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RE: Include image with RSS feed similar to Discovery Channel example

dahowlett — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:32:56 GMT

For security reasons, could you drop me an email to dahowlett [at] gmail.com and I can provide the necessary information re account etc.

RE: Include image with RSS feed similar to Discovery Channel example

Dan Borrego — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:52:20 GMT

[quote]originally posted by dahowlett:
Hi Dan - I was under the impression Jeff Nolan had arranged for my account to be upgraded?[/quote]

He certainly could have. If he did then yes, you will be able to get under the hood and muck with all sorts of stuff. (btw - I have no way of identifying your account by a forum post)

Let me know when you have all the right feeds built into a widget and we'll move forward.

RE: Include image with RSS feed similar to Discovery Channel example

dahowlett — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 10:45:21 GMT

Hi Dan - I was under the impression Jeff Nolan had arranged for my account to be upgraded? I'll look into the other issues you mention.

RE: Include image with RSS feed similar to Discovery Channel example

Dan Borrego — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 10:14:19 GMT

dahowlett,

The first thing to mention here is that not all feed owners include a feed image in the RSS that they publish. But if you can find some feeds that you want to use which all include such an image, then what you're asking certainly may be possible.

The other caveat that I must throw in here is that in order to do the type of customization it would take to use these images in the way you've described, you would need to have a premium level account. The basic free account does not give you access to the code that will need to be changed.

[b]How do you know if a feed has an image?[/b]
When you go to a feed's xml URL, like this for example: [url]http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/oped[/url]

You need to "view source" on the page to reveal the xml tags. Next, look for an < image > tag before the first < item > tag. Like shown here:

< channel >
< title >Yahoo! News: Opinion< /title >
< copyright >Copyright (c) 2008 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.< /copyright >
< link >http://news.yahoo.com/i/742< /link >
< description >Opinion< /description >
< language >en-us< /language >
< lastBuildDate >Wed, 23 Jan 2008 15:10:45 GMT< /lastBuildDate >
< ttl >5< /ttl >
[b]< image >
< title >Yahoo! News< /title >
< width >142< /width >
< height >18< /height >
< link >http://news.yahoo.com/i/742< /link >
< url >http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/us/nws/th/main_142b.gif< /url >
< /image >[/b]
< item > .....etc

The above image tag (in bold) is part of the channel element ("channel" corresponds to the feed itself). Once you go past the first item tag (which corresponds to the first post in the feed), any images are basically thumbnails for the specific post that it is part of.

If you build a widget made up of feeds that all have this channel image element, then we can look into what it might take to pull those images into the widget somehow.

In general I would estimate that about a third of the feeds we have in our system have these optional feed images.

Regards,

Include image with RSS feed similar to Discovery Channel example

dahowlett — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 02:25:27 GMT

I'd like to include an image that goes with each feed. The image would be static and not relate specifically to the article feed item but would come from the feed owner. The image would need to be clickable.

It looks as though I need some code similar to this: http://forum.newsgator.com/Topic33494-53-1.aspx?Highlight=image+widget

but I'm not at all sure.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks