Share your tricks or tips for RSS News Flash with others!

This thread is for tricks and tips only - please no problem questions.

Have a problem or question then post in the Software Discussion threads, not here, so your question does not get overlooked.

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"It can only be dark, if there is no light." - Kim Rickman

Create news items with editing text file

If you create your own news items, when you want to edit or add a new bit of news, just open the text file created and edit it with the new info then upload.
Saves time opening RSS News Flash to edit it.
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How to.........

Open the .txt file in any text editor.

Look for the tags :-

<ITEM> .... </ITEM>

this is where each scrolling section of your news is located.

Copy one of the complete sections and paste it right under the <CHANNEL> tag at the top, this is so the dates run in sequence.

All you have to do now is edit your piece of news and then upload the file to your server. Jim
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http://www.freebits.co.uk/

Using RSS News Flash... Discoveries

What a FUN tool! And Hey, I'm new to this!
Some of this may already be posted somewhere, or may already be known, if so, sorry. If not, here it is:

Ok...
1. First, noted a couple of inquiries re news feed sources.
Just Google for 'em.... ! And add their URL's into the custom news sources field.
(I haven't found a way to 'sort' them, would be nice)

2. Multiple Feeds: The program will source them in the order they're CLICKED, that's what seems to work... Click the first one you want to, then the second, in the order you want them 'read'.

3. Placing the feed into another page, or website, outside the server folder the files are loaded in:
And it relates to FrontPage, don't know about other editors, yet.

I had an irritating "white Box" waiting for the file to load, so here's what I did to 'eliminate' that,
and how I sourced into another website without uploading to it.

Must load all the files into whatever server folder we're using, as we know. Doesn't matter if the page is there or not, for this purpose. Just load them all together.
Must get the generated html into 'a page' in the desired position.

Now:
If you use the "FrontPage" "SWF MOVIE" properties function, various screwy things might happen, so:

In design mode, Insert the rss SWF into FP as you might normally do. BUT
DO NOT SET swf properties with the FP property box.
Paste the exact CoffeeCup generated HTML code for the swf into the correct position, Replacing the FP generated "object" code.
If you change properties in FP
1. To make the 'box' on the webpage other than 'white' (make it 'go away') as swf loads, add this line after param bgcolor value code:
<param name="wmode" value="transparent"> which was generated by CCup, but probably deleted by FP...
These 2 params generated by CCup WILL BE CHANGED or DELETED if you use FP to set swf properties!
<param name="scale" value="noscale" />
<param name="salign" value="lt" />
And THOSE TWO MUST remain for the swf to display in proper size.

2. The embed src and movie value lines are then changed to the EXACT URL LOCATION where the CoffeeCup generated xml, txt, swf, php files are located on a web server file.

See it working here http://gean.smugmug.com/ as a "div id" through CSS with only ONE cut and paste entry for a whole slew of pages.
And here, http://ourspecial.net on the original server, at the site I will finish one of these years...

Cheers!

Mike I think... therefore, I'm in a mess....

RSS NewsFlash in E-Mail
Somewhere in the forums someone had asked about running RSS NewsFlash in emails: and if this has been covered somewhere, I apologize.

Here's one way -
it applies to Outlook 2000. You can play around with your email client.

It will NOTwork for text email... HTML email only.
It will NOT work or will display improperly, if the recipient's email security settings do not allow Active X, etc... at least on a "prompt" notification.
It May Not display properly in all email clients! I suspect some firewalls may block it also...

About 80% of the recipients getting this insertion say it works fine... other results vary from 'nothing' to various states of 'messed up'...
Using the RSS News Flash generated HTML code and a similar procedure as inserting the swf in an HTML page, I create an Outlook Signature, for quick email insertion.

When I put the code on any page that is not in the same directory with the NewsFlash files, I change two lines of code: the param name="movie" value= " and the embed src= lines to the complete url location of the swf file, as in the NewsFlash generated html:

Example of what to change in those two lines:

Using whatever your domain/directories are.

Outlook, and some HTML editors add their own code to the NewsFlash generated code, which sometimes causes display problems... another post above about FP. And that code seems to be part of the "messed up" recipient responses mentioned above... usually displays as a tiny, tiny version of the NewsFlash....

Not going into how to edit the Outlook Signature html here... it's not that difficult. Use the 'advanced' edit.

Cheers!

Mike

- I think... therefore, I'm in a mess....

RSS News Feed and PHP.ini file
Darce Jean

Make your News Title into a clickable link

If you create your own customised news feed, the Title of each snippet is just static text.

However, there is a way of turning this into a clickable link, to do this you have to edit the .txt file that RSS News Feed creates for you.

Open the .txt file and look for the <Title> tag, immediately below that create this new tag:-
<link> your url goes here </link>
Your Title is now a clickable link.

There are some more tips here:-
http://www.coffeecuphelp.com/rss-news-flash.php Jim
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http://www.freebits.co.uk/

Correct RSS Feed Error

Have you ever published an article and then immediately noticed an error? Sure, you can edit it, but there’s another problem: the article has already been published in your RSS feed. To avoid this kind of problem, use this recipe to create a delay between the publication of a post and its availability in your RSS feed.

The solution. To apply this hack, simply paste the following code into your theme’s function.php file. If your theme doesn’t have this file, just create it.

function publish_later_on_feed($where) {
global $wpdb;

if ( is_feed() ) {
// timestamp in WP-format
$now = gmdate('Y-m-d H:i:s');

// value for wait; + device
$wait = '5'; // integer

// http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/ … estampdiff
$device = 'MINUTE'; //MINUTE, HOUR, DAY, WEEK, MONTH, YEAR

// add SQL-sytax to default $where
$where .= " AND TIMESTAMPDIFF($device, $wpdb->posts.post_date_gmt, '$now') > $wait ";
}
return $where;
}

add_filter('posts_where', 'publish_later_on_feed');

Images in Newsflash

I use Newsflash as a sort of "Image Slider" on a new website update I just rolled out here:
www.lorecords.com

You can use the "IMAGE" tag in the body of the news item and it works great.

<img src="URL to imgae location" alt="alternate text" align="bottom" width="213" height="211" />

The above allows me to have the image justified to the Left with the news text wrapping to it on the right. His Best,
Simeon Amburgey
Sound Creations, Inc.
Louisville, KY
www.PraiseTracks.com
***Psalm 89:15***

Jim, excellent hint. I fact i took it a step further and eliminated the date/time so that the posts are not really 'news' items but tips on using my website. You do have to have something in between the <pubDate> </pubDate> so i put in a period '.' and this worked. Thanks for the tip for a quick way to add a lot of entries There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. MARK TWAIN

www.juliekushner.com
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