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Feature Proposal: Personalized RSS

Motivation

An old idea, but triggered once again by TWikiVsConfluence: Wouldn't It Be Nice If we could create RSS 'topics' that show just the changes of the pages we are interested in?

Description

Scenario 1: I am interested in topic changes of TopicA and TopicB. I set to create a custom RSS, go to the CreateRSS topic and add those topics (using a list?). I can save this topic as a new topic, and add it for instance to my personal left bar. When finished I click on the RSS to go to the new newsfeed page and add it to my newsreader.

Scenario 2: I just performed a search, and it shows a list of topics. Now I click on the button "Create newsfeed from these results". I am led to the CreateRSS topic where the listed topics from the results are now displayed in the list of topics I am interested in. I can add and remove topics. I can save this topic as a new topic.

-- ArthurClemens - 18 Nov 2005

instead of creating a topic, you could also just be creating a URL, that contains the SEARCH that you want to use to specify the feed.. Like with the Bug tracking system, clever use of URLPARAMS allow you to create multiple applications without necessarliy creating more (non-)topics

-- SvenDowideit - 18 Nov 2005

Example?

-- ArthurClemens - 18 Nov 2005

TWiki/PersonalizedRSS?user=ArthurClemens

looks up the list of:

  • Set SUBSCRIBEDTOPICS = Web1.this, Web2.that, TheOther

-- MartinCleaver - 18 Nov 2005

This is already possible with WebRss feed searching for InterestedParties <your name>, e.g. ?search=InterestedParties.*%WIKINAME%. Voila, you get your personalized favorites feed. See more options in WebRssBase.

This TWikiVsConfluence thingy reminds me how developers and marketing folks think differently. A feature that is trivial and not worth mentioning for developers can be heavily marketed by marketing folks. Take iPod Shuffle, the random song feature is very successfully marketed, yet it is a trivial functionality from a technical perspective. Same here with personalized RSS feeds.

-- PeterThoeny - 18 Nov 2005

These are all loose bits and pieces. This doesn't give me the functionality I want - yet. I am no TWiki wizzard, sometimes I need a bit more help (and I figure people new to TWiki do need all the help they can get).

So I can do a search, and create a RSS feed from that - its just a link actually. Easy.

  • TODO: add link "Newsfeed from these results" to search results screen
But this doesn't let me add or remove topics to the news feed. I would need a configuration page to do this.
Also when I want to change the search parameters, I would need to hack the feed url. It would be easier if this was accessible on the configure page. This could well be a section on the personal page.

Using the InterestedParties construct I would need to visit all interesting pages to leave a tag. This is just too time consuming.

-- ArthurClemens - 18 Nov 2005

The WebChanges and WebRss serve the same functionality, to inform users of what's new. The favorites functionality is something else.

The favorites functionality can be automated. In fact, it would be useful to automate it. For example, every topic could have an [Add to favorites] button, or [Remove from favorites]. Or, run a search that shows a checkbox to add/remove the search hits to/from the favorites. This could be done in a generic way if someone implements the EventTriggerPluginDev.

-- PeterThoeny - 19 Nov 2005

See my proposal for Plugins.EventTriggerPluginDev that follows the same line of thought as personalized rss.

-- ArthurClemens - 19 Nov 2005

The search parameter works some bit: I get a feed, but somehow my news client does not update the items when the listed topics are updated.

Also the feed would need a custom title, not the title of the web as it is now.

-- ArthurClemens - 24 Mar 2006

Note: some rss clients suck regarding updates. NetNewsWire, famous on Mac, does a bad job at this, while NewsMac Pro lists each topic change as an update, like it should.

I've implemented RSS based on search by extending WebRssBase so search parameters can now be passed to WebRss (Bugs:Item1960).

The search parameters that can be passed:

  • search string
  • web
  • excludetopic
  • limit
  • scope
  • casesensitive
  • date

Example:

%STARTINCLUDE%
%SEARCH{ "%SEARCHSTRING%" scope="text" nosummary="on" nosearch="on" nototal="on" zeroresults="off" casesensitive="on" type="regex" excludetopic="%BASETOPIC%,WebHome,WebStatistics" scope="text" web="%BASEWEB%" limit="all" format="   * <a href='%SCRIPTURL{"view"}%/$web/$topic?q=%SEARCHSTRING%'>$topic</a><br /><span class=\"twikiGrayText twikiSmall\">$summary</span>" header="---++ Referrals to %SEARCHSTRING% <a href='%SCRIPTURL{"view"}%/%BASEWEB%/WebRss?search=%SEARCHSTRING%;excludetopic=%BASETOPIC%,WebHome,WebStatistics;limit=all;web=%BASEWEB%;scope=text;type=regex'><img src='%ICONURL{rss-small}%' width='16' height='16' alt='' /></a>"}%
%STOPINCLUDE%

SEARCHSTRING can be passed with INCLUDE or passed as url param.

-- ArthurClemens - 25 Mar 2006

Any ideas how to extend this example to generate a 'RSS search' from a normal search that can be presented in the results of WebSearch? Specifically, I have problems in re-using phrases. "web service" as phrase breaks above example. Omitting the quotes will find web AND service, not the literal string.

-- ArthurClemens - 25 Mar 2006

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Topic revision: r11 - 2006-03-25 - ArthurClemens
 
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