ReFeed Instructions
Table of Contents
* Overview
* Installation
* Use/Features
+ View Feeds
+ Add Feeds
+ View Posts
+ Keyboard Sensitivity
* Special Features
+ Archive/Disinter
+ Publish/Revoke
+ Primary Link Selection
+ Metadata
+ Republishing
* License
Overview
reFeed is a PHP-based server-side RSS aggregator/reader that allows
for quick, easy, iterative filtering, editing and re-syndicating of
posts. Its output is an RSS feed that contains numerous metadata
necessary to re-publish posts with appropriate attribution.
reFeed is derived from a project called Feed-on-Feeds by Steve
Minutillo (http://minutillo.com/steve/feedonfeeds/).
Installation
Please see the INSTALL file in this directory for installation
instructions.
Use/Features
* The operation of reFeed should be pretty self-explanatory. Like
most other news/feed readers, it has a page to view all your
feeds, a page to add feeds, a page to view posts for one or more
feeds, and a viewing mode that uses frames, for easier switching
between feeds. We hope that these functions are self-explanatory.
1. View feeds
Screenshot of page of feeds
2. Add feeds
Accessed from "Add Feeds" link in header.
Screenshot of add feeds interface
3. View posts
accessed from "View" links in header, or by clicking on the
title of a feed
Screenshot of page of items
4. Keyboard sensitivity:
reFeed is now almost entirely controllable using keyboard
shortcuts. Type ? on any screen to see what keyboard
functionality is available. If you hate it, it can be
disabled with a configuration flag in the config file (see
INSTALL.html).
Screenshot of keyboard menu
Special Features
* Where reFeed differs from typical feed readers is in the
funcionality it adds to facilitate republishing of the posts you
are reading. Before describing this functionality, there is some
terminology worth establishing:
1. Archive/Disnter
o Archive
To Archive an item is to mark it as read so it is no
longer appears when viewing new items.
Archive button
o Disinter
To Disinter an item is to mark it as unread so it will
appear when viewing new items.
Disinter button
2. Publish/Revoke
o Publish Item
To Publish an item is to mark it for inclusion in your
outgoing RSS feeds, presumably to be consumed by other
readers or a reBlog plugin.
Publish button
o Revoke Item
To Revoke an item is to make it no no longer public
Revoke button
o Publish Feed
To Publish a feed is to set the default state for items
coming from that feed as published (note this only
applies to items forthcoming, not items currently in the
database).
Revoke button
o Revoke Feed
To Revoke a feed is to reset the default state so that
fortcoming items are not marked as published.
Publish button
3. Primary Link Selection/Unselection
o Selected Link
To Select a link within an item is to mark that link as
the primary link that will be included with the item in
any output feed.
Selected Link button
o Unselected Link
The only way to Unselect a link is to Select a different
link in that item.
Unselected Link button
4. Metadata
o Comments
You can attach your personal commentray to items that
you will publish.
Tags
ReFeed lets you tag posts. Really it is just a text
field that you can populate with keywords, for use in
tag- and category-supporting systems such as
del.icio.us, flickr, and Movable Type.
Screenshot of comment form
* While the basic feed-reading in reFeed should speak for itself,
the re-publishing features may require some explanation:
1. Primary Link Selection
On the view page, for items that have multiple links embedded
within their content, you are able to select which link
should be the primary link in the output feed. Notice that
each link (including the main title link) has an accompanying
star. Simply select the preferred star to select the main
link for that item.
Screenshot of page of items
2. Preview/Edit page
This page which allows you to edit and preview any one item.
You can change the title, primary link, or content of the
item, and add comments and subject tags.
This page also allows you to preview the item in a
user-defined visual format so that you can see how the item
will look in your final output blog. Edit
thestyle/templates/page-preview.tplfile (include the link to
your stylesheet) to match the HTML formatting in your nicely
designed reBlog.
Screenshot of preview/edit interface
3. RSS output
All items marked as published within the last 24 hours, or
published in the past but re-edited within the last 24 hours,
are displayed in the rss output (the rss.php page). This feed
includes metadata for proper attribution of the original item
author/blog/etc.
4. Incoming Item Updates
On import from your input feeds, items are not uniquely
identified by simply by their feed and by their link. Now,
items are uniquely identified one of two ways, depending on
the structure of their source feed:
If the source feed contains some kind of global unique
identifier (GUID) for a item, such as a <guid> or <id> or
<dc:identifier> element, this GUID is used. If a item is
updated in its source feed, the same item is updateed in
reFeed, and the items is marked as unread.
Otherwise, items are identified uniquely by their feed,
title, link, and content. This has positive effect of of
catching updates to items in your input RSS feeds. It also
has the consequence of retaining very similar copies of the
same item if reFeed checks the same feed repeatedly while the
author is updating his/her items.
To keep from being assaulted with multiple copies of the same
item when pouring through new content, reFeed has implemented
the following policy: On import of any item, all earlier
items from the same feed sharing the same link that have not
been marked as read or published will be marked as read. They
are still accessible, but only the newest version will be
shown when viewing new items.
License
reFeed is distributed under the GPL (see the LICENSE file in this
directory), though some of its included libraries (in./library/) are
not.