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Headlines Plugin
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)
- $category: the article category (item.category) |
Global FORMAT setting |
newline="$br" |
Convert newlines in feed; "$br" becomes <br /> tag |
"$n" (newline) |
filter="..." |
Filter out content from feed; for example to delete an encoded break tag specify "<br>" |
"" |
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:
HeadlinesPlugin ERROR: 501 Protocol scheme 'https' is not supported (LWP::Protocol::https not installed)
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"> $description</div></div>
- Allow HTML in header and format parameters of the HEADLINES variable. If set to
0, HTML is not allowed those in parameters. This is to guard against Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks. The HEADLINESPLUGIN_HEADER and HEADLINESPLUGIN_FORMAT plugin settings allow HTML regardless of this setting.
- Set HEADLINESPLUGIN_ALLOWHTML = 0
- Values taken from configure: (only supported if CPAN:LWP is installed)
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$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)
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headlinesChannel: channel header (div)
-
headlinesLogo: channel logo (div)
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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
This is a pre-installed plugin. TWiki administrators can upgrade the plugin as needed on the TWiki server.
Note: You do not need to install anything on the browser to use this plugin. The following instructions are for the administrator who installs the plugin on the TWiki server.
- For an automated installation, run the configure script and follow "Find More Extensions" in the in the Extensions section.
- Or, follow these manual installation steps:
- Download the ZIP file from the Plugins home (see below).
- Unzip
HeadlinesPlugin.zip in your twiki installation directory. Content: | File: | Description: | data/TWiki/HeadlinesPlugin.txt | Plugin topic | pub/TWiki/HeadlinesPlugin/style.css | Default CSS | lib/TWiki/Plugins/HeadlinesPlugin.pm | Plugin Perl module | lib/TWiki/HeadlinesPlugin/Core.pm | Plugin core |
- Set the ownership of the extracted directories and files to the webserver user.
- 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 configuration and testing:
- Run the configure script, enable the plugin in the Plugins section
- Configure the plugin: See plugin settings above.
- Test if the installation was successful: See example above.
Plugin Info
- 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
| 2018-07-13: |
TWikibug:Item7846: Sanitize parameters; add HEADLINESPLUGIN_ALLOWHTML setting; sanitize malicious scripts in feed; remove non-functional Wired feed example |
| 2018-07-05: |
TWikibug:Item7841: Copyright update to 2018 |
| 2016-01-08: |
TWikibug:Item7708: Copyright update to 2016 |
| 2015-11-06: |
TWikibug:Item7697: New filter and newline parameters; fix Atom feed parser to support Google Alerts |
| 2015-07-28: |
TWikibug:Item7678: HeadlinesPlugin not working well on Fast CGI and mod_perl |
| 2015-01-10: |
TWikibug:Item7604: Switch from GPL v2 to v3 |
| 2013-11-18: |
TWikibug:Item7385: Encode "[" and "]" to avoid problems with TWiki [[...][...]] links; code-refactor to use registerTagHandler and OO style. |
| 2013-02-16: |
TWikibug:Item7091: Use TWISTY in installation instructions section and change history |
| 2013-01-29: |
TWikibug:Item7131: HeadlinesPlugin doesn't match pattern in multiple lines. |
| 2012-12-10: |
TWikibug:Item7070: HeadlinesPlugin doesn't support multiple disks. |
| 2012-11-13: |
TWikibug:Item7016: Restore changes for earlier versions with LWP |
| 2012-11-13: |
TWikibug:Item7020: Categorize TWiki Variable |
| 2012-10-31: |
TWikibug:Item7016: Utilize <guid> value when it is available |
| 2012-09-05: |
TWikibug:Item6837: Doc fixes |
| 2011-07-17: |
TWikibug:Item6764: Add VarHEADLINES variable documentation; doc improvements; setting NO_PREFS_IN_TOPIC |
| 2011-07-08: |
TWikibug:Item6725: Change global package variables from "use vars" to "our" |
| 2010-05-16: |
TWikibug:Item6433: More doc improvements |
| 2010-04-25: |
TWikibug:Item6433: Doc fix: Changing TWIKIWEB to SYSTEMWEB |
| 2010-02-27: |
TWikibug:Item6313: Fixed bug in ATOM feed with <link ...></link> instead of <link ... /> -- Peter Thoeny |
| 2009-09-30: |
fixed bug in lastBuildDate of feeds affecting touch parameter functionality -- Peter Thoeny |
| 2009-08-29: |
added touch parameter -- Peter Thoeny |
| 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) |
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