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:
- Toddler Story Time
- Elementary Chess
- Story Emporium Used Bookstore
- Story Emporium Used Bookstore
- Library LEGO
- Story Emporium Used Bookstore
- Traveling the United States
- Kids Yoga
- Preschool Story Time w/Activity Stations
- Family UNO
- Preschool Story Time w/Activity Stations
- Toddler Story Time
- Creative Writing Club
- Story Emporium Used Bookstore
- Beginning Knitting for Adults
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
- Story Emporium Used Bookstoreon January 21, 2025 at 8:55 am
01/21/25 @ 4:00pm – 01/21/25 @ 7:00pm Stafford Book Sale Room Warsaw Community Public Library 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.
- Creative Writing Clubon January 21, 2025 at 8:55 am
01/21/25 @ 5:00pm – 01/21/25 @ 6:00pm 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. Join us as we continue to explore different writing genres and styles. This month come with a letter written to someone you admire or a fictional character. Feel free to bring any other items you have written to share with the group.
- Toddler Story Timeon January 21, 2025 at 8:55 am
01/22/25 @ 10:15am – 01/22/25 @ 11:00am 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 on Wednesday mornings as we share books, songs, and games geared for newborns to toddlers. There will be play time for the little ones so they can make new friends and get accustomed to a group setting. A great way to introduce your little one to a PreK setting but still have the freedom for babies to crawl and toddlers to wiggle!
- Traveling the United Stateson January 21, 2025 at 8:55 am
01/22/25 @ 4:30pm – 01/22/25 @ 5:30pm 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. Join us as we look at several locations around the country that are popular vacations spots. We will discuss some of our favorite travel adventures and maybe even find some new places to visit in the future.
- Preschool Story Time w/Activity Stationson January 21, 2025 at 8:55 am
01/24/25 @ 10:15am – 01/24/25 @ 12:00pm 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 in Room C for our Preschool Story Time. Each week we will focus on a topic through books, songs, games and more. Preschool aged children (3-5 years old) can experience social time through free play, story time, and group activities. Story Time is from 10:15 to 10:45, with Activity Stations afterwards. Feel free to come & go during the activity stations time period. There will be tables with crafts, games and fine motor activities.
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.