OJS Plugin: External RSS Feeds

[michael]

Publish content from external Atom/RSS web syndication feeds in OJS.

This plugin can be used to include in your journal any content that is published using an Atom/RSS feed. Feed items can be displayed on the journal homepage and/or in the sidebars.

For example:
- Include blog postings in OJS from an external WordPress or Drupal install.
- Include announcements in OJS from an external OCS install.
- Include announcements and/or table of contents items in OJS sidebars from OJS-generated feeds (via announcementFeed and webFeed plugins).

There are two versions of this plugin, depending on your OJS install (either 2.2.x or 2.3+).

Please find some attached screenshots below.

Author: Michael Felczak
Software: OJS
Versions: 2.2+
Multilingual: yes

External Feed Plugin Screenshot 1

external_feed_1.png (101.02 KiB) Viewed 6264 times

External Feed Plugin Screenshot 2

external_feed_2.png (109.27 KiB) Viewed 6264 times

[michael]

Download this version of the plugin if you are using OJS 2.2.x.

Installation :: Existing OJS Install

1) Copy the plugin package to your root OJS directory.

2) Unpack the plugin package to the generic plugin directory:

Code: Select all

tar xfz externalFeed.tar.gz -C plugins/generic/


This should create the directory plugins/generic/externalFeed.

3) Manually add the plugin tables to your OJS database:

Code: Select all

php5 tools/dbXMLtoSQL.php -schema execute plugins/generic/externalFeed/schema.xml


4) Delete the plugin package from your root OJS directory:

Code: Select all

rm externalFeed.tar.gz


Installation :: New OJS Install

1) Copy the plugin package to your root OJS directory.

2) Unpack the plugin package to the generic plugin directory:

Code: Select all

tar xfz externalFeed.tar.gz -C plugins/generic/


This should create the directory plugins/generic/externalFeed.

3) Delete the plugin package from your root OJS directory:

Code: Select all

rm externalFeed.tar.gz


4) Complete the standard OJS installation.

Setup

1) Log in as Journal Manager.

2) Enable the plugin under System Plugins -> Generic Plugins.

3) External feeds can be added via the Journal Manager admin interface.

4) To display in sidebars, go to Setup -> The Look and ensure that the External
Feed Block is included in either the left or right sidebar.

Customization

This plugin includes a default CSS stylesheet, externalFeed.css, which can be
modified and uploaded using the plugin to customize the look and feel of included
RSS content.

[michael]

Download this version of the plugin if you are using OJS 2.3+.

Installation

1) Log in as Journal Manager.

2) Go to System Plugins, click on 'Install A New Plugin'.

3) Select and upload externalFeed.tar.gz to complete the installation.

Setup

1) Log in as Journal Manager.

2) Enable the plugin under System Plugins -> Generic Plugins.

3) External feeds can be added via the Journal Manager admin interface.

4) To display in sidebars, go to Setup -> The Look and ensure that the External
Feed Block is included in either the left or right sidebar.

Customization

This plugin includes a default CSS stylesheet, externalFeed.css, which can be
modified and uploaded using the plugin to customize the look and feel of included
RSS content.

[newone]

I tried your plugin and it produces an error. You may need to re-package the zip file again.

[michael]

Hi newone,

Can you please provide some additional details, in particular which version of OJS you are using and the error that you encountered?

Please note that if installing in OJS 2.3.x, you will need to save the plugin zip file using the provided filename in order to be able to use it via the Install Plugin feature.

Cheers,
Michael

[newone]

Hi newone,

Can you please provide some additional details, in particular which version of OJS you are using and the error that you encountered?

Please note that if installing in OJS 2.3.x, you will need to save the plugin zip file using the provided filename in order to be able to use it via the Install Plugin feature.

Cheers,
Michael

I tried this sometime back. I downloaded the file from PKP and uploaded it with using plugin management. I will try it again. BTW, I am on 2.3.0.

[Kaitlin]

Is there a way to install this plugin without using command line (which my web host doesn't allow).

[michael]

Hi Kaitlin,

Is there a way to install this plugin without using command line (which my web host doesn't allow).

If you're running OJS 2.2.x, you can create the necessary plugin database table manually by executing the following in MySQL:

Code: Select all

CREATE TABLE `external_feeds` (
  `feed_id` bigint(20) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `journal_id` bigint(20) NOT NULL,
  `url` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  `seq` double NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  `display_homepage` tinyint(4) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  `display_block` smallint(6) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  `limit_items` tinyint(4) DEFAULT '0',
  `recent_items` smallint(6) DEFAULT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`feed_id`),
  KEY `external_feeds_journal_id` (`journal_id`)
);


Cheers,
Michael

[Kaitlin]

Hi Kaitlin,

Is there a way to install this plugin without using command line (which my web host doesn't allow).

If you're running OJS 2.2.x, you can create the necessary plugin database table manually by executing the following in MySQL:

Code: Select all

CREATE TABLE `external_feeds` (
  `feed_id` bigint(20) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `journal_id` bigint(20) NOT NULL,
  `url` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  `seq` double NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  `display_homepage` tinyint(4) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  `display_block` smallint(6) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  `limit_items` tinyint(4) DEFAULT '0',
  `recent_items` smallint(6) DEFAULT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`feed_id`),
  KEY `external_feeds_journal_id` (`journal_id`)
);


Cheers,
Michael

Thanks, Michael! I also had to add this to make it work:

Code: Select all

    CREATE TABLE external_feed_settings (
    feed_id                  BIGINT NOT NULL,
    locale                   VARCHAR(5) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
    setting_name             VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
    setting_value            TEXT,
    setting_type             VARCHAR(6) NOT NULL

    );

I'm thrilled to be able to customize it with CSS. Thanks for making this plugin!

Best,
Kaitlin

[michael]

Hi Kaitlin,

Thanks for the follow-up and the additional MySQL to get things going. I'm sure it'll be useful to others with similar server limitations.

Cheers,
Michael

[gerbenzaagsma]

Is it possible to modify the display of feeds on the homepage when not displayed as a block?

We find the teasers too long and would prefer a simple list of headers or only a small teaser.

Thanks and best,
Gerben

[thebigaym]

I'm interested in this plug-in. Would someone post URLs to OJS implementations using it so I can see how it looks?

[michael]

Hi Gerben,

There are a few ways in which you can customize this plugin for your journal.

There's an included CSS file in the plugin directory that lists the styles introduced by the plugin which you can use as a basis for controlling display.

We find the teasers too long and would prefer a simple list of headers or only a small teaser.

To remove the description, you would need to modify the displayHomepage function in ExternalFeedPlugin.inc.php. In particular, you could remove the call to $item->get_description(); and the surrounding HTML tags.

This plugin relies on an external library, SimplePie, to process RSS feeds. Future versions of the library will include the option to control description lengths and we can include this as an option in the plugin itself. If you'd like a workaround for the time being, please see this guide for more information.

Cheers,
Michael

[michael]

Hi thebigaym,

I'm interested in this plug-in. Would someone post URLs to OJS implementations using it so I can see how it looks?

Please see the images included in the initial posts in this thread.

Cheers,
Michael

[gerbenzaagsma]

Hi Michael,

thanks for the reply, I will start working on it.

Do you have any idea when an updated version of the plugin with the option included will be ready? We are going live only late March so I would not want to implement a workaround when the plugin is updated soon.

Best,
Gerben