Feed importer
This plug-in allows you to pull XML/RSS feeds from another (third party) websites into specific categories of your site. Highly efficient and fast solution for populating news sites with content.
Description
Feed Importer is a tool that delivers news directly to you as soon as it is published online. Simply, the role of Feed Importer plug-in is to gather and display web feeds (a data format used for serving frequently updated information to the users) from various sites in one place.
Feed Importer allows you to see when websites have added new content. You can get the latest news in one place, without having to visit the websites you have taken the feed from.
Feeds are also known as RSS. That stands for Really Simple Syndication and it is based on XML, a widely used standard for textual information exchange between applications on the Internet.
Subscribing to feeds makes it possible to review a large amount of online content in a very short time. It means you can receive new stories and headlines instantly, rather than having to look for the latest updates online. RSS also makes it much easier to browse headlines from lots of different sites in one place.
For general install and uninstall instructions, please refer to Manage plug-ins section of user guide.
Access
The path to the Feed Importer plug-in:
Click on Plug-ins link (which is located in the second level Menu on the right side at the top of your administrator panel).
Choose Feed Importer plug-in from the list of all installed plug-in (on the left side of the screen).
User level
This plug-in can be accessed only by users belonging to groups that are allowed to manage Feed Importer plug-in.
Preferences
Use this section to adjust the following, default options for Feed Importer:
- Owner - Choose the user (staff) who owns the fetched article feeds.
- Default status - set the status (Active/Pending) for all articles added by Feed Importer.
- Show comments - You can choose if imported articles have comments.
- Use feed logo as category image - You can get RSS source LOGO like category image.
- Update changed articles - Use this option (enable) if you want to update feed for edited/updated articles.
- Auto archive - choose this option if you want to enable automatic news archive by Cron Job, within a time interval that you specify (the number of days you enter). That will automatically archive all articles added via Feed Importer. Enter 0 if you don't want articles to be archived.
- Auto delete - choose this option if you want to delete news periodically by Cron Job, within a time interval that you specify (the number of days you enter). That will automatically delete all the articles added via Feed Importer. Enter 0 if you don't want articles to be deleted.
- Move to Trash - "Auto delete" will move article to Trash instead of deleting it permanently when this option is enabled.
- Execution period - to enable automatic news fetching, you need to activate Cron Job that will fetch the news automatically within a time interval that you set, by entering the number of hours.
Actions
Most major news sites and blogs now offer RSS feeds. First, you need to sign up to the RSS feeds from your favorite sites. Before that, you need to clarify if the website syndicates any content via feeds. Websites that syndicate their content have usually icons similar to those above displayed on the pages. Click on the icon and you will be taken to the feed page. You need to copy the address of this page to Feed Importer.
Add new feed
This will load the form where you can easily add the feed to one of your categories.
- Category - from the dropdown menu, you may choose a desired category where you want this new feed to appear.
- Feed URL - enter the RSS link by cutting and pasting the URL address into this field.
- Feed author - type in the name that will be displayed as the author of articles from this feed. If you leave this field empty, the original author from the feed will be displayed.
Choose Save button and you are done. The confirmation message: "Feed edit success" will appear.
You are allowed to include more feeds per category.
Edit feed
To invoke this window choose the edit icon on the right side of the plug-in name. This is used to edit the subscribed feed.
By clicking Save button you will save all changes for selected feed and close this window.
Delete feed
To permanently remove the feed, click on the delete icon on the right side of the plug-in name.
By clicking Save button you will save all the changes for the feed and close this window.
Force Import
By clicking Force import button you will fetch feeds immetiately, without having to wait for cron execution.
