[Pro] Can ReadFeed do Thumbnails?

Freeway
1

Once again I’m waaay out of my depth here, but I have to ask the question - can Read Feed be configured to read thumbnails of a blog?

Sorry, it’s blogger again and I know that could be a challenge, but what I’d like to do is achieve something like the output on my test page:

http://tinyurl.com/7g8aaal

(The error message on the right is my …first attempt… at getting the ReadFeed Action working. The working feed on the left (for those who can’t read) is a freebie from RSSInclude.com, and in the pad version is editable, and exactly what I’m looking for, except that I’d like to control it from my side, and of course there’s the annual fee!

So is it possible, or do I resume my search?

cheers,

P

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

2

If the thumbnail images are published as a part of the feed, then yes, you can get them back out through ReadFeed. The Action is designed to be completely flexible in the XML it accepts and the HTML it emits.

The key is to get a copy of the actual feed you want to use in raw XML, and look through the source of it to find the name of the tag they wrap the image with. On some photo blog feeds I have seen, it’s called enclosure, in others it is image.

Whatever you want to use, you then need to add the name of the tag in the elements field (that’s a comma-delimited string of variables that your template expects, in the order it expects them) and you have to add the proper markup in your template. So if your feed has an element that looks like this:

<image>
	http://example.com/path/to/image.jpg
</image>

Then your template could look like this:

<a href="%s"><img src="%s" alt="%s" /></a>

And your elements would then read:

link, image, title

Assuming the RSS/XML was in a format that the parser could handle (RSS 1.0, some forms of Atom) then you should get a linked list of images out of it.

Walter

On Mar 8, 2012, at 11:51 PM, PeterH wrote:

Once again I’m waaay out of my depth here, but I have to ask the question - can Read Feed be configured to read thumbnails of a blog?

Sorry, it’s blogger again and I know that could be a challenge, but what I’d like to do is achieve something like the output on my test page:

http://tinyurl.com/7g8aaal

(The error message on the right is my …first attempt… at getting the ReadFeed Action working. The working feed on the left (for those who can’t read) is a freebie from RSSInclude.com, and in the pad version is editable, and exactly what I’m looking for, except that I’d like to control it from my side, and of course there’s the annual fee!

So is it possible, or do I resume my search?

cheers,

P

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

3

Thanks very much Walter,

The thumbnails are published as media:thumbnail

but I think my troubles run deeper than that since I can’t get off line one!

I have an error message on my test that that says:
“XML error: Mismatched tag at line 1”

Feed Validator has this to say about my (blogger’s) feed:

This feed is valid, but interoperability with the widest range of feed readers could be improved by implementing the following recommendations.

line 1, column 0: Use of unknown namespace: http://schemas.google.com/g/2005 [help]

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><rss xmlns:atom='http://www.w3.org/200 ... <p>line 1, column 3230: description should not contain imageanchor attribute (25 occurrences) [help]</p> <p>… <a href="http://y.blogspot.com">y.blogspot.com</a>’ alt=‘’ /></div></description><link><a href="http://sunsh">http://sunsh</a> …<br> ^<br> line 1, column 42378: Missing atom:link with rel=“self” [help]</p> <p>… th=‘72’/><a href="thr:total">thr:total</a>2</thr:total></item></channel></rss></p> <p>I think a smart young man would go to the beach about now, not buy an ice-cream, and put the money towards paying Mr RSSinclude!</p> <p>If you think otherwise, I’d be delighted to listen!</p> <p>Many thanks for your time,</p> <p>Peter H</p> <hr> <p>freewaytalk mailing list<br> email@hidden<br> Update your subscriptions at:<br> <a href="http://freewaytalk.net/person/options" class="onebox" target="_blank">http://freewaytalk.net/person/options</a></p>
4

Interesting! I have lost a bit of what I’d written in the message above, for instance

Thumbnails are published as “media:thumbnails” (which I had between “<”.

Some of the feed validator quote is lost as well!

The original is here if it helps: http://tinyurl.com/7fjuzz7

As an aside are there “quote” tags that can be used manually on this list?

Cheers,

PeterH

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

5

are there “quote” tags that can be used manually on this list?

If you enter 4 Tildes (~) in a row, followed by a Return, then paste your code, followed by another Return and 4 more Tildes (~) then you will get this

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><link>http://sunsh … ^ line 1, column 42378: Missing atom:link with rel=”self” [help]

… th=’72’/>2</item>

David

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

6

Thanks David - that’s terrific!

If only making sense of my Blogger feed had the same solution, perhaps I should try typing a few tildes in the address!

P

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

7

Sorry - cant help with your RSS feed.

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

8

I don’t think that ReadFeed is going to work for this at all. Namespaces like media: are not something that its feeble PHP parser can deal with. You would need something more industrial, like Nokogiri in Ruby, that could either strip the namespaces or deal with them correctly. I’m sorry, this isn’t going to work out.

Walter

On Mar 9, 2012, at 6:25 PM, PeterH wrote:

Thanks very much Walter,

The thumbnails are published as media:thumbnail

but I think my troubles run deeper than that since I can’t get off line one!

I have an error message on my test that that says:
“XML error: Mismatched tag at line 1”

Feed Validator has this to say about my (blogger’s) feed:

This feed is valid, but interoperability with the widest range of feed readers could be improved by implementing the following recommendations.

line 1, column 0: Use of unknown namespace: http://schemas.google.com/g/2005 [help]

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><rss xmlns:atom='http://www.w3.org/200 ... <p>line 1, column 3230: description should not contain imageanchor attribute (25 occurrences) [help]</p> <p>… <a href="http://y.blogspot.com">y.blogspot.com</a>’ alt=‘’ /></div></description><link><a href="http://sunsh">http://sunsh</a> …<br> ^<br> line 1, column 42378: Missing atom:link with rel=“self” [help]</p> <p>… th=‘72’/><a href="thr:total">thr:total</a>2</thr:total></item></channel></rss></p> <p>I think a smart young man would go to the beach about now, not buy an ice-cream, and put the money towards paying Mr RSSinclude!</p> <p>If you think otherwise, I’d be delighted to listen!</p> <p>Many thanks for your time,</p> <p>Peter H</p> <hr> <p>freewaytalk mailing list<br> email@hidden<br> Update your subscriptions at:<br> <a href="http://freewaytalk.net/person/options" class="inline-onebox-loading">http://freewaytalk.net/person/options</a></p> </blockquote> <hr> <p>freewaytalk mailing list<br> email@hidden<br> Update your subscriptions at:<br> <a href="http://freewaytalk.net/person/options" class="onebox" target="_blank">http://freewaytalk.net/person/options</a></p>
9

Thanks Walter, I appreciate the time you’ve taken to reply.

It’s a shame, I would have liked it to work, and “Ruby” sounds like a whole lot of learning to me!

I shall go the subscription route and then look at alternatives. As hobbies go, this is a lot more economical than owning a boat!

Cheers,

Peter

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

10

My favorite joke on that line: “A boat is a hole in the water, into which you pour money.”

Walter

On Mar 9, 2012, at 7:17 PM, PeterH wrote:

a lot more economical than owning a boat!

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

11

Ahh, yes… well we don’t tell jokes like that round here! :wink:

(unless no one else is listening!)

Actually, since it’s the feed of the daily boating adventures I’m trying to read, perhaps I can just call it a boating expense and not think any more about it.

Cheers!

Peter

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options