134 - Create a Joomla! v 1.5 Module for Digg List Stories

[santix]

Create a Joomla! v 1.5 Module allowing the site developer to set a topic
parameter. The module should list the most recent stories based on that topic.

Hi everyone, my name is Santiago. I'm a 16-year-old-student from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
I like Open Source software, specially Gnu/Linux based systems.
Though I've never worked very much with Joomla I have some previous experience with PHP (I also visit Digg regularly, so somehow I'm a little familiarized with those two things :P)

Well...I'll try to do my best in this issue and I hope it's useful for you.
Congratulations for the great product you maintain day by day and thanks for the oportunity.

[santix]

I'm having some doubts about the xml parsing part. Who should I contact?

[ibnhafsun]

Hi, Santiago, I'll try to find someone with more knowledge than me.

Do you mean your_module.xml file or are you using xml to retrieve stories?

If you do mean your_module.xml file you can set parameters (with name, type, default value, description)...

[santix]

I'm using XML to retrieve the stories from the digg api.
The thing is that it seems to be a hard thing to do with php 4 (to parse the data from the xml), and all the simple solutions that I found where using php 5 functions or modules. But as Joomla runs on php 4 I think this plugin should have support for it.

[ibnhafsun]

Yep, you'll need CURL, I guess (I am not a programmer).

I am going to contact someone with more knowledge than me to mentor you. Thanks for understanding and thanks a lot for joining the GHOP program

[ibnhafsun]

I´ve sent an email to a developer.

I am sure you have read this:
http://dev.joomla.org/component/option, ... simplexml/

[santix]

I´ve sent an email to a developer.

I am sure you have read this:
http://dev.joomla.org/component/option, ... simplexml/

Yes, seems to be what I need, but I'm having some difficulties to make it work.

[ianmac]

Can you indicate what you have gotten and what you haven't?  If you have the XML back from Digg, then JSImpleXML should allow you to parse it...

Can you perhaps ask more specifically what you're stuck with?

Ian

[santix]

Can you indicate what you have gotten and what you haven't?  If you have the XML back from Digg, then JSImpleXML should allow you to parse it...

Can you perhaps ask more specifically what you're stuck with?

Ian

I do have the XML back from Digg.
What i'm stuck in is taking the useful info from the xml to variables, which would be used to show the titles with links to each story.

[ianmac]

Have you tried something like:

$xml = &JFactory::getXMLParser( 'Simple' );
$xml->loadString( $xmlString );  //  where $xmlString is the result from digg

$root = &$xml->document;

$images = &$root->getElementByPath( 'images' );

echo $root->name();

etc... etc...

Ian

[AmyStephen]

Santiago -

Would you like to select a different task? Or, are you still working on this one? Either way, it's okay. If you could let us know, that would be great. We'd like to reopen the task if you are not interested.

Thanks much!
Amy

[santix]

I'm still interested, I've been trying but I'm still stuck.
A few days ago angelfranco sent me a PM, I sent him the code and he told me he would see it and help me, so I'm waiting him.

[AmyStephen]

santix -

Can you articulate what problem you are having? Maybe someone else can help. Try to describe what help is needed, and we can see if someone can help you.

Thanks!
Amy

[santix]

Well, I think I'd better leave my place to somebody else.
Please re-open the task, sorry I couldn't complete it.

[AmyStephen]

No problem, thanks so much for letting us know!

I'll reopen it for someone else

Amy