Importing and displaying external RSS feeds on your site is a great way to share your online activity with your visitors. If you are active on Flickr, Delicious, Twitter, or Tumblr, your visitors will enjoy staying current with your updates. Many social media sites provide exclusive feeds for user-generated content that may be imported and displayed on virtually any web page. In this article, you will learn three ways to import and display feed content on your WordPress-powered website — without installing yet another plugin.

Update: This article applies to older versions of WordPress (less than 2.8). For WordPress 2.8 and better, please check out this post at Digging into WordPress. Thanks!

On the menu for this tutorial:

• Importing and displaying feeds with WordPress & Magpie (simple method)
• Importing and displaying feeds with WordPress & Magpie (advanced method)
• Importing and displaying feeds with SimplePie (WordPress not required)

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I recently added OpenSearch functionality to Perishable Press. Now, OpenSearch-enabled browsers such as Firefox and IE 7 alert users with the option to customize their browser’s built-in search feature with an exclusive OpenSearch-powered search option for Perishable Press. The autodiscovery feature of supportive browsers detects the custom search protocol and enables users to easily add it to their collection of readily available site-specific search options. Now, users may search the entire Perishable Press domain with the click of a button.

And you can do it too! Adding customized OpenSearch-powered search functionality to your own site is a great way to foster site awareness and reinforce brand identity, while providing a tool that will benefit your visitors and improve the usability of your site. Even better, implementing OpenSearch functionality is extremely easy, completely free, and requires zero maintenance. In this article, I provide an easy, 3-step tutorial on how to add OpenSearch functionality to your site in less than five minutes. After the tutorial, we will look at the many different ways to customize your OpenSearch implementation, including examples, search options, and much more.

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Picture it. You have just prepared some recent snapshots of your buddies from a gathering over the weekend. Special care was taken to choose the images, and resize the images appropriately. As you sign in to your favorite social networking site to upload these images, you realize your credentials are invalid. You type in permutations of your user-name and password, check the “Caps” Key, but find that you are still not allowed access to your account. Your account could be have been hacked, removed, or just made unavailable. The site that you swore would hold and keep your memories, thoughts, feelings, and treasured moments are inaccessible or worse, gone forever. How could this happen? Just as we get attached to material things in life, we become attached to our email, blogs, podcasts, bookmarks, and images. In other words, this is our new digital existence. Some would call it our digital baggage.

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Recently, I found occasion to consolidate and localize my WordPress feeds. A couple of years ago, shortly after I first began using Feedburner to deliver and monitor my site’s feeds, I began listing my Feedburner-assigned feed URL in addition to my localized WordPress feed URL. As time went on, inconsistent feed linkage here at Perishable Press had greatly convoluted the feed-subscription process. Confounding factors include:

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This article will help beginners understand a few “feed” essentials: what they are, how they work, and how to use them..

So you are a little new to the Web. As you surf around, you keep noticing these little orange squares and multicolored boxes placed next to phrases such as these:

• Subscribe via RSS
• Subscribe via XML
• Subscribe via Atom
• Subscribe via Feedburner
• Subscribe to My Feed
• Subscribe to Main Content
• Subscribe to Comments

..and so on. Although these invitations to “subscribe” come in many flavors, they are all basically doing the same thing: enabling visitors to receive information from the site without having to manually visit the site itself. By subscribing to your favorite sites, you can stay current with updated content delivered to the “feed reader” of your choice. There are many feed readers freely available around the Web. In many cases, you can even have feed subscriptions delivered directly to your email account. We’ll talk more about different types of feed readers here in a bit. For now, let’s examine a few different types of feeds and how they might be used.

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For future reference, this article covers each of the many ways to access your WordPress-generated feeds. Several different URL formats are available for the various types of WordPress feeds — posts, comments, and categories — for both permalink and default URL structures. For each example, replace “http://domain.tld/” with the URL of your blog. Note: even though your blog’s main feed is accessible through many different URLs, there are clear benefits to using a single, consistent feed URL throughout your site.

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Just a quick tip on how to create error-free links to feed validation services for feeds that are redirected through Feedburner. For example, let’s say our site’s main feed is originally located at:

http://domain.tld/feed/

If we wanted to provide our visitors with a link that would enable them to automatically validate our feed using a free service such as feedvalidator.org ¹, we would create the link as follows:

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My current adventure into the fascinating realms of site redesign and optimization has yielded several chunks of fruit related to managing and delivering feed content. One of my primary concerns regarding the overhaul of Perishable Press is streamlined content delivery and rights management. An important area of convergence for these two factors involves the management and delivery of a site’s syndicated content. In this article, I explain the shortcomings of many default feed configurations and present an effective overall strategy for better feed management.

When it comes to managing syndicated content, most blogging platforms enable bloggers to provide a multitude of feeds to their readers. For example, WordPress (as well as many other blogging platforms) automatically generates feeds for each of the following channels:

• Main content feed (includes all posts)
• Main comments feed (includes all comments)
• Unlimited number of individual category feeds
• Any combination of individual category feeds as a single feed
• A feed for each the comments given for any particular post
• A feed for each blog author or contributor
• A feed comprised of virtually any combination of the above feeds

Then, as you consider this astronomical number of feeds, multiply each possibility by a factor of at least three: feeds generated via RSS 2.0, RSS 0.92, and Atom formats. Then, as if that were not enough, some bloggers throw third party services such as Feedburner into the mix and link directly to those feeds as well. Now add a zillion non-canonical URL variations into the mix. Eventually, your eyes begin to bug out and you go a little bonkers trying to keep track of them all.

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Want to make sure that your feeds are not indexed by Google and other compliant search engines? Add the following code to the channel element of your XML-based (RSS, etc.) feeds:

<xhtml:meta xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" name="robots" content="noindex" />

Here is an example of how I use this tag for Perishable Press feeds (vertical spacing added for emphasis):

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It must be national “update-your-WordPress-plugins” month around here or something. First a completely renovated version of Category LiveBookmarks Plus, then a WP-2.3-compatible facelift for BlogStats PCC, and now a completely widgetized & automated version of the popular AddMySite plugin. Coincidence? — I think not..

Due to popular demand, I am proud to announce the release of a new widgetized version of the free AddMySite (AMS) plugin for WordPress. The new version (0.88) is compatible with all versions of WordPress (including all WP 2.3+), and is easily integrated into any widget-capable area (e.g., sidebars, footers, etc.) of any widget-friendly WordPress theme. Simply activate, drag & drop into place, and enjoy! Once the widget has been activated, AMS enables site visitors to easily and quickly add your site or feed to as many as 40 social-bookmarking and/or feed aggregation services.

By default, version 0.88 of AMS automatically uses the information specified in your WP Admin for your blog name, blog address, and feed URL. Thus, manual code editing is no longer required for the plugin to work as intended. However, if you would like to customize any of the predefined variables, simply use the nifty popup menu provided on the AMS widget icon. Everything is completely widgetized, automated, and customizable! For more information about AddMySite, or to download yourself a fresh copy, visit the official AMS information page »

CLB+ As many WordPress users now realize, there have been many fundamental changes in the new version of WordPress. The latest version of WordPress — 2.3 — features a considerably revamped database structure, including a complete reorganization and redistribution of the wp_categories table. Unfortunately, such database alterations have rendered inoperable many popular plugins, proving quite unfortunate not only for millions of WordPress users, but also for those of us who donate time, effort, and resources toward the development of freely available WordPress plugins. Thus, with the advent of WordPress 2.3, developers whose plugins have ceased to function must now decide whether or not to continue their support. In my humble opinion, philanthropic plugin developers have several choices:

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Recently, I found myself drowning in an ocean of RSS feeds. Even after switching to Google Reader, which definitely speeds up the process of plowing through posts, I was wasting too much time consuming subscribed content. Thus, in an effort to find balance between saving time and staying current, I executed the following five-step feed portfolio makeover:

1. Drop lame feeds. Previously, I had subscribed to a number of feeds simply because they were recommended or mentioned in an article somewhere. Unfortunately, sound referrals and interesting commentary do not necessarily equate with strong syndicated content. I often found myself reading post after post about stuff that was not useful or even interesting. After some careful deliberation, I dropped around 25 of these lame feeds and moved on with my life.
2. Consolidate similar feeds. After following my previous collection of feeds for awhile, I began to notice ridiculous amounts of redundancy. There is just no need to subscribe to multiple blogs covering the same material unless they blog from truly unique perspectives. After choosing one or two authority bloggers for each of my focus areas, I unsubscribed to the “echo” feeds and thus reduced my feed collection by at least 20.
3. Eliminate overly aggressive feeds. I love to see fresh content from bloggers who post quality posts, especially when they only post once in awhile. It’s like getting a scooby snack or something and I just love it. Conversely, I hate to see overly ambitious bloggers bomb my reader with a jillion junk posts about the same old garbage — nothing new to say and no new ways of saying it. Needless to say, I kicked about 10 of these feed hogs straight to the curb.
4. Subscribe to summary feeds. When it comes to staying current with world news, tech news, and other frequently reported topics, it is easy to flood your reader with unnecessary content. Fortunately, many of the most prolific news-related sites provide an alternate summary feed that consolidates and highlights the day’s or week’s worth of material into a single post. By trading full feeds for summary feeds, I greatly reduced the quantity of incoming feed content without sacrificing the quality of its information.
5. Drop John Chow like a bad habit. Just kidding. Chow is great, but really, how many blogs about blogging and getting stinking rich do you really need? The point here is to craft yourself a diverse collection of enlightening, educational, and enriching feeds. Trade mindlessness and redundancy for thoughtfulness and original content. Drop the mind-numbing “list” sites and find sincere bloggers with experience and wisdom. I am continually fine-tuning my feed diet towards a diverse, eclectic, and original collection of insightful, high-quality content written by authoritative bloggers who aren’t pitching at me around every corner.

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This quick tutorial explains how to add images to both Atom and RSS feeds. Although both formats allow for image-inclusion, feed-reader support for image-display is currently quite limited. Hopefully, that will change in the near future..

Images for Atom Feeds

Images included within Atom feeds must have a ratio of either 1:1 or 2:1. There are no other restrictions as to file type or size. Use the <icon> XML element for URL’s targeting 1:1 images. Otherwise, use the <logo> XML element for URL’s targeting 2:1 images. Either element should be placed in the <feed> element:

<feed>
   <icon>http://domain.tld/path/icon.ico</icon>
   <logo>http://domain.tld/path/logo.gif</logo>
</feed>

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Ignore this post..

[Edit] Note to WP 2.0.5 users: Everything was working fine on this site before upgrading to WP 2.0.5. After upgrading, apparently, our feeds stopped validating* and the BDP RSS Aggregator plugin refused to update our own feeds. After several hours investigating the situation, we determined that the Live Comment Preview plugin was interfering with our feeds validating, while the upgraded WordPress (2.0.5) was responsible for problems with the BDP plugin.

Here is a copy of our recent comment posted at the BDP plugin website:

Comment by m0n on Wednesday 6 December 2006 at 4:28 am

I was running BDPRSS v.0.2.2 just fine before upgrading to WP 2.0.5. After the upgrade, I noticed that feeds from my own site are no longer updated. They are apparently polled, but reflect a ‘last updated’ value of the day I upgraded WP. I have, since the WP upgrade, posted several new articles that appear fine directly, through feedburner, etc.

I have tried just about everything (restoring old BDP databases, deleting and adding new feed entries in the admin panel, deleting cache, you name it, etc.). I have also tried upgrading to BDP 0.4.10, but to no avail. My own feeds will not update either in the BDP admin panel or on the web page itself. Adding different feed formats does not work either.

So, just a note to hopefully garner some more clues concerning this. I realize it may not be an emergency, because who reads their own feeds for crying out loud. Perhaps there are others out there with the same problem. If possible, try adding any of your own feeds (on WP 2.0.5) and see if they work. Well, thanks for listening!

The whole event pretty much zapped the weekend of any free-time, but the good news is that we managed to get everything working properly (according to our needs) once again — feeds all validate and we have previews of our own feeds via the BDP plugin — and we are still running WP 2.0.5! We’ll just bill the incident as another 8-hour "learning experience"..

If anyone is experiencing anything similar to the issues mentioned in this post, we would love to hear about it — drop us a line!

Update: [ May 28th, 2007 ] - Issue resolved! After moving the Perishable Press website to a new server, our WordPress feeds once again began updating directly through our own site (via BDP plugin, et al). Apparently, as our previous host continued to disable important PHP functions (as a solution to potential security vulnerabilities), the various plugins and scripts employing the disabled functions inevitably became useless. Thus, we attribute the source our non-updating feed issue directly to server limitations (and lazy technicians). While we cannot at this point discern exactly the cause of the problem, suffice it to say that our new host provides all the functionality needed for everything to run properly (and smoothly, we might add). So cheers to everyone who helped us with suggestions and ideas for this bizarre dilemma. We now enjoy fully functional and validating WordPress feeds. Case closed.

Footnotes

• *Here are the feed validators we use:
• ¹ rss.scripting.com
• ² feedvalidator.org
• ³ validome.org

This brief tutorial explains two methods for adding RSS feed link icons to category listings. Let’s say that you have a list of category links, where each link targets a specific category view. Now let’s say that, next to each category link, you would like to provide a icon that links to that particular category’s syndicated feed. So, rather than cluttering up your page with two sets of category links — one for category views and another for category feeds — consolidate links and simplify your site by providing both sets of links in a logical, streamlined format.

Method One: A Static Category/Category-Feed List via wp_list_cats

Category Links via "wp_list_cats" The easiest way to create a set of category/category-feed links is to use the native WordPress function, wp_list_cats. This function creates a customizable set of static category links that may be used in or out of the WordPress loop.

Category links created this way are static in that the same categories are displayed for every type of page view. Thus, if configured to display categories "A", "B", and "C", the wp_list_cats function will create links for A, B, and C for post views, page views, archive views, category views, and every other view-type for that matter.

Nonetheless, despite this limitation, wp_list_cats provides an easy way to create a category feed icon links next their respective category links. Simply add the following to the location of your choice within your WP-powered document:

<?php wp_list_cats('feed_image=http://domain.com/path/feed-icon.gif&feed=XML Feed&optioncount=1&children=0'); ?>

In this code example, we are using the following parameters:

feed_image=http://domain.com/path/feed-icon.gif

This parameter creates the feed icon link next to each category link. Change the domain, path, and file name according to your particular setup.

feed=XML Feed

This parameter produces the requisite alt & title attributes for the specified feed icon (if any), and also produces title attributes for link anchor tags.

optioncount=1

This parameter indicates whether or not the function writes the category post count next to the link. "1" = yes, please display category post counts, "2" = no, please do not display post counts.

children=0

This parameter instructs the function to include or exclude subcategories in the set of category links. "1" = yes, please show all subcategories, "2" = no, please omit any subcategories from the category list.

This function also provides several handy parameters that are not discussed here. Please see the WordPress Codex¹ for complete information concerning wp_list_cats.

Method Two: A Dynamic Category/Feed List via Category LiveBookmarks

A more sophisticated, comprehensive method of providing users with category/feed links is delivered via Monzilla Media’s essential plugin, Category LiveBookmarks Plus ². Category LiveBookmarks Plus (CLB+) automatically produces a highly customizable set of dynamic category/feed links anywhere within your WP-powered blog. Plus, in addition to creating a custom set of feed links, CLB+ also creates contextually relevant LiveBookmark autodiscovery feed links to the head element of your document (see plugin page for more details). Here are a few examples of the different format options available via CLB+:

Left-aligned feed links
Text-based feed links
Right-aligned feed links

Of course, more configurations are possible, as well as many other customizable settings that enable users to create an ideal set of dynamically changing feed links throughout your site. Simply install the plugin and change the settings within the plugin file to customize your own set of category/feed links. Further, the CLB+ plugin creates a dynamic set of category/feed links that changes according to page view-type in order to provide only relevant feeds, as referenced via the particular page contents.

Regardless of which method you use, consolidating your category links with your category feed links will reduce clutter, streamline navigation, and promote simplicity. Thanks for listening — God Bless!

Footnotes

• ¹ WordPress Codex: wp_list_cats
• ² Category LiveBookmarks Plus Plugin
• ³ A Nice Collection of RSS Feed Icons

Thanks to some valuable feedback, several inconsistencies were discovered in our Category LiveBookmarks plugin for WordPress. If you are using CLB+ version 1.1.1, check carefully your feed links — you may discover that your feed links are being written twice in both the document head and (if applicable) the document body. Further, it was requested that the plugin produce a complete set of links for various WP page views, such as category views and archive views, rather than creating links merely for the categories of whichever post appears first in the sequence..

In addition fixing the “double-link” bug, we decided to rewrite completely the CLB+ plugin. Several functions have been consolidated and streamlined. New features providing greater flexibility and control have been added, thereby enabling users to specify where, when, and how their feed links are generated. We even posted a nice collection of RSS feed icons for users to enjoy, use, and share. Overall, the CLB+ plugin is better than ever. If you haven’t yet upgraded to 1.3.3, now is definitely the time!

Check out Category LiveBookmarks Plus version 1.3.3 »

Here is a nice collection of feed icons. All are in PNG format, and all have transparent backgrounds (Although they may not appear as transparent if you are viewing via Internet Explorer). Download them individually or as a zipped set. In addition to the icons displayed below, the zipped set also includes two 500×500-pixel feed icons, one in standard orange and the other in greyscale. Please save these to your server and kindly refrain from hotlinking. Thank you.

Download the entire collection [ .zip file | ~77KB | 8046 downloads ]

CLB+ New version of Category LiveBookmarks Plus now available! CLB+ 2.3.0b enables WordPress 2.3+ users to configure and customize the ultimate set of autodetection feeds, category feeds, category links, and feed links. Features include completely rewritten, optimized code, optional category post counts, and custom RSS-icon links for all category and/or feed links. Overall, the new version is faster and more flexible than ever!

Category LiveBookmarks Plus is the easy way to provide complete “Live Bookmark” functionality and "Post Smart" feed links to your WordPress-powered website. Simply install the plugin, and users with Firefox, Opera, Navigator, or any other modern browser, will enjoy a selection of your RSS feed links at their fingertips. CLB Plus seamlessly integrates the code necessary for modern browsers to automatically detect and update any RSS feed available from the current page, enabling readers to stay current with important news and updates.

Category LiveBookmarks Plus also makes it easy to add category feed links to posts, comments, pages, or anywhere else within your site. Simply add the <? clb_plus(); ?> function to the desired location within your blog, and there enjoy a contextually relevant selection of completely customizable RSS feed links. There are also options to include RSS feed links for “all posts” and “all comments”, as well as settings to customize markup, icons, and feed links. Plus, as of version 1.7.7, there are options to configure a custom set of category links next to corresponding feed links, which may include comment counts and RSS-icon links.

With CLB+, you may customize category feeds for the various WordPress view types (e.g., category views, page views). CLB automatically omits feeds with zero posts, and also excludes subcategory feeds. Further, this plugin produces strictly valid XHTML markup.

Installation and Usage:

1. Unzip php file and add to wp-content/plugins directory.
2. Open php file and adjust any of the "CLB OPTIONS", if desired.
3. Add the following function call to your sidebar or any other location:
   <?php if (function_exists('clb_plus')) { clb_plus(); } ?>
4. Feed links will be added to the <head> automatically. No further action required.
5. Feed links will be added to the <body> wherever the function call (from step 3) is located.

Download Category LiveBookmarks [ version 2.3.0b | ~7.3KB | .zip | 3013 downloads ]

Related Information & Previous Versions

• Category feed links the hard way
• A nice collection of RSS feed icons
• Original article for CLB plugin (version 1.0.1)
• Old version: CLB+ 2.3.0a [ 1121 downloads ] (WordPress versions 2.3 or better)
• Old version: CLB+ 1.7.7 [ 2450 downloads ] (WordPress versions less than 2.3)
• Old version: CLB+ 1.3.3 [ 1474 downloads ] (WordPress versions less than 2.3)
• Old version: CLB+ 1.1.1 [ 1493 downloads ] (WordPress versions less than 2.3)
• Old version: CLB 1.0.1 [ 1924 downloads ] (WordPress versions less than 2.3)

UPDATE: New version of Category LiveBookmarks now available! →

Already familiar with Firefox’s Live Bookmarks and WordPress RSS feeds? Well then skip the intro and jump to the good stuff »

Enthusiastic Firefox users enjoy the luxury of Live Bookmarks, a feature of Firefox that automatically discovers and updates RSS feeds. Web pages with available feeds are indicated by the orange feed icon located in the browser’s address bar. Clicking the feed icon presents a list of all available feeds for that particular webpage. Users then select which feeds they would like Firefox to bookmark, track, and automatically update. Very handy indeed.

Providing these Live Bookmark feeds to your readers is as easy as adding “link” tags for each feed to the head section of each webpage. Then, simply set the “type” attribute to application/atom+xml or application/rss+xml, and away you go. Not so bad, but a bit tedious, perhaps.

WordPress users typically transmit RSS feeds for both comments and posts, and frequently provide individual category feeds. Further, each feeds may be provided via a variety of formats, including RSS 0.92, RSS 2.0, and Atom. Manually adding the feed links to the header.php file works if you don’t care about context sensitivity, because the same links would appear for all pages, whether the feeds were actually available from there or not. Fortunately, there is a more sophisticated method for managing your Live Bookmark feeds…

Introducing Category LiveBookmarks, a WordPress plugin designed to simplify the process of adding complete Live Bookmark functionality to your website. Category LiveBookmarks (CLB) seamlessly generates “Live-Bookmark” feed links for each of your WordPress blog categories. It will generate feed links for all categories on your main blog page, and only relevant feeds on single-post-view pages. Also, CLB automatically omits feeds with zero posts, and excludes subcategory feeds. CLB is designed for Firefox’s Live Bookmarks and Opera’s Livemarks. Generates strictly valid XHTML markup. Tested and verified with WordPress 2.0+. Should work with WP 1.5+ as well (no guarantees).

This plugin has been adapted from ArunRocks plugin, Livemarks. Many important modifications have been made to the original, such as are summarized here.

Installation and Usage:

Unzip file, add to wp-content/plugins directory, upload, activate, and enjoy! There are also two options within the PHP file itself that you will probably want to customize: Comment feed links and blog title.

Download Category LiveBookmarks [ version 1.0.1 | ~4KB | .zip | 1924 downloads ]

UPDATE: New version of Category LiveBookmarks now available! →