?rss2html installation for a clueless noob

near_clueless · Joined: 14 Sep 2012 Posts: 4 Location: Beverly Hills, CA

OK,

Notice by my forum user name (near_clueless) that I really don't know what I'm doing.

Although I've looked at the documentation to install the rss2html php script it is mostly confusing to me. I think perhaps the process is way over my head and ability.

This is what I have and what I can do:

1) I have an html website.

2) I can use an ftp client.

I want to be able to show a feed on one of my web pages and have the search engine spiders read the feed on my website as if it was keyword rich content belonging to my website.

Question:

Is there a version of the rss2html installation instructions for near clueless dummies?

A simpler explanatiopn for dummies?

I thank you for whatever help you can offer me.

near_clueless

Tech Support · Joined: 27 Aug 2004 Posts: 2692

A much simpler implementation would be to have an RSS feed hosted on your website.

What you could do is use FeedForAll to create the feed and then upload it to your web server. When you do that, the feed file will now be hosted on your website and you can include a link to it. You know, one of the standard "click here to subscribe to my RSS feed" type links.

These links may help understand how an RSS Feed can help your website's visibility and SEO standings:

http://www.feedforall.com/videos/rss-optimization.htm

http://www.feedforall.com/videos/search-engine-optimization-for-rss.htm

near_clueless · Joined: 14 Sep 2012 Posts: 4 Location: Beverly Hills, CA

Dear Tech Support,

Thank you for your input but I still want to be able to display the Reuter's market news feed on my web page. The address of the feed is here ==> http://feeds.reuters.com/reuters/businessNews

To do this I would upload these files to my website's public folder:

1) rss2html.php
2) FeedForAll_XMLParser.inc.php

I would then upload the template file I purchased from you earlier today, with its css file
==>
3) 1027.htm (perhaps renaming it first to something better)
4) ffa-27.css

I would then enter this address into my browser ==>

http://www.mywebsite.com/rss2html.php?buildURL

On the screen that comes up I would enter the address of my feed (http://feeds.reuters.com/reuters/businessNews)

and also the address of my html template (http://www.mywebsite.com/1027.htm)

adding the max number of items as 10

So, there you have it Tech Support. What am I missing that I should do?

Come on, give me a hand because you know I'm real close to getting this done.

If the instructions on your website were written in a simple style for us less-than-experts, I wouldn't have much of a problem following them.

Gimme a break, can't you tell that I'm doing my best here?

How about a little help?

Thanks!

near_clueless · Joined: 14 Sep 2012 Posts: 4 Location: Beverly Hills, CA

I got this information from your website, this could also be done BEFORE I upload the files ==>

The second option is to edit the settings inside of the rss2html.php script itself, and then just access the script as if it were a regular webpage.

With a text editor open up the rss2html.php file. Look for the line near the beginning that looks like this:

$XMLfilename = "sample.xml";

Replace sample.xml with either the local path or full URL to your RSS feed file.

Next, find the line that looks like this:

$TEMPLATEfilename = "BasicWebpage.htm";

Replace BasicWebpage.htm with either the local path or full URL to your template file.

Finally, if you want to specify the maximum number of items to include from your feed, find the line that looks like this:

$FeedMaxItems = 10000;

Replace 10000 with the maximum number of items you want.

Save the file with a new name (what you want to call it on your website

====================

Have I missed anything?

near_clueless · Joined: 14 Sep 2012 Posts: 4 Location: Beverly Hills, CA

OK,

I've tried to install the RSS2HTML script and template to the best of my ability and I can't get it to work.

I purchased one of your $29.00 templates and now I'm heading to PayPal to ask for a refund.

Your software doesn't work and your support is very defficient....I'm so sorry I ever wasted my time with you guys.

OVER AND OUT !!!

Tech Support · Joined: 27 Aug 2004 Posts: 2692

near_clueless wrote:

Dear Tech Support,

Thank you for your input but I still want to be able to display the Reuter's market news feed on my web page. The address of the feed is here ==> http://feeds.reuters.com/reuters/businessNews

To do this I would upload these files to my website's public folder:

1) rss2html.php
2) FeedForAll_XMLParser.inc.php

I would then upload the template file I purchased from you earlier today, with its css file
==>
3) 1027.htm (perhaps renaming it first to something better)
4) ffa-27.css

I would then enter this address into my browser ==>

http://www.mywebsite.com/rss2html.php?buildURL

On the screen that comes up I would enter the address of my feed (http://feeds.reuters.com/reuters/businessNews)

and also the address of my html template (http://www.mywebsite.com/1027.htm)

adding the max number of items as 10

So, there you have it Tech Support. What am I missing that I should do?

Come on, give me a hand because you know I'm real close to getting this done.

If the instructions on your website were written in a simple style for us less-than-experts, I wouldn't have much of a problem following them.

Gimme a break, can't you tell that I'm doing my best here?

How about a little help?

Thanks!

You're right that you are nearly there. The last step would be to make a full URL or use the PHP variables to auto-encode the variables, whichever would be easiest for your method of implementation. So, to understand that a bit better, let's go over the rss2html basic implementation:

The three components of the script are the following files:

rss2html.php - The PHP script file itself.

FeedForAll_XMLParser.inc.php - secondary parser include file.

sample-template.html - An Example template.

Once you have all three files published to your web server, which it sounds like you already do, you'll need the URL of the feed to translate, which is also looks like you already have.

So, the files you've uploaded will all be referenced from that URL. This is important because the final step in configuring the RSS2HTML output is to build the translation URL.

There are three steps in this process.

First, we need the URL of the rss2html.php script. For example, http://yoursitehere/demo/rss2html.php

Second, we'll need the URL of the RSS Feed to Translate. To reference your earlier post, http://feeds.reuters.com/reuters/businessNews

Third, we'll need the URL of the template. For example,
http://yoursitehere/demo/sample-template.html

Once you have all three URL's, we'll need to build the translation link. All translation links will be referenced as follows:

http://yoursitehere/demo/rss2html.php?XMLFILE=http://feeds.reuters.com/reuters/businessNews&TEMPLATE=http://www.yoursitehere/demo/sample-template.html

Enter this URL in to a web browser and you should see the RSS Feed's information translated into HTML that the browser can display.

As a final note, I'd like to point out that there are literally hundreds of ways to configure the output of the script. You can change the way the template is laid out and which variables are displayed so that the template looks exactly the way you want it to. All of the variables that can be used in a template can be found in the documentation file.

There are also many different methods of implementing the script. What I've just gone over is the most basic method of implementation in this tutorial but if you're interested in alternate implementations, please visit this thread in our forum: http://www.feedforall.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=384

FeedForAll Sales · Joined: 10 Jun 2009 Posts: 249

Can you please post your URL for the feeds, or the web page where you are trying to display the RSS feeds?

Sorry for the delayed response. Thank you.