phpBB RSS Feed Integration

[mikesmith76]

Hi All

I'm working on a phpBB forum and would like to be able to integrate RSS feeds into it. Let me explain...

1. I will create a new category in the admin panel titled "Latest News"

2. I would then like to add a number of rss feeds to this category. The feed title would appear as a new forum under this category, with the feed items appearing as topics.

writing the PHP is not a problem, however I would prefer not to spend the next day or 2 implementing this if there is already a solution available. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance
Mike

[kgun]

You have to:

1. Find a RSS parser like Gecko Tribe and install that in your forum folder.

2. Locate the file with the new category and implement the necessary code or link to subpages with the code.

3. I bought Rssfeedguide that helped me a lot.

[mikesmith76]

Thanks for the reply kgun. I know how to integrate an rss feed with a website i was looking more specifically if anyone had encountered phpBB mods to do the same.

Thanks for the advice

[cyanide]

Hi MIke,

Maybe this rss syndicator is what you are looking for?

[kgun]

Yes, the following search:

rss mod site:www.phpbb.com

makes it.

Need more info, ask the members of the mod team.

[mikesmith76]

Thanks for the replies everyone, i've almost decided on a strategy for the project. My basic idea is to use a cron job to periodically grab the rss feeds and save them as xml documents on my server. I can then parse these documents when someone loads the forum. My initial idea was to store the items in the phpBB database but i don't really like this as it will create other problems.

Any input on my thoughts will be appreciated

[kgun]

Do you know design patterns (a catalog of best practices)? There is a design pattern known as the "Observer pattern."

"The observer pattern is a useful solution for triggering events upon a specified occurence within your application.

For example you may have a beck end administration tool that allows authorized users to add articles to your Website. When an article is published. a number of things may need to happen in addition to storing the content in the database; for instance, you may need to refresh the site's cached HTML files, send an email to subscribers to inform them of the new content and perhaps update a static XML document that contain your site's RSS feed, which others use to stay up-to-date about the content you publish. The observer pattern makes triggering these additional features easy and modular."
Source: The PHP Anthology: Object Oriented PHP Solutions Volumn II page 347. The code comes with the book.

A pattern is nothing more than one or more classes. Look for PHP extensions, (Standard PHP Library) to PHP 5.0.

KW's: Standard PHP Library

Relevant article.
Introducing PHP 5's Standard Library