STV Import: RSS News/Podcast Reader (v4.1 20/Dec/2007)

[nielm]

This is the RSS newsfeed reader module, allowing newsfeeds to be monitored directly from Sage, and podcasts to be downloaded and viewed.

The 'read' state of individual news items are updated when the item is viewed, and if the item is selected, you can:
* view the full item summary
* view the linked article in an external web browser.
* with the WebText plugin, a text representation can be viewed with sage (even on extenders)
* download and view/listen to the podcast





See the Rss News module page on the sage Wiki for download and install instructions.

History
V4.1 20 Dec 2007 (download)

• Added Animations
• Fixed feed reading for BBC news feeds
• Fixed podcast handling on extenders (podcasts are now downloaded first before playback starts)
• Added NTE entry
• Modified to work with WebViewer?

07 February 2007 v4.0 for SageTV6

• added support for folders
• added support for podcasts (image/video/audio)
• added feed icons
• added scrollbars
• extenders have separate news.dat file
• fixed sagetv5 theme
• added view full summary
• support for webtext plugin for web-page viewing.

20 Oct 2005 v3.1 for SageTV 3.0

• Fixed highlighting
• hopefully got rid of the annoying refresh
• correct highlighting
• use STVI filename

26 Jul 2005 v3.0 for SageTV 3.0

• Use SageTV3 highlighting
• Use JARs directory (instead of lots of .class files)

4 Nov 2004 v2.0 for SageTV 2.1/2.2

• fixed a bug relating to pasting new feed from clipboard.

[nielm]

On my todo list for this module is the ability to download the enclosures from the RSS feed... This would allow podcasts to be viewed directly from Sage!

[phantomfsoc]

Is there no way to read the rss feeds inside of Sage the same way we can read IMDB info?

[nielm]

You mean the articles that the RSS feeds link to?

Not technically possible I am afraid. Loading the HTML is easy. Parsing it to find the article text (and images) and extracting that text only (whilst ignoring ads, menus, links etc) for every single format/layout of web page for every web-site is just impossible.

(IMDB search works because it is only 2 pages on one web site that need to be parsed, and even then it is difficult and any IMDB layout change will break it.)

[phantomfsoc]

Just curious. Thanks Nielm

[Xsabre]

I was using this plugin without any problems in version 3 beta. Just updated to version 4 with SageMC and now I have issues of the screen not refreshing and displaying correctly.

I believe that a picture captures the problem best.

Any help would be greatly apprectiace. FYI: I followed the instructions on wiki page.

BTW, thank for this great plugin. I use it all the time.

[nielm]

Dont use SageMC myself, but this looks like a background image problem -- check your properties file and see if the file referred to by:
ui/background_image
is in the STVs/SageMC directory (copy it from the STVs/SageTV3 directory if not)

[phantomfsoc]

Don't mean to be a pest but I found that the meekell Stv allows you to read the rss feeds inside of Sage. Using Studio I managed to add it to your stv. The only problem is that, while everything looks like the regular Sage skin, when I goto read the RSS feeds, that one page looks like the meekell skin. I havn't been able to learn much about studio yet but I was just curious if you plan on adding it to your import anytime soon.

[Xsabre]

Originally Posted by phantomfsoc

Don't mean to be a pest but I found that the meekell Stv allows you to read the rss feeds inside of Sage. Using Studio I managed to add it to your stv. The only problem is that, while everything looks like the regular Sage skin, when I goto read the RSS feeds, that one page looks like the meekell skin. I havn't been able to learn much about studio yet but I was just curious if you plan on adding it to your import anytime soon.

I don't know anything about Studio, but from what I have read you should be able to change the background image to match the default stv.

Here is some information that Jason posted on the SageMC16x9 thread:

"In Sage navigate to the channel setup screen. Open Studio (ctrl-shift-f12). In Studio, Go to 'Debug -> UI Components'. In the UI Components screen, click the 'Channel Setup Old' chain icon and then right click the SetupWizardMenuTheme icon. Click on 'Highlight Widget'. Now, in studio, right click the 'SetupWizardMenuTheme' widget and change the location of the background. to the one within the MCE folder."

It should give you a general idea as to how to change the background image to your liking.

I am very interested in adding this viewer ability into this plugin. Let me know once you have it working.

[mightyt]

Is there a way to port over the RSS News Feeds I had set up on my 2.2.8 server to my 4.0 server?? I added a bunch of feeds and would love to not have to do them one by one again ... Is there a file I can just move over???

Thanks, T.

[nielm]

Originally Posted by mightyt

Is there a way to port over the RSS News Feeds I had set up on my 2.2.8 server to my 4.0 server??

Config is stored in file news.dat in the SageTV home directory -- just copy this file from the 2.2.8 dir to 4.0 dir (will add this info to the wiki)

[mightyt]

Originally Posted by nielm

Config is stored in file news.dat in the SageTV home directory -- just copy this file from the 2.2.8 dir to 4.0 dir (will add this info to the wiki)

Excellent !! Piece-a-cake !! Took all of 2 seconds and all my feeds moved over. Didn't even have to shut down Sage ....

HAPPY T-Day

Thanks again ... T.

[Homebuilder]

Hi, I came across this site that uses RSS to generate movie listings. THe site works great, I would imagine for people who know a whole lot more than me about RSS and sage, they could put this into sage without too much trouble.

http://isnoop.net/rss/theater.php

In case anyone is interested...

[mightyt]

Originally Posted by Homebuilder

Hi, I came across this site that uses RSS to generate movie listings. The site works great, I would imagine for people who know a whole lot more than me about RSS and sage, they could put this into sage without too much trouble.

http://isnoop.net/rss/theater.php

In case anyone is interested...

This is SO awesome!! I have been asking for soemone, anyone to come up with a "Movie Listing" import for Sage. No one has taken up the task as of yet. What you just suggested took me another 30 seconds to setup and though simple to look at, does provide me with local movie listings without even needing to access them through IE!! Great for standard def TV's as well! Between this, another RSS News Feed from the NY Times Movie Reviews and Nielm's IMDB. I can sort of have all that I need in work around fashion.

I agree that since everyone now has access to Studio and access to options like this I would imagine some clever developer could come up with something ...

Very cool! Thanks very much to the recommendation Homebuilder ...

T.

[mightyt]

Another RSS News Feed Question ...

Is there a way to Reorder them??

Suggestions for fututre updates ...

1 - Ability to reorder (move up & down like your menus now have)

2 - Up / Down Scroll Arrows (for the mouse)

3 - News Feed sub folders wouold be great ... Helps to catagorize them (ie. News, Politics, Technology, Entertainmet, etc.)

Thanks ... T.

[Xsabre]

phantomfsoc posted a few replys back that meekell Stv allows you to read rss feeds within Sage. He was even able to incorporate it with this plugin.

I believe this would be the next evolution of this plugin.

Nielm or anyone up for the challenge. I believe that it shouldn’t be to hard considering that meekell has it working in his Stv. But what do I know…

[powerplay]

Originally Posted by Homebuilder

Hi, I came across this site that uses RSS to generate movie listings. THe site works great, I would imagine for people who know a whole lot more than me about RSS and sage, they could put this into sage without too much trouble.

http://isnoop.net/rss/theater.php

In case anyone is interested...

WOOHOO!! WAF just shot up a ton more. not that it was that low anymore with Sage no running really stable and lots of cool plug-ins now
I got this up and running no problem too and its great that I can now look up movie listings in a flash. What a really cool addition to this would be if there was a way that movie info could be populated for each listing from the IMDB. I know nothing about programming, otherwise I'd takle it.

Anybody want to takle that?

[Homebuilder]

Originally Posted by powerplay

WOOHOO!! WAF just shot up a ton more. not that it was that low anymore with Sage no running really stable and lots of cool plug-ins now
I got this up and running no problem too and its great that I can now look up movie listings in a flash. What a really cool addition to this would be if there was a way that movie info could be populated for each listing from the IMDB. I know nothing about programming, otherwise I'd takle it.

Anybody want to takle that?

Hi Powerplay,

Were you able to get this set up from within Sage? If so, how so? I havent upgraded to studio yet, was it with studio?

In case anyone else is interested, is there a comic strip downloaded? I found out all online Comics are named in a very precise way according to date way, might be easy to set up a script that incorporates this date change and download the days comics....

EG Doonesbury
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/db/2005/db051128.gif

db for doonesbury 05 year, 11 month, 28 the day...

ideas for smarter minds than me to figure out...

[mightyt]

Originally Posted by Homebuilder

Hi Powerplay,

Were you able to get this set up from within Sage? If so, how so? I havent upgraded to studio yet, was it with studio?

In case anyone else is interested, is there a comic strip downloaded? I found out all online Comics are named in a very precise way according to date way, might be easy to set up a script that incorporates this date change and download the days comics....

EG Doonesbury
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/db/2005/db051128.gif

db for doonesbury 05 year, 11 month, 28 the day...

ideas for smarter minds than me to figure out...

Hey Homebuilder ...

Didn't need to use Sage or Studio ... this is what I did;

1. Clicked the link that you provided for the "Favorite Theater RSS Feed Generator"
2. Typed in my Zip Code in the "Enter your location" field
3. Clicked the "Find Theaters" button
4. Selected the link for my desired theater in the "Theaters near <my zip>" list
5. This takes you to the RSS Feed Web Page for the desired theater. Just highlight the URL web address for this page and "Copy" it to the clipboard
6. Go to Nielm's RSS News Feed Plug-in in Sage
7. Right click to view the Options Menu
8. Click "Add New Feed from Clipboard"
9. Your Local Theater News Feed is now added to the list of Feeds!!
10. Wen you select the theater you can see all of your movie listings right from your couch!!

That's all there is to it ...

As for the comic strip ... that may take some studio work if you want the GIF file to show up in Sage and not open it up in the browser. Sound like a cool idea ...

Thanks again for the Theater Feed ... T.

[Polypro]

Yup, did the same. Thanks neilm, as usual! If you scroll down the entries the title and times show at the top, but the entries themselves are blank...is this correct?

P