Example - RSS Feed
RSS for third party content
Concrete CMS already has an RSS block, but its a bit tired and inflexible. If you want to do more with an RSS feed you either need to get coding for a block template and possibly a controller override, or you can explore the possibilities with Universal Content Puller.
As an RSS feed will be external to the site, the Content Source to use will again be URL.
The examples on this page provide some basic pulling of RSS feeds. The examples List PIcker shows more advanced selection and display from the RSS feed.
Basic feed
To investigate the possibilities, we need an RSS feed. NASA is a good source. From those available, the example here uses Breaking News at https://www.nasa.gov/rss/dyn/breaking_news.rss.
The Multi Selector Content Transform can pick out items from XML data.
- Source content type - XML / XHTML
- Container css selector - channel
- Level 1 - item
- Level 2 - [blank] (for all children) + Return text with attributes, url src type title alt
For display, The Multi Level List Content Display has the flexibility to display the pulled RSS in many ways.
- Level 1 - Paragraphs + First child value
- Level 2 - Definition List, horizontal + Capitalised keys + Filter 1 Title Source Enclosure Type Guid Dc:identifier, Source Url, Dc:creator, content:encoded
The filters are to remove elements pulled from the XML that would clutter our display. Definition List, horizontal is a good list type as it shows all the headings (keys), so can help identify what to add to the filter.
Make frequent use of the Preview button to review the incoming data to the transform and display.
As the RSS feed can be long, its an ideal place to explore the pagination capabilities of UCP. Here the pagination is set very low so we don't fill too much of this page.
- Outer list items to display - 2
- Paginate - Below
- Include block identity in pagination - No
By leaving out the block identity in the pagination, all variations of the RSS feed shown on this page will paginate together!
In the Advanced tab, the main settings we need are the Advanced Autolinker and to Render Image URLs as Images. An important point here is that the settings don't change the file size of images, just the maximum size they are displayed.
NASA to Provide Coverage as Dragon Departs Station with Science
- Link
- www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-to-provide-coverage-as-dragon-departs-station-with-science-3/
- Pubdate
- Fri, 26 Apr 2024 19:52:19 +0000
- Category
- International Space Station (ISS)
- Category 2
- ISS Research
- Category 3
- Missions
- Description
- NASA and its international partners are set to receive scientific research samples and hardware as a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft departs the International Space Station on Sunday, April 28 weather permitting. The agency will provide coverage of undocking and departure beginning at 12:45 p.m. EDT on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the […]
Site-Wide Environmental Assessment for Marshall Space Flight Center, Alabama
- Link
- www.nasa.gov/news-release/site-wide-environmental-assessment-for-marshall-space-flight-center-alabama/
- Pubdate
- Fri, 26 Apr 2024 19:45:00 +0000
- Category
- Marshall Space Flight Center
- Description
- The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has prepared a Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) that analyzes the environmental impacts of implementing continuing and future mission support activities at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama. The EA evaluated the potential environmental effects associated with air quality; climate change and greenhouse gases; land use; […]
Getting the items in order
By default, the various elements are shown in the sequence they are declared in the XML of the RSS feed. That can be changed by entering a Shuffle sequence for the second list level.
The version below has a Shuffle set to Pubdate, Description, Enclosure Url, Link.
NASA to Provide Coverage as Dragon Departs Station with Science
- Pubdate
- Fri, 26 Apr 2024 19:52:19 +0000
- Description
- NASA and its international partners are set to receive scientific research samples and hardware as a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft departs the International Space Station on Sunday, April 28 weather permitting. The agency will provide coverage of undocking and departure beginning at 12:45 p.m. EDT on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the […]
- Link
- www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-to-provide-coverage-as-dragon-departs-station-with-science-3/
- Category
- International Space Station (ISS)
- Category 2
- ISS Research
- Category 3
- Missions
Site-Wide Environmental Assessment for Marshall Space Flight Center, Alabama
- Pubdate
- Fri, 26 Apr 2024 19:45:00 +0000
- Description
- The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has prepared a Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) that analyzes the environmental impacts of implementing continuing and future mission support activities at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama. The EA evaluated the potential environmental effects associated with air quality; climate change and greenhouse gases; land use; […]
- Link
- www.nasa.gov/news-release/site-wide-environmental-assessment-for-marshall-space-flight-center-alabama/
- Category
- Marshall Space Flight Center
Removing the titles
For a variation, the Level 2 list type can be set to Paragraphs + none.
As a side effect, the Level 2 items no longer have headings, so they can only be filtered and shuffled by number. Hence an intermediary step is to set Paragraphs + Number 1,2,3 to see the numbers of the items. Then make a note of the numbers to filter, below these are 1 2 3 5 8 9 10, then change to Paragraphs + none for the finished list.
Having filtered, the numbers for shuffling are reset to a contguous 1,2,3... Here we need to actually count from the start of our filtered numbers. The publication date is the 4th item and the rest are already in the sequence we want, so simply setting Shuffle to 4 will achieve the desired effect.
NASA to Provide Coverage as Dragon Departs Station with Science
Fri, 26 Apr 2024 19:52:19 +0000
ISS Research
Missions
Site-Wide Environmental Assessment for Marshall Space Flight Center, Alabama
Fri, 26 Apr 2024 19:45:00 +0000
www.nasa.gov/&p=579709
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has prepared a Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) that analyzes the environmental impacts of implementing continuing and future mission support activities at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama. The EA evaluated the potential environmental effects associated with air quality; climate change and greenhouse gases; land use; […]
Adding Style
We now have a few options for a readable RSS feed where we have complete control over what data is presented and the sequence it is shown.
Now we want to add a bit of style. Each item in the UCP list is assigned classes based on heading and position in the list, so styles could be added to the theme, or (slightly naughty) declared in an HTML block, or placed in a Header Extra Content attribute as we have done here.
The styles can be localised to a specific UCP block by adding a unique wrapper class in the Advanced tab of the edit dialog. In this case example-styled.
[code]<style>
.ucp-body.example-styled .ucp-item-2-1{
font-size:80%;
font-style:italic;
}
.ucp-body.example-styled h3{
clear:both;
}
</style>[/code]
NASA to Provide Coverage as Dragon Departs Station with Science
Fri, 26 Apr 2024 19:52:19 +0000
ISS Research
Missions
Site-Wide Environmental Assessment for Marshall Space Flight Center, Alabama
Fri, 26 Apr 2024 19:45:00 +0000
www.nasa.gov/&p=579709
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has prepared a Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) that analyzes the environmental impacts of implementing continuing and future mission support activities at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama. The EA evaluated the potential environmental effects associated with air quality; climate change and greenhouse gases; land use; […]
Expandable lists
With v9.3.1, Universal Content Puller introduced an expandable list option to the Multi Level List content display.
Our next version of the NASA RSS feed is similar to the above, but with expanders enabled on the item headings. A couple more changes were required, to configure the use <div> elements for the level 1 item bodies rather than <p> elements.
