Gossamer Forum: Products: Gossamer Links: Development, Plugins and Globals: [ NEW PLUGIN ] BBC

Veteran / Moderator (18436 posts)

May 17, 2005, 3:00 AM

Post #1 of 30

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[ NEW PLUGIN ] BBC_News [ FREE ]

Here's a little plugin for those of you wanting to make use of the BBC's RSS/XML news feed's.

You can download the plugin from here: http://ultranerds.com/...?g=Detailed/152.html

Very simple to install and Free Angelic

Enjoy!

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

May 17, 2005, 7:51 AM

VishalT

Veteran (1119 posts)

May 17, 2005, 7:51 AM

Post #2 of 30

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Re: [Andy] [ NEW PLUGIN ] BBC_News [ FREE ] In reply to

Wow.. another wonderful plugin from Andy.

Hey Andy, thanks a lot (from me and whole community) for helping us out.

Vishal

Vishal
-------------------------------------------------------

May 17, 2005, 7:53 AM

Veteran / Moderator (18436 posts)

May 17, 2005, 7:53 AM

Post #3 of 30

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Re: [SWDevil.Com] [ NEW PLUGIN ] BBC_News [ FREE ] In reply to

Hi,

Thanks Cool

It's been a while since I released a free plugin, so I thought I'd have a go <G>

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Sep 1, 2007, 3:40 AM

Enthusiast (619 posts)

Sep 1, 2007, 3:40 AM

Post #4 of 30

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Re: [Andy] [ NEW PLUGIN ] BBC_News [ FREE ] In reply to

Hi Andy,

If the RSS feed is down for whatever reason, the page just returns blank.
Is there a way for some error handing so a small messages is displayed if no feed is available?

I tried this code addition but no luck I'm afraid:

Code:
sub GetNews { 

   my $feed_url = $_[0]; 

   if ($feed_url !~ /(.*?)bbc\.co\.uk\/(.*?).xml/) { 
     return "No RSS feed URL passed in!"; 
   } 

   use LWP::Simple; 
   use Data::Dumper; 
   my @page = get($feed_url); 
   my $page = join("",@page); 

die "Request failed\n" unless defined($feed_url);

   use XML::Simple; 
   my $ref = XMLin($page);    

   my $count = $ref->{channel}->{ttl} || 0; 

   my @news; 
   for (my $i = 0; $i < $count; $i++) { 
     push @news, $ref->{channel}->{item}[$i]; 
   } 

   return { 'news.title' => $ref->{channel}->{title},  
  news_loop => \@news, 'news.dump' => Dumper($ref->{channel}) }; 

}

~ ERASER

Last edited by:

Eraser: Sep 1, 2007, 3:41 AM

Sep 1, 2007, 5:02 AM

Veteran / Moderator (18436 posts)

Sep 1, 2007, 5:02 AM

Post #5 of 30

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Re: [Eraser] [ NEW PLUGIN ] BBC_News [ FREE ] In reply to

Hi,

I would try:

Code:
my $page = join("",@page); 

if (!$page[0]) { 
  return  "Request failed";  
}

Hope that helps.

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Sep 1, 2007, 10:54 AM

Enthusiast (893 posts)

Sep 1, 2007, 10:54 AM

Post #6 of 30

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Re: [Andy] [ NEW PLUGIN ] BBC_News [ FREE ] In reply to

Hi Andy,
can I change this line to just the rss feed of my choice,

Code:
if ($feed_url !~ /(.*?)bbc\.co\.uk\/(.*?).xml/) {

or is it only for bbc feeds?

Thanks
Matthias

Matthias
gpaed.de

Sep 1, 2007, 2:29 PM

Veteran / Moderator (18436 posts)

Sep 1, 2007, 2:29 PM

Post #7 of 30

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Re: [Matthias70] [ NEW PLUGIN ] BBC_News [ FREE ] In reply to

Hi,

It will only work with the BBC RSS feed, as it has pre-defined formatting (i.e the format of another RSS feed will no doubt be different / use different field names, etc)

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Sep 2, 2007, 3:16 AM

Enthusiast (893 posts)

Sep 2, 2007, 3:16 AM

Post #8 of 30

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Re: [Andy] [ NEW PLUGIN ] BBC_News [ FREE ] In reply to

Hi Andy,
mmh, so what about a plugin as example for google news.
A plugin that can defined with 1-3 keywords in order to show only news that fit to the site.

And I think google news are the same all over the world. So you just have to change the url and you can show the news in the prefered language.
This would be a interesting News Plugin for much more people, than BBC News.

Am I dreaming or is this doable?

Thanks
Matthias

Matthias
gpaed.de

Sep 2, 2007, 3:27 AM

Veteran / Moderator (18436 posts)

Sep 2, 2007, 3:27 AM

Post #9 of 30

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Re: [Matthias70] [ NEW PLUGIN ] BBC_News [ FREE ] In reply to

Mmm.. I'll see what I can do. I've been doing a bit too much free stuff recently :D

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Sep 2, 2007, 3:33 AM

Enthusiast (893 posts)

Sep 2, 2007, 3:33 AM

Post #10 of 30

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Re: [Andy] [ NEW PLUGIN ] BBC_News [ FREE ] In reply to

Andy wrote:

Mmm.. I'll see what I can do. I've been doing a bit too much free stuff recently :D

Cheers

Hi Andy,
why are you doing it for free.
Do it as a paid plugin, but please put it in the Gossamer Links ULTRA Package Wink

Thanks
Matthias

Matthias
gpaed.de

Sep 2, 2007, 3:39 AM

Veteran / Moderator (18436 posts)

Sep 2, 2007, 3:39 AM

Post #11 of 30

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Re: [Matthias70] [ NEW PLUGIN ] BBC_News [ FREE ] In reply to

Hi,

Its not really something worth charging for =) I'll see what I can do (although not today, as its Sunday - and I've already been working all week :P)

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Sep 2, 2007, 3:45 AM

Enthusiast (893 posts)

Sep 2, 2007, 3:45 AM

Post #12 of 30

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Re: [Andy] [ NEW PLUGIN ] BBC_News [ FREE ] In reply to

Have a nice sunday Smile

Thanks
Andy

Matthias
gpaed.de

Sep 3, 2007, 2:50 AM

Veteran / Moderator (18436 posts)

Sep 3, 2007, 2:50 AM

Post #13 of 30

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Re: [Matthias70] [ NEW PLUGIN ] BBC_News [ FREE ] In reply to

Hi,

I had a look into this, but for some reason, the RSS feeds don't seem to work :(

I'm just testing it with something simple:

Code:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w 

  use strict; 
  use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser); 
  print "Content-Type: text/html \n\n"; 

   my $feed_url = q|http://news.google.com/?ned=us&topic=t&output=rss|; 

   print $feed_url; 

   use LWP::Simple; 
   use Data::Dumper; 
   my @page = get($feed_url); 

   print join("",@page);

.. but the contents are blank. Not sure why thats happening, but without being able to get the data from that test page, I can't do anything :(

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Sep 3, 2007, 8:02 AM

Enthusiast (893 posts)

Sep 3, 2007, 8:02 AM

Post #14 of 30

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Re: [Andy] [ NEW PLUGIN ] BBC_News [ FREE ] In reply to

Andy wrote:

.. but the contents are blank. Not sure why thats happening, but without being able to get the data from that test page, I can't do anything :(

Cheers

Hi Andy,
I would if I could help, but I have no idea how to fix it?
Matthias

Matthias
gpaed.de

Nov 11, 2007, 10:53 AM

Enthusiast (619 posts)

Nov 11, 2007, 10:53 AM

Post #15 of 30

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Re: [Andy] [ NEW PLUGIN ] BBC_News [ FREE ] In reply to

Hi Andy,

Looking at several of the BBC feeds I see they also have images but in this format:

<media:thumbnail width="66" height="49" url="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44232000/jpg/_44232128_cenotaph_66pic.jpg" />

so I thought of grabbing that url= by using:

<%media:thumbnail.url%>

but I get a Unknown Tag error.

Any ideas on this - perhaps I'm using the wrong format to get the url within media:thumbnail?

~ ERASER

Nov 11, 2007, 12:18 PM

Veteran / Moderator (18436 posts)

Nov 11, 2007, 12:18 PM

Post #16 of 30

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Re: [Eraser] [ NEW PLUGIN ] BBC_News [ FREE ] In reply to

Hi,

Have you actually managed to get this plugin working with a BBC feed? I tried a little while back, and it didn't seem to be recognized :(

Regarding the images - its not as simple as that. You need to add in some more XML codes to extract the image URL and details.

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Nov 11, 2007, 12:25 PM

Enthusiast (619 posts)

Nov 11, 2007, 12:25 PM

Post #17 of 30

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Re: [Andy] [ NEW PLUGIN ] BBC_News [ FREE ] In reply to

Yeah, I 'think' I changed this to make it work:

my $count = $ref->{channel}->{ttl} || 0;

my $count = $ref->{channel}->{ttl} || 4320;

Any chance on doing the img stuff?

~ ERASER

Nov 11, 2007, 12:47 PM

Veteran / Moderator (18436 posts)

Nov 11, 2007, 12:47 PM

Post #18 of 30

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Re: [Eraser] [ NEW PLUGIN ] BBC_News [ FREE ] In reply to

Hi,

Just tested this, and it seems to work.

Code:
sub GetNews { 

   my $feed_url = $_[0]; 

   if ($feed_url !~ /(.*?)bbc\.co\.uk\/(.*?).xml/) { 
     return "No RSS feed URL passed in!"; 
   } 

   use LWP::Simple; 
   use Data::Dumper; 
   my @page = get($feed_url); 
   my $page = join("",@page); 

   use XML::Simple; 
   my $ref = XMLin($page);    

   my $count = $ref->{channel}->{ttl} || 0; 

   my @news; 
   for (my $i = 0; $i < $count; $i++) { 
     $ref->{channel}->{item}[$i]->{image} = $ref->{channel}->{item}[$i]->{'media:thumbnail'}->{url};
     push @news, $ref->{channel}->{item}[$i]; 

   } 

   return { 'news.title' => $ref->{channel}->{title}, news_loop => \@news, 'news.dump' => Dumper($ref->{channel}) }; 

}

Just call with <img src="<%image%>" /> in the loop

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Nov 11, 2007, 2:38 PM

Enthusiast (619 posts)

Nov 11, 2007, 2:38 PM

Post #19 of 30

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Re: [Andy] [ NEW PLUGIN ] BBC_News [ FREE ] In reply to

Hey Andy this is good stuff.

Many thanks for this.

~ ERASER

Nov 12, 2007, 2:39 AM

Enthusiast (619 posts)

Nov 12, 2007, 2:39 AM

Post #20 of 30

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Re: [Andy] [ NEW PLUGIN ] BBC_News [ FREE ] In reply to

I had to change the position of your new code as I kept getting repeated images. Seems OK though, any significance in this change?

my @news;
for (my $i = 0; $i < $count; $i++) {
push @news, $ref->{channel}->{item}[$i];
$ref->{channel}->{item}[$i]->{image} = $ref->{channel}->{item}[$i]->{'media:thumbnail'}->{url};
}

~ ERASER

Last edited by:

Eraser: Nov 12, 2007, 2:39 AM

Nov 12, 2007, 3:01 AM

Veteran / Moderator (18436 posts)

Nov 12, 2007, 3:01 AM

Post #21 of 30

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Re: [Eraser] [ NEW PLUGIN ] BBC_News [ FREE ] In reply to

Hi,

Are you sure?

I just did a test - and works fine:

http://gossamerlinks.com/.../dev/page.cgi?p=test

That is using this loop:

Code:
<%Plugins::BBC_News::GetNews("http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_uk_edition/front_page/rss.xml")%> 

Title: <%news.title%><br/> <%-- This is the title of the particular RSS feed you selected --%> 

<%loop news_loop%> 
  Title: <%title%><br/> 
  URL: <%link%><br/> 
  Description: <%description%><br/> 
   <%if image%><img src="<%image%>" /><%endif%> 
  <br/> 
<%endloop%>

Placing the code where you are now (in your last post), will not work - as it has already passed in the hashref into the array (the line before), so anything after that will just be ignored =)

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Nov 12, 2007, 3:11 AM

Enthusiast (619 posts)

Nov 12, 2007, 3:11 AM

Post #22 of 30

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Re: [Andy] [ NEW PLUGIN ] BBC_News [ FREE ] In reply to

Opps - I have to admit to using a hacked version of that plugin Tongue

In the original all is fine as you correctly stated.

Thanks again!

~ ERASER

Nov 12, 2007, 3:14 AM