If your use Joomla as a Blog, or if you just want one section of your site to setup as a Blog, you might have run into some trouble.
You want a feed to go with your Blog… but the standard Syndication Component of Joomla is to limited….
The Standard RSS Feed problem of Joomla
No, I don’t mean the integration of Feed content into Joomla pages, there are several components that can do that very well.
That’s a topic to write about some other time.
We are now facing a bigger problem, and that is getting your content out of your Joomla Blog section into a Feed reader.
And possible with all the layout of your page, including pictures, hyperlinks and paragraph layout.
If you use the standard Syndicate Component, you can set some parameters, but you can only syndicate the front page.
And all off your nicely placed page layout is stripped of all HTML coding one the Feed is created :-(
Leaving you with one big blop of text in the feed that you provide to your readers….
Joomla RSS Feed with Layout and other then the Frontpage
Is it possible? Keeping your post – page layout and using another part of the site for the Feed?
Yes, it can be done, with a special component.
There are two components that let you create a feed other then the Frontpage.
The first on is from Run-Digital and is called RSS Feed manager, and is an easy to use component if you limit the feed content to just a number of introduction words and then the link to the whole page.
The other one is much lesser known… probably because most people just syndicate the Intro.
But what if you want to Feed the whole post content? and with all the layout and stuff…
I that case you need DS-Syndicate from www.joomlafun.com !!
This Component lest you choose if you want a categorie content, or several ones to go into the feed, or just the Frontpage, or both.
But the best part is… the complete layout is still there !! No HTML stripping, just as you wrote it it gets it’s way into the Feed.
Now you can create and use your Joomla based Blog with an RSS Feed the way you alway wanted.
And if you still are not ready to use this feature of Joomla, then I suggest you read my post on seo4joomla.wordpress.com
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Thanks for the tip. I just relaunched http://bestnetworksecurity.com as a Joomla site and noticed today that the formatting was stripped on the syndication and Run Digital components, which is definitely unacceptable. Does the DS-Syndicate component replace Run Digital or do I need both? Does it let browsers find the feed? Run Digital doesn’t. By the way, I burned the feed here:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/bestnetworksecurity
Would also be cool to have a plug-in for joomla that redirects feed requests to the feedburner feed like we have in wp.
@Jon
DS-Syndicate is a separate RSS Component.
You don’t need to have Run Digital along side, so you can deinstall it if you want to.
To make sure the Feed is Found, and easily to subscribe to, I alway use Feedburner as you did now.
What I do then is to create a new Module in Joomla where I copy and past the Code from the Chicklet Chooser at the Publicize Tab of FeedBurner.
Make sure you work without an WYSIWYG editor, or use one that doesn’t effect your HTML code.
Publicize and Postition the Module, and you done.
I will look into a way to have it Found by IE7, didn’t notice that before.
I tried initally with a module, but I guess it didn’t work because of the wysiwyg, so I’ll try without, then I tried with a mambot, which had unexpected consequences, but I can live with it for now. If I can get it into a module, I can stick it up in user 1 where I want it. Thanks again for the tip. The DS module works great so far. Live bookmarks for IE7, Firefox and Safari would be great. The built-in syndication comp did this.
@Jon
Problem with the Life Feeds is easy to overcome I learned today, will write a post on it later.
Just checkout http://blogs.msdn.com/rssteam/articles/PublishersGuide.aspx
Copy the < link rel="alternate" line , give it the right options and put it in the head section of your Joomla Template.
Clean any caches you might have and go to your homepage with IE.
Works for me in http://www.pathos-seo.com :-)
“Because of people who are bothering other people (crackers) this site is closed. ”
Looks like joomlafun.com is down. Does anyone have an alternative way to download this?
@Hipath 400, You can download the the Component on http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/dssyndicate/ where it is still resides. Please note that this is a Joomla 1.0.x component, Joomal 1.5 is better in HTML Output.
@HiPaTH 4000, yes you can download the component at http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/dssyndicate/ but do keep in mind that this component is for Joomla 1.0.x and not J 1.5.
There is a great RSS component for Joomla 1.5 at http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/bca_rss/