Create Full-Text Feeds
About
This is a free software project to help people extract and read full-text web content. It can extract content from a standard HTML page and return a 1-item feed or it can transform an existing feed into a full-text feed. It is being developed as part of the RepotShare project to promote alternative, non-corporate media.
Bookmarklet
To easily transform partial-feeds you encounter (or convert any content on a page into a 1-item feed), drag the link below to your browser's bookmarks toolbar. Then whenever you'd like a full-text feed, click the bookmarklet.
Drag this: Full-Text RSS
Similar Services
Tom at Repotshare Labs had a similar idea a few years ago. I've tested that service but I think a full-text feed is only returned when the supplied feed has a summary or description of some kind. You can compare results with the following links.
| repotshare.com | Repotshare Labs | |
|---|---|---|
| Output #1: Yahoo - Entertainment original feed | full-text RSS | full-text RSS |
| Output #2: Yahoo - Worl News original feed | full-text RSS | full-text RSS |
Source Code and Technologies
Source code available.
The application uses PHP, Readability, SimplePie and FeedWriter. Readability is the magic algorithm that identifies and extracts the content.
Installation and System Requirements
Requirements: PHP5. I have this running on NearlyFreeSpeech.NET but I've also tested it on Windows using WampServer. The instructions below will install the code in a folder called 'full-text-rss'. The instructions have been tested on a NearlyFreeSpeech account but should work on other hosts which offer shell access and have the Bazaar client installed.
- Log in to your host using SSH
- Change to the directory where you want Full-Text RSS installed
- Enter bzr co http://stealwp.com/repotshare/
- Now enter chmod 777 full-text-rss/cache/
- That's it! Try accessing the full-text-rss folder through your web browser, you should see the form asking for a URL.
If you'd like to create a feed without going through the form first, you can simply pass the URL in the query string to makefulltextfeed.php. For example:
http://example.org/full-text-rss/makefulltextfeed.php?feed=http://example.org/feed
Todo
- More testing
Support
I'm happy to help activists/anarchists/progressives set this up. If you don't fall in this category, I offer paid support.
Bug reports and questions welcome.
License
This web application is licensed under the AGPL version 3 (find out why). The bulk of the work, however, is carried out by libraries which are licensed as follows...
- Readability: Apache License, Version 2.0
- SimplePie: BSD
- FeedWriter: GPL
Donate
I'm a student and I work on this in my spare time. Donations very welcome...
| £ (UK Pounds) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| € (Euros) | ||||
| $ (US Dollars) |
Author
Created by Dr.Gaplek for the RepotShare project.
Email: dr.gaplek (at) gmail.com