RSS and Atom feeds

TetraBB PRO Documentation

RSS and Atom feeds

Newsfeeds are an XML-based format for content distribution which can be displayed by browsers and, more common, by specialized feedreaders.
Content distribution/aggregation via newsfeeds becomes more popular. Depending on the character of a site they are more or less important to stay in touch with the audience.
Unfortunately there is no definite single standard for feeds but a couple of (slightly) different standards. To serve all common needs TetraBB PRO generates feeds in 3 different flavours, compliant to the most popular standards on the net.

Basics on TetraBB PRO newsfeeds

Newsfeeds are served via static *.xml pages which guarantees only minor server load!
Newsfeeds are generated in 3 different flavours, according to the standards for ATOM 1.0, RSS 1.0 and RSS 2.0
Newsfeeds are updated whenever a message is posted, edited, archived or deleted.
For special purpose it's possible to rebuild the newsfeed files via the PRO admin portal.
Newsfeed *.xml files for each individual forum are stored in a subfolder of the /webbbs/feeds folder where the subfolder's name is defined by $data_subdir variable of each forum.
E.g.: on a default setup all static newsfeed files for the forum using /main as it's $data_subdir are created in /webbbs/feeds/main

Optional configuration for newsfeeds

Newsfeeds can be enabled or disabled for all forums on a site.
If enabled for all forums feeds can still be disabled for individual boards.
Newsfeeds default to display both, posts starting a topic/thread and responses to posts.
Optionally it's possible to display only topics or responses on newsfeeds either on all boards or individual boards. In other words: different boards may display different types of newsfeeds.
Optionally specify a time offset to UTC (formerly GMT) according to the ATOM and RSS standards.
Time offset is a global setting for the entire site.
The number of items on feeds defaults to '10', however it can be set to any other positive number as a global setting for all feeds on a site.
The length of each item's description/teaser defaults to '300' characters. Of course it can be set to any other length. It's a global setting for all feeds on a site.

Integrating feeds into the site/forums

There are a couple of options on how to integrate the newsfeeds generated by the forum scripts into your site. It's up to you which way you think is the best for your site.

Enable/Disable a link on forum navbars leading to a page displaying a list of all forum newsfeeds available on the site.
This is convenient on sites with multiple forums/feeds.
Sites running only one forum or a few forums may disable the navbar link but instead add the appropriate references to the Meta.txt template file for each forum.
E.g. add the following line for the forum which's $data_subdir is set to /main to reference the newsfeed according to RSS 2.0 :
```
<link rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss+xml” title=”Your Forum Name” href=”http://yoursite.com/webbbs/feeds/main/rss20.xml”>
```
Note: Allowing browsers to autodetect newsfeeds this way is fine. However some browsers tend to retrieve the referenced feeds whenever the page with the reference link is loaded - instead of only displaying an icon in the addressbar. This (buggy ?) behaviour may lead to a significant increase of bandwidth usage on your server!
Manually add HTML-links on any page of your site linking directly to the *.xml files in /webbbs/feeds/<subfolder>/*.xml