Feeds

The Feeds application allows you to subscribe to RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds provided by external sites and display them on your website.

A website (for example, the BBC) can make available some of its content, such as news headlines or stories, as an RSS feed. You can subscribe to that feed and display its content on your website.

For more detail on feeds, try one of these sources:

To enable the application, go to the Content Management tab of the administration pages, then go to the Applications page, and click the Enable button next to Feeds.

Once enabled, you can get to the administration pages for the application in one of two ways:

  1. Click Manage Feeds on the public pages of the Feeds application on your website (you must be logged in as the administrator to see the button).
  2. From within the administration pages for the website, go to the Content Management tab, and click on Feeds in the Site Map.

Managing Subjects

Before subscribing to any feeds, you must first create a subject. You can subscribe to several feeds within a single subject area. To manage subjects, go to the administration pages for the Feeds application using one of the methods outlined above.

To create a subject:

  • Click Create New Subject.
  • Enter a subject Name and brief Description.
  • Click OK. You will be taken to the admin page for that subject.
    See Managing Subscriptions below for details on how to add subscriptions to this subject.

To edit a subject:

  • In the subject list on the application's administration pages, click on the subject name or the Edit icon Edit Icon. You will be taken to the admin page for that subject.
    See Managing Subscriptions below for details on how to add subscriptions to this subject.

To delete a subject:

  • In the subject list on the application's administration pages, click on the Delete icon Delete Icon.

Managing Subscriptions

You must know the URL of the feed before you can subscribe to it. For example, on the BBC website look for the RSS Feed icon RSS Feed Icon on a news page. If you click the icon you'll be taken to the RSS feed itself - then copy the URL from the browser's URL bar.

On some websites you'll see an RSS Icon in the URL bar when viewing a page. You can click this icon to get the RSS Feed's URL.

Once you know the URL, you can add a subscription to it:

  • Go to the administration pages for the Feeds application.
  • Click on the subject you wish to add the subscription to, or create a new subject for it.
  • Go to the Subscriptions sub-tab.
  • Paste the URL into the Add Subscription box, and click Add.
  • The subscriptions page will update to show the subscription to the feed, stating when it was last scanned.

To remove a feed subscription:

  • Check the tickbox next to the feed in the Subscriptions tab of the subject.
  • Click the Unsubscribe button.

Permissions

To configure the permissions, go to the administration pages for your website, select the Content Management tab, and then the Applications page. Click the Permissions button next to the Feeds application in the list. For further details of how to use Permissions, see the Permissions section of the manual.

  • Users with Admin permission can manage all feeds and subscriptions.
  • Users cannot add their own feeds - only administrators can do this. Therefore adding Edit permission for a user gives them no special rights in this application.

Example Feeds

Here are some feed URLs you might want to try out. Click the link then copy the URL from the browser's URL bar to paste into your feed subscriptions.

RSS Feed IconBBC News Front Page

RSS Feed IconCambridge Open Systems News

RSS Feed IconGreenpeace News

RSS Feed IconInfoplease: This Day in History