Integrating Content from External Sources with RSS, PHP, and JavaScript

Chris Gilligan University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Companion Post • Code Samples • Explanations • utc.edu/outc16 Content from WordPress via RSS • WordPress RSS – Categories, Tags and Search strings – Images, Media attachments • Media attachments and customized template require some additional tweaks

PHP files and OU Assets • Parse feed and display HTML – “heavy lifting” “dev side” • Variables set to defaults for testing – verify feed access and XML structure • Files for various types of display html • Files for various sources of RSS

PHP files and OU Assets • Simple structure, “user friendly” • Specify RSS source • Limit number of posts to display

More Speed • cache RSS feeds via WordPress plugin, e.g. W3 Total Cache – cron job to fetch feeds to local server • minimize external requests – faster page load

Event Calendar RSS feeds from Master Calendar via RSS Somewhat limited in terms of data, unless you build

Content from WordPress via RSS • WordPress provides some RSS • RSS from categories, tags and search strings • media attachments and a customized template require some additonal tweaks

Social Media Streams • jQuery plugin and PHP to pull in posts for the university account, as well as for individual departments and colleges. • $8 jQuery Social Stream (Code Canyon) – “What you pay for vs. what you work for”

Blog Post Links, Examples, Code Samples

utc.edu/outc16

Chris Gilligan University of Tennessee at Chattanooga