Joomlashack Blog and Updates

How to use the syndicate (RSS) component in Joomla!

: Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge; Published: 30 November 2006 30 November 2006

Website content syndication has been around for a while in the form of RSS, or "Really Simple Syndication." If you want to know more about RSS, you can either ask the source of all knowledge (search for "RSS"), or read about it at Wikipedia. For the sake of brevity, I will only discuss how to use Joomla!'s Syndicate component and third-party RSS services, and I will try to provide a list of other RSS components for Joomla!

NOTE: This "How-to" only applies to Joomla! 1.0. It does not apply to Joomla! 1.5.

RSS in Joomla! 1.0.x

Most of this article will discuss RSS in Joomla! 1.0.x. To syndicate your content in Joomla!, you need to know about two core extensions: com_syndicate and mod_rssfeed.

com_syndicate

The component that generates the RSS feeds for your website is called com_syndicate. You can configure your syndication settings by clicking "Components->Syndicate" in your Joomla! administrator panel.

How to use the syndicate (RSS) component in Joomla!

On the next screen, you will see a list of parameters that you can set for your content syndication. Here is a list of the parameters, along with a description of what each does.

Security Check: If you set "Security Check" to yes, you can control whether or not your syndication feed is published by publishing or unpublishing the module mod_rssfeed.
Cache: This paramter determines whether or not your syndication feed will be cached, which means that the server does not have to generate the feed every time it is accessed. Instead, it will pull the feed from the cached version, and refresh at a pre-determined time interval which you set in the "Cache Time" parameter.
Cache Time: This is the pre-determined interval at which the cache is refreshed.
# Items: This is the number of content items that will be in your feed.
Title: This is the title of your feed. I usually just put the title of my website, but you can make this whatever you want it to be.
Descirption: This is just a brief description of your RSS feed.
Image: With this, you have the option of having an image linked to your RSS feed.
Image Alt: This is the alternate text that will go along with your image.
Limit Text: With this parameter and the "Text Length" parameter, you have the option of limiting how much text is fed from each content item.
Text Length: This is the length (in number of words) that the feed for each content item will be if you choose to limit it.
Order: With this, you can set what your content items are ordered by in your feed. The most logical choice is "Most recent first", because people who subscribe to your feed will want to see teh most recent items first.
Live Bookmarks: With this, you can enable support for Firefox Live Bookmars.

Once you have set your parameters in com_syndicate, it is time to set up mod_rssfeed.

mod_rssfeed

The module for content syndication is mod_rssfeed. This module displays a link to your feed in your choice of 5 different formats: RSS 0.91, RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, Atom, and OPML. You can choose any combination of the 5 formats to display. I usually just pick one, and I'll explain why in a later section.

Before you use mod_rssfeed, you will need to configure it. Here's how you do it:

In your Joomla! administrator panel, click Modules->Site Modules to access the Module Manager.
In the list of site modules, find the one with the Type of mod_rssfeed. It is probably the one with the Module Name of Syndicate.
Click on the module name ("Syndicate") to open up the Module Editor for mod_rssfeed.
Beneath the "Module Details", you will see "Parameters". Here is a list of the parameters and what each one does.
- Text: This is text that you can display in the module along with the links.
- Enable Cache: This tells Joomla! whether or not to cache the content of the module. If you do not understand what this is for, you can just keep it set to "No".
- Module Class Suffix: By putting a value here, you can add a suffix to the CSS class for this module. You should only do this if your template will apply a different style based on the module class.
- RSS 0.91: This parameter is used to show or hide the RSS 0.91 link.
- RSS 1.0: This parameter is used to show or hide the RSS 1.0 link.
- RSS 2.0: This parameter is used to show or hide the RSS 2.0 link.
- Atom: This parameter is used to show or hide the Atom link.
- OPML: This parameter is used to show or hide the OPML link.
- RSS 0.91 Image: With this parameter, you can choose which image to display for your RSS 0.91 link. It gives you a drop-down list of images to choose from, and it pulls those images from your "images/M_images" directory in your Joomla! installation. If you do not see an image in that directory that you want to use, you can use the media manager to upload an image of your choosing. It will automatically be added to the list of images to choose from.
- RSS 1.0 Image: Same as RSS 0.91 Image parameter.
- RSS 2.0 Image: Same as RSS 0.91 Image parameter.
- Atom Image: Same as RSS 0.91 Image parameter.
- OPML Image: Same as RSS 0.91 Image parameter.

Once you have set your mod_rssfeed parameters, you will want to publish it to a module position of your choice. If you have done this successfully, you now have a published syndication feed for your website. Be sure and go to your home page, and make sure that your Syndicate module is published and visible to your site's visitors.

Drawback in com_syndicate for Joomla! 1.0.x

The biggest drawback for com_syndicate in Joomla! 1.0.x is that it only syndicates items published to the frontpage. If you wanted to have separate feeds for separate categories, you could not do that with the core syndication component.

Other options

The good news is, there are options around this drawback. Joomla! is a highly extensible application, which means you can either create your own syndication component or use one of the third-party syndication components available for Joomla! Click here for a list of RSS extensions for Joomla! in the Extensions Directory. You want to get a syndication extension and not an RSS reader extension.

More good news: Joomla! 1.5

With Joomla! 1.5, the syndication functionality has gotten a much-needed overhaul. You can syndicate content for any section or category you want, and you can even syndicate content from there components. For example, you could provide an RSS feed of the contacts in your contacts component.

When I have had more time to play with it and understand it, I will post another article on how to use the syndication functionality in Joomla! 1.5.

Advanced Techniques

The syndication component is pretty limited in what it can do for you as a webmaster. Luckily, there are several feed services available the provided extended functionality for your RSS feed. For HowToJoomla!, I am using a service called FeedBurner. With this service, I have several tools at my disposal. Among other things, I can track the number of subscribers to my RSS feed, and I can give visitors the option to receive automatic e-mail updates when my RSS feed is updated. Pretty cool, huh?

I mentioned earlier that I typically only use one of the feed choices (RSS 2.0) available in com_syndicate. That is because FeedBurner only needs one link to your feed, and the format you use is really not that important if you are using FeedBurner.

Here's how you use FeedBurner:

Sign up for an account at FeedBurner.com. A basic account is free, and you can upgrade to advanced features for a fee.
On your Joomla! site, get a link to the RSS feed that com_syndicate generates. The links will look something like this:
your_joomla_directory/index.php?option=com_rss&feed=RSS2.0&no_html=1
FeedBurner will ask your for a link to your RSS feed. Use the link you got in the previous step.
FeedBurner will give you a new link to use as your RSS feed. The link to the HowToJoomla feed is https://feeds.feedburner.com/howtojoomla.
You will now want to hide mod_rssfeed, and create a new module that displays a link to your FeedBurner feed. The best way to hide mod_rssfeed is to publish it to a module position that your template does not use. That way, you can keep the module published, but it will not display on the front end of your site. To create a new module, just go to your module manager and click "New". Then, enter your link just like you would enter content, and click "Save".

Another benefit to using a service like FeedBurner is that you can change the location of your RSS feed (for example, if you decide to use a third-party syndication extension), and your visitors will not have to re-subscribe to your feed. You would just need to change your link information through your FeedBurner account. Your visitors will never know the difference, because the link they see (https://feeds.feedburner.com/yourfeedname) stays the same.

Once you make sure that your FeedBurner link module is displaying on the front end just like you want it, you are now set. Your visitors can now subscribe to your RSS feed via Feedburner.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Thanks to Craig Watkins from IllustratorTips.com for suggesting RSS feeds in Joomla! as a "How To" topic. If there is a feature of Joomla! that you would like for me to discuss, please feel free to contact me and suggest the topic.

As always, please feel free to post any questions or comments.

How to find the right tool for the job

: Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge; Published: 03 November 2006 03 November 2006

One of the most common questions I see in the forums is, "Is there a component/module/mambot/plugin that does (insert your function of choice here)?" Whenever I see a question like that, I head over to the Joomla! Extensions Directory (JED), perform a quick search, and find a list of components that either meet the person's need, or come really close to what the person wants. At the time I am writing this, the JED lists 947 Joomla! extensions.

My point is, if you ever find yourself needing a specific function, head over to the JED and do a quick search. Chances are, if you can't find it there, you can't find it anywhere.

How to view your site with a differnt template without changing templates

: Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge; Published: 28 October 2006 28 October 2006

Here's a useful little trick if you want to try out and debug a new template on your site while your visitors still see the live template. Simply add "index.php?jos_change_template=new_template_name" to your domain name.

Examples:

How to display a component's output and nothing else

: Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge; Published: 28 October 2006 28 October 2006

I know it sounds weird, but I came across a situation in which I needed to see a component's output and nothing else. That allowed me to better debug the HTML that was coming from the component.

Special thanks to Dean Marshall for showing me this nifty little trick.

It's pretty simple, just follow these steps:

Create a menu item that links to your component.
Once you have created your menu item, click on that menu item in your Menu Manager like you were going to edit the menu item.
Next to "URL", you should see something like "index.php?option=com_yourcomponent&...". Copy that URL.
In the browser address bar, type the domain name and path to your website along with the URL information you copied in the previous step.
Change "index.php" to "index2.php", and voila! You are now looking at just your component's output.

Joomla! 1.0.11 User Manual

: Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge; Published: 25 October 2006 25 October 2006

Just in time for Joomla! 1.5, the documentation team has released the Joomla! 1.0.11 User Manual (link to large pdf file). Better late than never, right? I haven't had a chance to read through it yet, but it's 183 pages long, so I'm guessing it's pretty thorough.

How to Move your Joomla! Installation Between Directories

: Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge; Published: 16 October 2006 16 October 2006

In How to Lose the Splash Page, I talk about how to move your Joomla! installation between directories on your server. Because the topic was buried in the "Read more..." section of the post, there may be some readers who ignored it or did not read it. If you want to know how to do this, click on over to How to Lose the Splash Page, and scroll down to "Option 1: How to Move Your Installation".

How to Lose the Splash Page

: Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge; Published: 05 October 2006 05 October 2006

Splash pages (those annoying pages with some sort of fancy graphic or flash intro that say "Click to Enter" or "Skip Intro") are bad. I could spend a whole article trying to convince you of this fact, but I think this article does a better job of it than I could ever do.

One of the most common mistakes made by Joomla! designers is to assume that just because you loaded Joomla! in a directory called "https://www.yourdomain.com/joomla" or "https://www.yourdomain.com/cms" or "https://www.yourdomain.com/home" rather than your root web directory, you are stuck needing to create a splash or intro page in your root directory to point your users to the real site. Nothing could be futher from the truth. As a webmaster, you have a couple of options for pointing users to your content without the need for a splash page. I will try to cover those options in this tutorial.

How to Display Joomla Page Titles in Your Template

: Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge; Published: 04 October 2006 04 October 2006

I recently worked on a project in which I needed to display the page's title outside of the bounds of the "mosMainBody" command in my template. Before this project, I never even thought about doing that, much less how to do it. Well, I'm happy to report that not only did I figure out how to do it, but I am going to pass it on to you. Here's how you do it.

How to Use Multiple Menus on the Same Page in Joomla

: Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge; Published: 29 September 2006 29 September 2006

Joomla! has a problem that you may or may not know about. It is a minor problem (or major, depending on whom you ask), and it will not really affect how your website functions.

The problem exists in how Joomla! renders menus. By default, the main element that contains the menu (in the case of a "flat list" menu, it is the "ul" element) is given an id=mainlevel. This is not a problem if you are using one menu on a page. But, if you are using multiple menus on a single page, there is a conflict.

Proper XHTML markup should not have more than one element with the same id. An id should be unique for each element that is given an id, so the browser can tell them apart for the purpose of style sheets and javascript. If you use multiple menus on the same page, you are using improper XHTML markup, and you will fail XHTML validation.

You can rest easy, though, because there is a solution. Read on to find out what it is.

How to Create a Basic Template

: Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge; Published: 25 September 2006 25 September 2006

You've installed Joomla!, installed all of the components, modules, and mambots you need, and you've created your content and menus. Now you want to create a custom look for your Joomla! site, but you don't know how to create a template. This article will step through the creation of a very basic template in Joomla! Hopefully, by the end of this article, you will have a basic understanding of what goes into a Joomla! template. (Note: This information only applies to Joomla! 1.0.X. It does not apply to version 1.5.)