Demos for various…
3rd Party RSS Feed WordPress Plugins
Below are the ways we can “easily” display the RSS feed provided into a WordPress site. There are certainly many plugins for WordPress surrounding RSS display. The ones below are some of the best free options and intended to serve as at least a starting point for our discussion about migrating the events to the new site, and how we can reconcile that with the design documents.
WordPress RSS Block
https://wordpress.com/support/wordpress-editor/blocks/rss-block
- Built into WordPress
- No flexibility or additional options.
WP RSS AGGREGATOR
https://www.wprssaggregator.com
- Uses shortcode to generate list.
- Limited flexibility.
- What you see is basically what it can do.
Example:
- Story Emporium Used Bookstore
- Family Chess
- Genre Book Club
- Story Emporium Used Bookstore
- Chinese Tea
- Staff Development Day – CLOSED
- Family Card Game Night
- Kids Picture Bingo
- Creative Writing Club
- Library LEGO
- WCPL Trustees Meeting
- Library LEGO
- Story Emporium Used Bookstore
- Euchre
- Story Emporium Used Bookstore
FEEDZY RSS FEEDS
- Uses Block to generate list.
- More flexibility, but mostly locked behind a $100/yr Pro version.
- Similarly, this is about what this can do. At least we get images.
Example:
Warsaw Community Public Library RSS Feed RSS Feed for Calendar
- Library LEGOon August 2, 2025 at 1:27 am
08/02/25 @ 10:30am – 08/02/25 @ 12:00pm Meeting Room C Warsaw Community Public Library This program is designed for children and accompanying adults. Please plan to attend and be engaged with your child for this program. Drop offs will not be permitted. We often take photos at events. Please tell a staff member if you do not want your photo used in WCPL media. Do you enjoy building with LEGO bricks? Join us in Room C for LEGO fun! We supply all the LEGO pieces. You supply the creativity. Build together as a family or go solo on your own creation. Enjoy a slideshow of previous LEGO builds to get an idea of what you can build next. Stay for a few minutes or the entire time. You’re free to come and go during the event’s duration. We do ask that children under the age of 5 have adult supervision due to small pieces.
- Story Emporium Used Bookstoreon August 2, 2025 at 1:27 am
08/02/25 @ 10:30am – 08/02/25 @ 1:30pm Stafford Book Sale Room Warsaw Community Public Library We often take photos at events. Please tell a staff member if you do not want your photo used in WCPL media. The Friends of the Library operates a bookstore where used books, movies, sound recordings, and video games can be purchased. All proceeds benefit the Warsaw Community Public Library.
- Friends of the Libraryon August 2, 2025 at 1:27 am
08/04/25 @ 1:00pm – 08/04/25 @ 2:00pm Meeting Room A/B Warsaw Community Public Library We often take photos at events. Please tell a staff member if you do not want your photo used in WCPL media. The Friends of the Library is an organization supporting the Warsaw Community Public Library. Individuals are encouraged to attend and learn more about FOL projects and community involvement.
- Read Aloud Houron August 2, 2025 at 1:27 am
08/04/25 @ 5:00pm – 08/04/25 @ 6:00pm Meeting Room C Warsaw Community Public Library We often take photos at events. Please tell a staff member if you do not want your photo used in WCPL media. Join us for an hour of Read-Aloud fun as we share family friendly picture books with guest readers and library staff. Stay for one story or the entire hour. We will have a variety of family-friendly picture books read and maybe a song or two. A great family time event that’ll focus on the importance of reading books aloud. If you think you’d like to be a guest reader, contact Duane Herendeen at dherendeen@warsawlibrary.org for more details.
- PBS Film – Echoes of the Great Migrationon August 2, 2025 at 1:27 am
08/04/25 @ 6:00pm – 08/04/25 @ 7:30pm Meeting Room A/B Warsaw Community Public Library We often take photos at events. Please tell a staff member if you do not want your photo used in WCPL media. Echoes of the Great Migration: Family Stories of Resilience is an original PBS Michiana-WNIT production exploring the enduring impact of the Great Migration on our region through the voices of descendants of those who journeyed from the rural South to urban centers in the North. Through a blend of interviews, film and archival imagery, Echoes of the Great Migration illuminates the legacy of migration as told by today’s families.
Notes on the RSS Feed Itself
Here is a single “item” in the RSS feed. I have a few notes on this feed, and can’t help but wonder if we can customize the contents of this feed from the LibraryCalendar.com side?
Firstly, the starting and ending dates for these Event “Items” are non-standard XML.
In a “standard” XML document each metric would have its own field. This makes it more difficult (though not impossible) to create custom solutions that would use the start/end date for any kind of sorting / filtering. (This task is compounded by the US date format)
The date info does seem to be output as the first item after the closing CDATA tag. If we could count on it staying there, and its format staying in MM/DD/YY @ HH:MMam, we could parse that into useable dates, but a custom solution based on that would not stand up well to any changes to the feed from the LibraryCalendar.com side.
Indeed, no 3rd party plugin above is capable of parsing these dates since they are “non-standard” XML. Note all the entries in the Feedzy output show January 1, 2000. That’s because they can’t find the start/end date from the RSS feed.
I can only postulate that other solutions that are better using the dates, and have better UI have either:
1. Written their own custom solution using ACF and an ACF block to customize the exact parsing of the feed on the backend, and the exact display of the resulting UI on the front end.
2. Have customized their RSS feed to a more standardized format, which could then be better consumed by some other 3rd party WordPress plugin and/or simple embeddable web content.
<item>
<title>Story Emporium Used Bookstore</title>
<link>https://warsaw.librarycalendar.com/event/story-emporium-used-bookstore- 16</link>
<category>Book Sale</category>
<category>All Ages</category>
<description>
<![CDATA[ <img src="https://warsaw.librarycalendar.com/sites/default/files/2024-06/Apr%20Bookstore%20%28square%29.jpg" /> ]]>
08/03/24 @ 10:30am - 08/03/24 @ 1:00pm Stafford Book Sale Room Warsaw Community Public Library <p>The Friends of the Library operate the Story Emporium Used Bookstore & all profits benefit the Warsaw Community Public Library. The bookstore is located in the library at 310 E. Main Street, Warsaw, IN 46580. </p>
</description>
<guid>https://warsaw.librarycalendar.com/event/story-emporium-used-bookstore-16</guid>
</item>Notes on FeedWind
I don’t think FeedWind offers any plugins for WordPress. Though its output and functionality looks fairly similar to “Feedzy” from above. Basically, attach it to an RSS feed and then output a Widget.