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX';
$mosConfig_sef = '1';
$mosConfig_sendmail = '/usr/sbin/sendmail';
$mosConfig_session_life_admin = '1800';
$mosConfig_session_type = '0';
$mosConfig_shownoauth = '1';
$mosConfig_smtpauth = '0';
$mosConfig_smtphost = 'localhost';
$mosConfig_smtppass = '';
$mosConfig_smtpuser = '';
$mosConfig_uniquemail = '1';
$mosConfig_user = 'xxxxxx'
$mosConfig_user = 'xxxxxx'
$mosConfig_vote = '1';
setlocale (LC_TIME, $mosConfig_locale);
?>


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I have xxxxx'ed out personal info

I have currently php v.4.3.2 installed.



Yes, but without any visible change. 

Hi Stephenrs

my PHP Version is 4.4.1
Hope you can find a solution sooner or later, your component seems to be just what I'm looking for!

Thx again

I applied the update here and report the same results as others -- progress bar ticks on.  This occurs in a test site I have running j1.0.8.  In my live site running j1.0.7, and without the update, all is fine -- Feedgator performs as expected.

PHP: 4.4.2 is in use on both.

Let me know how I can help.

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