modified rss generator - flickr enabled

Hi All,

Just thought I'd release my version of the RssGenerator.class file with some extra code to make the feed Flickr enabled. Much thanks to Mark Callf for his help on this.

However, I am still trying to get the feed to sort items according to the way the album is sorted. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

- V

PS: just remove the extra file extensions before you publish the file

http://www.neo-metro.com/new/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=shop.flypage&product_id=8&category_id=17&manufacturer_id=1&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=104

sorry.. it's work in progress.. but u can see the flash slideshow in action. i am using a flash slideshow component from afcomponents.com (frankly, not the best) and feeding the rss feed to that file. all the flash slideshows u'll see on the site use this method.

- V

please see my rss feed.

http://www.latexbay.com/rss/

Yes. My site used Afcomponents' Flash Thumbnail Gallery. You can use any image slideshow program that will accept rss feeds. Most of them use flickr style feeds with <media> tags. That's why G2's feed was modified.

Instructions to use afcomponents (requires Flash) is on their site. I think slideshowpro also accepts rss.

- V

Hi,

The IMG thumbnail gallery is a Flash component and will need to be embedded into a Flash file (.fla). Once embedded, it has several parameters that you can specify. One of them is data - where you can specify the url of the rss feed from G2. Make sure you set up the rss module in G2 and create a feed for the image / album / sub-album you want displayed in your flash slideshow. Other options include thumbnail navigation, description (derived from your rss feed) etc. Export / publish the file and check if it works. You might want to use other data types (list of images, xml etc.) to make sure that the component actually works before trying out rss directly. If you do want to try out rss, get some public feeds from the flickr.com site. There are detailed guides on the afcomponent website.

As for setting up the rss feed on g2, make sure you apply the changes described above to ensure that your feeds do include the <media> tag (like Flickr). Then, log in to g2, go to site admin > modules > rss. There, you check the box that says "Allow configurable RSS feeds to be used" and uncheck simple feeds. Rest of the options are up to you to decide. I've attached a screenshot of my global rss config.

Now, go to the album and go to album actions > configure rss feeds. The important settings are name, type of feed, which items and the checkboxes for image and enclosure tags - make sure both are checked. save the feed. now, you'll see a url for the feed. that is the url that you will add to the flash compnent's data field.

That should do it (in a nutshell) .

If you want to get fancier, then you can try passing the feed (has to be url encoded!!!!!) as a flashvars by adding it to the <object> and <embed> tags while embedding them into your html page. Then, assuming you want all slideshows of the same size, you'll have just one flash file even though you have several rss feeds. Pretty nifty, huh?

Hope this helps,
-V