Update: RSS Feed

[Charles L. Cotton]

Several months ago, a request was made to add an RSS feed to the forum. I have been checking periodically to see if there is an RSS feed in the works for phpBB Ver. 3. At least one RSS feed mod has been in the works for several months and it appears it is close to being "blessed" by the phpBB team. Although the reports indicate it is working fine, I won't install it until it is tested and accepted in the phpBB database of released mods. That could well happen soon. (I'm not about to risk any potential problems with the database! If it's lost, TexasCHLforum starts from scratch.)

Now for a practical issue. I noted that the phpBB's own board runs an RSS feed, but only on the Announcements section. I have no doubt that this is due to the high number of posts that are generated by that site. From reading the thread on the mod in question, I am not sure if or how the feed can be limited in scope, i.e. "feed" only posts from certain forums or sub-forums. It may be that the one on the official phpBB board isn't the same one in development.

So here is my question to folks who want an RSS feed. If the RSS feed is for the entire board, would it be useful? We are averaging between 250 and 300 posts per day. That's a lot of posts to hit an RSS feed! Because of the potential trouble that such mods cause when updating, I doubt seriously that I would add separate RSS feeds to each forum and sub-forum, even if this is possible. (Every mod added is a potential problem for upgrades; I've seen many reports of this on the phpBB board.)

If there is still interest at this level of posting, I'll keep checking on the progress of the RSS mod.

Chas.

[Liko81]

It depends on how well an RSS feed can be controlled and customized; as in, can you generate an XML dynamically for each login? Like you say, the forum approaches 300 posts per day, and quite frankly if the RSS feed would turn this forum into a newsgroup then I'd much rather click the "New Posts" link every couple of hours. However, if there's something that can be done that would reduce the RSS feed's additions to subscribed topics or at least to "hot" topics, that might be of use.

[drw]

An RSS feed of this page:

http://www.texasshooting.com/TexasCHL_F ... d=newposts

would be quite handy (I would use it with my Live Bookmarks).

[Kalrog]

I'm not sure a "new posts" RSS feed would really work all that well. The new posts feature requires that you be logged in and it does some DB checking to serve up the content - as in it is different for everyone. I don't think the RSS feed would work quite the same way.

I like the concept of an RSS feed. I already browse each thread (via the new posts button) every day - usually several times each day. But would I actually use it? I don't know - probably not. I haven't really gotten into the whole RSS aggregator thing. So from my standpoint - nifty idea but not all that useful to me. Spend your time on the range instead.

[drw]

The system can be programmed to hit the database and serve custom RSS feeds for each user, so a "new posts" RSS feed would be possible and probably easily done.