RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

Wouldn't a RSS feed for the 2+2 Forum be great?

For those of you that do not know what I am talking about, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It is a "lightweight XML format designed to share headlines and other Web content. Think of it as a distributable "What's New" for your site." Kind of a way to have threads pushed to your machine.

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

That would be awesome.

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

To see a sample of what it would look like, add http://www.billrini.com/xmlfeeds/2plus2_books.xml to your RSS reader.

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

So does anyone use RSS? I sent Matt a link to an RSS Feeder for UBB.Threads. He in turn forwarded it to Chuck. Is it worth while? Have you never used a RSS reader?

I want it to read posts via my BlackBerry. I can't view the forums from work, and viewing the forum with the BB browser sucks. RSS feeds would make it easy to check my favorite forums during the day.

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

Yes, I use it heavily, mostly news and poker blogs. It would be great to have it for 2+2. Might look at writing something to parse the HTML and generate the RSS XML over the weekend... if anyone would be able to host it (both the app doing the polling, and the generated XML)?

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

I wish I had more than enthusiasm to contribute, but I don't. I've been praying for 2+2 RSS feeds for a long time, this would be great!

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

Good progress so far, but it's sunny outside so I'm going out to get drunk. Should have a first cut for people to test tomorrow night.

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

Great! The link I provided does not work well via the BlackBerry.

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

Hmm.. accidentally spent the whole day drinking again. Out for dinner tomorrow, hopefully have something ready midweek.

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

I'd love to get an RSS feed of 2+2.

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

I could donate 100-200 gigs of bandwidth a month from my dedicated Linux box. Lemme know if you're interested - arthur@dantonio.info

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

Yes, RSS for 2+2 would be great.

For those who don't use it yet, something like Bloglines is as great for keeping up with your favorite websites as TIVO is for television.

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

Right, then... we're in business. I've got a sample RSS file available that my app has just created from the Software forum.

I can't arrange hosting space until the weekend, so if anyone can host a static 130KB XML file for a couple of days to get some feedback/suggestions for improvements, PM me or post here.

Would really like to hear from anyone with RSS dev experience, as I just copied the structure from another feed, so there's probably a lot of improvements we can make to the XML.

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

The RSS feed from ITH is really sweet - not sure how long it's been available but it's so nice to be able to gather a lot of my reading into one place.

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

Thanks to ArthurD, this is now available at http://www.dantonio.info/2p2/rsss.xml for feedback/suggestions. Note this is not updating at this location, just a sample as I said in above post.

Please post any comments/suggestions however minor. Only tested on
FeedReader so far.

Edit - corrected link.

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

I tried it with bloglines and it looks good. Hard to say if I would use it to view 2+2 but who knows. Would 2+2 really want to do this since you wouldn't see any ad's? Not that I see any now anyways.

Ken

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

It looks good with FeedDemon on the computer, but looks like crap on the BlackBerry using both Newsclip and FeedBurner MFR 2.
The page looks like this:
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>Title: Re: New Mouse

&lt;font class="post"&gt;
All kidding aside, I think the gun mouse
thing is great &lt;img src="/images/
graemlins/smile.gif" alt=" /&gt; I don't have
to keep leaning forward at my desk and
can just veg &lt;img src="/images/
graemlins/smile.gif" alt=" /&gt; Plus I can
shoot these fools &lt;img src="/images/
graemlins/smile.gif" alt=" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /
&gt;KC


&lt;/font&gt;</pre><hr />

I then feed it in to FreeNews on the BlackBerry and it looks great!


As for making it better, it would be nice to see the poster's name.

How much server space will this use?
How often will it update?
Care to make it open source?

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

[ QUOTE ]
Would 2+2 really want to do this since you wouldn't see any ad's?


[/ QUOTE ]
I thought about this briefly. Maybe including the post text isn't going to be acceptable - perhaps just the poster name and the first few words then a link to the thread? Or even embedding the adverts into the feed? Will get in touch with the admins about this before releasing anything live.

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

[ QUOTE ]
It looks good with FeedDemon on the computer, but looks like crap on the BlackBerry using both Newsclip and FeedBurner MFR 2.
The page looks like this:
Title: Re: New Mouse

&lt;font class="post"&gt;
All kidding aside,



[/ QUOTE ]

Ah, ok, perhaps could do a stripped-down (no HTML tags) version too.

[ QUOTE ]


I then feed it in to FreeNews on the BlackBerry and it looks great!


As for making it better, it would be nice to see the poster's name.



[/ QUOTE ]

Ahem... well spotted - that was intended to be in there - easily fixed, it's already in the data picked up from the threads.

[ QUOTE ]

How much server space will this use?


[/ QUOTE ]

What server are you referring to? The RSS file will probably be 50-100KB (one RSS file per forum). It won't demand much from the 2+2 servers, since the application will only read the forum periodically, not every time the RSS page is requested.

[ QUOTE ]

How often will it update?


[/ QUOTE ]

Whatever... my RSS reader is set to 10 minutes, 5-10 minutes per refresh feels about right, but depends how the 2+2 administrators feel about it - need to get agreement before actually launching this as an updating page.

[ QUOTE ]

Care to make it open source?

[/ QUOTE ]

Very much so. It's written in C#, and at the moment is a pretty scrappy PoS, but when it's written properly (probably this weekend) with a separate data access layer, I'm happy to share it.

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

[ QUOTE ]
Whatever... my RSS reader is set to 10 minutes, 5-10 minutes per refresh feels about right, but depends how the 2+2 administrators feel about it - need to get agreement before actually launching this as an updating page.

[/ QUOTE ]
I am not talking locally, but how often it would check the forum. Once a day won't cut it. Once a minute is too often. Just curious to how often you planned on doing it. Checking with Chuck is a good idea.

[ QUOTE ]
Very much so. It's written in C#, and at the moment is a pretty scrappy PoS, but when it's written properly (probably this weekend) with a separate data access layer, I'm happy to share it.

[/ QUOTE ]
Great! I recently took up C# as a VB.Net replacement. A little tough at first, but now I love it.

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

I would rather have the text of the message in the rss reader. I don't like the feeds that require me to click to view the message. But who knows what 2+2 would want.

Ken

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

Finally got this working, been a bit busy with proper work the last couple of weeks.

I didn't have any offers to host the application generating the RSS files, so I'm going to try running it over my DSL line from home. On a crappy old Pentium III that's been gathering dust under my bed for a year or so.

I can't see this being adequate if there are a lot of users, but only one way to find out...

Just reinstalling Windows now, should be ready to use in a few hours. So - suggestions for a few forums to start off with? Will hopefully do all of them eventually, but just want to run with a few for the first week to get an idea of traffic/disk space use etc etc.

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

Some forums to start with:

Software
Book
One-Table Tournament
Multi-Table Tournament

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

Well, that seems to be unanimous :-)

I'll get the URLs for those up on here in the morning. The rusty old Pentium III installed XP successfully.

It occurred to me tonight that I could programmatically upload the RSS files to my ISP webspace to avoid the traffic issue. If anyone has an FTP class for C#, get in touch - it seems not to be included in the .NET framework...


EDIT - any COM object or .NET assembly would do equally well, obviously.

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

One table: http://twoplustwo.gotdns.org/onetable.xml

Software: http://twoplustwo.gotdns.org/1.xml (this filename will change later today)

Others to follow later - can't configure the forum list remotely from work yet.

Need to change from RSS 0.91 to 2.0, the 15-item restriction in 0.91 is having some odd effects when an old thread gets added to and joins the front page for its forum...

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

One table: http://twoplustwo.gotdns.org/onetable.xml

Software: http://twoplustwo.gotdns.org/software.xml

Books: http://twoplustwo.gotdns.org/books.xml

Multi: http://twoplustwo.gotdns.org/multi.xml

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

It is not working. Cannot find server.

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

It'll be off overnight (UK time) for a few days until I can move it to somewhere in the house that it doesn't keep me awake! [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

Is anyone besides myself using this? It works great on my BlackBerry device.

Only one complaint...the book and software forums do not seem to be updated correctly.

Troll...care to share the source code?

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

[ QUOTE ]
Only one complaint...the book and software forums do not seem to be updated correctly.

[/ QUOTE ]

I noticed that too - which forums are covered is all database-driven, so just some setting wrong there I should think. I'll take a look over the weekend, hopefully get the PC moved to somewhere it can stay switched on 24/7 too.

[ QUOTE ]

Troll...care to share the source code?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll zip it all up onto the webserver over the weekend. Still a lot of tidying up to be done, paid work has been taking priority recently!

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

[ QUOTE ]
Wouldn't a RSS feed for the 2+2 Forum be great?

For those of you that do not know what I am talking about, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It is a "lightweight XML format designed to share headlines and other Web content. Think of it as a distributable "What's New" for your site." Kind of a way to have threads pushed to your machine.

[/ QUOTE ]

I just posted the same question in COMPUTER TECHNICAL, I think RSS feeds would be accepted with open arms and big THANK YOU.

Who has the time to read through EVERY category on the site...

also to make it easier to read....the rss tag headline should look something like SH-TOPIC or MTT-TOPIC or OOT-Topic

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

[ QUOTE ]
Is anyone besides myself using this?

[/ QUOTE ]
Brilliant stuff, Guys. I use Bloglines and it looks great. I'd love to see the magazine get a feed.

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Is anyone besides myself using this?

[/ QUOTE ]
Brilliant stuff, Guys. I use Bloglines and it looks great. I'd love to see the magazine get a feed.

[/ QUOTE ]

Apologies for the slow progress on this... hardly been home for the last couple of weeks (work, not social life, unfortunately). This weekend is looking a bit more promising for getting the rest of the feeds up and moving the PC somewhere it can run full time.

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

Hi, I've been following this thread with interest - hoping to see a nice RSS feed with 2+2 content too.

Wondered if you'd be interested in seeing the setup that ITH has over there - you can tailor your feed for whatever content you'd like, it's a slick setup and even has RSS 2 as an option too. Not sure who wrote this code but fyi:

RSS Feed Content Generator for ITH (Internet Texas Holdem - dot-com)

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

Looks like the server is down.

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

[ QUOTE ]
Looks like the server is down.

[/ QUOTE ]

I really wouldn't dignify it with the word "server", but yes, it's currently in bits on my living room carpet. Hopefully find somewhere for it where the noise isn't too noticeable today, then it'll be on all the time.

I'll also get the source code uploaded as promised. On a side note, I found a far better, simpler way of capturing new posts during the week, so the whole importing side of it is getting a rewrite. This will stop the annoying behaviour where an older thread being promoted to the front page causes its whole history to appear in the feed. The crucial fact that I didn't pick up on before is that posts are given sequential numbers that appear in their URLs...

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

with the new Google Sidebar debuting i would like REBUMP THIS thought...anyone work on the RSS Feed?

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

The source code is now up, for VS.NET 2003. If anyone fancies spending some time tidying this up and changing the method of checking for new posts in line with my earlier post, please speak up and I'll write up what changes I have planned. Otherwise I'll hopefully get them done myself over the next several days.

The "server" is now in the back of a cupboard where it can run 24/7, so please post if it appears to be offline. Not sure whether it'll get enough ventilation where it is, so would be useful to know if it's falling over.

Re: RSS for the 2+2 Forum
 

Any updates with this? RSS would be great.