[opencms-dev] Content Syndication in OpenCMS

[M Butcher]

Here's the spec for RSS:
http://backend.userland.com/rss

Most of the sites I've worked on use the .9 standards (not 2.0), but
both would require about the same level of info from OpenCMS (more
metadata for 2.0).

So, if I were to syndicate my OpenCMS info to RSS, most of the data I
would really need is the data that I already get from CmsJspNavBuilder
and CmsJspNavElement. The logo image and channel info I'd need to get
from another source -- but could be easily obtained or hard coded (since
they stay the same in most cases).

So, that's why I was thinking that a simple JSP was really all that was
needed to provide RSS for pretty much the entire site. Given a directory
of articles, all it would need to do was build a navigation where the
items in the navigation were composed of RSS XML instead of HTML.

Does that make sense?

Now, reading external RSS content requires a little more work, but it
ought to still be fairly simple, since there is already an XML parser in
OpenCMS. Sounds like Nicolas found a nice fast way as well.

Maybe you are right, though, about providing all of these features in
one module. I will think about it.

Matt

On Sun, 2003-07-13 at 00:51, Ratko Kovacina wrote:
> Thanks for the replies and suggestions. 
> 
> Nicolas, the RSS library/toolkit you were using was RSS4j or it was
> something else? And your quick solutions include out- and inbound
> syndication, right? 
> 
> However, I was rather thinking about some kind of inherent support for
> content syndication within the OpenCMS solution. Probably support for
> RSS compatible would be the best one to choose presently.  
> 
> Basically, even though it might be an easy thing to do,  I believe
> having something like a module would be better solution. Since a
> syndication becoming 'default' feature of a CMS, I think the community
> should consider having this functionality somehow integrated into
> OpenCMS as well. Again, having support for the syndication will
> definitely make OpenCms more valuable as a CMS solution in general...
> 
> I am not sure what it should include but inbound and outbound RSS
> compatibility, template for different sources etc. are the obvious
> ones to begin with ... Matt,  would you have some more
> ideas/suggestions about what else should be included, what
> functionalities to support etc?   
> 
> Cheers,
> Ratko.  
>    
> 
> > > Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 09:06:22 +0200
> > > To: opencms-dev at opencms.org
> > > Subject: Re: [opencms-dev] Content Syndication in OpenCMS
> > > From: Nicolas Delsaux <nicolas.delsaux at online.fr>
> > > Reply-To: opencms-dev at opencms.org
> > > 
> > > On 10 Jul 2003 22:27:56 -0600, M Butcher <mbutcher at grcomputing.net> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > What kind of content syndication? I initially planned on writing an RSS
> > > > module until I realized that it was so easy to do that it didn't really
> > > > warrant a module (just a JSP with a few clever tricks with the
> > > > navigation code). In fact, it should be pretty easy to do just about any
> > > > kind of XML-based content syndication over HTTP or HTTPS. I'd be more
> > > > than happy to brainstorm with you on or off the list, as it is a feature
> > > > I'm very interested in.
> > > 
> > > Strangely, I also cast a glance at such a feature for the site I'm working 
> > > on, and here is the solution I used, for thye faster development.
> > >  - First, a good RDF/RSS library. I used the one given at ChurchillObjects, 
> > > which provides document parsing as well as document construction.
> > >  - Second, a Java class (it may be integrated in a jsp) that process the 
> > > java objects for producing the good HTML fragment.
> > >  - And finally, A jsp that call the specific Java class.
> > > 
> > > At all, it took me half a day to compile, package and deploy the whole in 
> > > OpenCMS.
> > > Not a hard work, isn't it ?
> > > 
> > > >
> > > > Matt
> > > 
> > > On Thu, 2003-07-10 at 21:06, Ratko Kovacina wrote:
> > > > Hi,
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > I have seen that a question about Content Syndication in the OpenCMS
> > > > was posted some time ago, but there has been no answer. I could not
> > > > have found any other reference to the subject on the OpenCMS site
> > > > either. 
> > > > 
> > > > Are there any activities/development within the OpenCMS community
> > > > regarding this topic? Has it been seen as some valuable/desirable
> > > > feature of the solution or not and it's been left for some future
> > > > releases? Could anybody provide any more information about it?
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > Thanks,
> > > > Ratko.
> > > > 
> 
> -- 
> 
> Ratko Kovacina <ratko at mosili.com>
-- 
M Butcher <mbutcher at grcomputing.net>