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SimpleFeed
Out of frustration with aggregator module in core and the lack of any clean, easy to use, and easy to extend [e.g., feed api/hooks] contrib modules that parse feeds, I embarked upon a quest to build a Drupal module that did feed parsing correctly.
And with that, I’m pleased to announce SimpleFeed, which has now stabilized [e.g., no more planned major database changes, nor code shuffling] and is slated for a 1.0 release quite soon (a couple minor bugs to fix).
Here is the list of features:
- uses SimplePie as the default feed parsing engine
- feed hooks to alter when and how: feeds expire, feeds are parsed, and feeds are saved
- auto-taxonomy, automatically add categories in feeds to Drupal’s taxonomy system
- revisions support for both feeds & feed items
- automatically delete feed items after a certain amount of time
- optionally save specific feed items by editing their expiration time to “never”
- edit any feed or feed item that comes in
- manually insert feed items into feeds
- customizable default input format for imported feeds (e.g., which tags to strip from feeds, if any)
- feed & feed items obey default node workflow + options (e.g., set if feed items should be published by default)
- postgres support
- duplicate checking of both feeds & feed items
- granular feed permissions
Additionally, that second feature about feed hooks is mostly Bill O’Connor’s [csevb10] work. Yesterday him and myself implemented his code [finally fulfilling my full vision for the module ;-)] and cleaned up a number of bugs. He is now co-maintaining SimpleFeed with me, which should really speed up bug fixes :-)
Look for an actual Drupal 5 1.0 release in the next 2-3 weeks or so. Till then please beta test and post feedback!
11 comments
All other content, unless where noted, ©2010 Theodore Serbinski. All Rights Reserved.
Right on!
I can vouch for the brilliance of simplefeed. It’s a great step up from the aggregator module in both features and performance. A couple feeds which wouldn’t even parse in aggregator came through just fine for me in simplefeed. If there are other plans great – but Drupal 6 could do much worse than to just replace the current aggregator in core with this. :)
How does Simplefeed differ from Leech and Feedparser? It seems that all three are duplicating many of the same features, just doing it in wildly different ways. I desperately need feed node capability, but all these options are confusing me. :-)
One other question: Can the admin choose the “author” of each feed item in the feed definition?
Well, Simplefeed actually works :) Leech and feedparser are (still) quite unstable, maybe because they try to maintain too many features. Simplefeed works perfectly, does exactly what its supposed to do and nothing more. It was a godsend for me!
Seems like Aaron Novak will have another module to consider when comparing and consolidating feed parsing modules as part of his Google Summer of Code project in a few weeks. http://drupal.org/node/135602
@Gábor: yes, this almost makes Aaron’s project a bit redundant or outdated. It seems like we have a good opportunity to reconsider the scope of his project, something which I will communicate to him and his mentors.
Hi Ted and everybody else in the thread,
Great to see that simplefeed is 1.0 – will check it out asap.
I don’t see Aron’s SoC project getting redundant though – Simplefeed is going to be great input (or the basis?) for finding a good extensible aggregator foundation in Drupal core.
For everybody who’s interested in this discussion: http://groups.drupal.org/node/3528
Alex
PS: Towards more modularity! Aron just broke out yahoo_terms from leech module: it is a standalone module now. It now allows you to use the yahoo terms extraction service for any kind of node – so you can use it also for simplefeed items. http://drupal.org/project/yahoo_terms
Can this be used to make local site feeds? For example, say you are building a site that will have multiple podcasts of its own – can feed/feed_item be used for this or is this only external aggregation?
I like the feed/feed_item metaphor vs. just having multiple feeds in Drupal based on taxonomy or user id.
Well, out of frustration with the aggregator2 I created the aggregation module. Please feel free to test it and tell me what you think. It’s come a long way and is very robust and stable.
http://drupal.org/project/aggregation
Please contact me if you’re interested and let’s collaborate on something exciting!
@zoon_unit – The author of each feed item is inherited from the owner of the feed node. There isn’t a good way to create a feed item owner since it uses Drupal’s user system and hence, you’d be creating accounts for non-existent users. However, we are working on supplying the full feed item object so you could display this at the theme level, that is coming soon.
@dldege – SimpleFeed is only for external aggregation, not for supplying feeds. That is what views + views RSS is for :-)
@mistknight – Most sure! We are open to collaboration and seems your module surfaced around the time ours did. I have not had a chance to look at yours but if you look at SimpleFeed and have ideas, perhaps we can work out a roadmap there.
Thanks for all the other kind feedback too!
I’m using Simplefeed to aggregate content at Blogotariat and I’m pretty pleased with it. I hacked the node template and a few other bits to get the items looking how I wanted them (eg link to Feed itself. So thanks very much for all your efforts.
My two wishes would be for an option to attempt to detect duplicate or updated feed items, and from the Feed view the ability to purge all related feed item nodes.
Great ideas, please submit those to the issue queue: http://drupal.org/project/simplefeed
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