Remote RSS feeds block: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 13:56, 20 July 2023

Note: The Remote RSS feeds block is disabled in new installations of Moodle 4.x.

Enabling the Remote RSS feeds block

An administrator can enable the block from Site administration > Plugins > Blocks and opening the 'eye' of Remote RSS feeds.

From the Settings link, certain defaults may be specified:

block_rss_client_num_entries - The default number of entries to show per feed shown in the block. This can be overridden when you actually set up a block in a course.
block_rss_timeout - The time in minutes between a reread of the feed by Moodle. Since some feeds on busy sites can take long to load, it can slow down the load of your course page. Therefore, it is wise to set this time rather high, so only every now and then a visitor of your course is the victim of the slow remote server. Time is in minutes here.

Using the Remote RSS feeds block

A course teacher can add the block by enabling Edit mode, and adding the Remote RSS feeds block from the block drawer.

Configuring the Remote RSS feeds block

After adding the block, click the action menu and select Configure Remote news feed blcok.

Display each link's description?: Choose yes or no from the drop-down menu to determine whether the block will display a description of each article, or just the title of the article. Both the title and description are generated by the external feed.

Max number of entries to show per block: Determines how many articles will be displayed. The most recent will be displayed first.

Choose the feeds to make available: Check the box next to each feed you would displayed in this block. You can have more than one instance of the RSS feed block if you would like to break them up.

Title: Enter a title for the block. If you leave this blank a title will be taken from the RSS feeds, which can be confusing if there are multiple feeds in one block.

Display a link?: Each article headline should link to the full article, but you can also display a link to the original site where available.

Show channel image?: Some feeds supply an image or logo from the original site which you can choose to display when available.

Add/Manage all RSS feeds

All the Moodle site's RSS feeds can be managed on the Manage all my feeds tab in the RSS News Feed edit menu. The site administrator may give other roles permission to use this tab. This tab creates a list of RSS feeds that can be selected for display in every course on the Moodle site.

Copy and paste (or type) the URL address of the RSS feed in the space provided. This the generating site's actual RSS page address. For example, here is a Moodle RSS feed address : http://moodle.org/rss/file.php/1/1/forum/1/rss.xml

Adding a custom title will take the place of the one supplied by the generating site.There is a validation tool included to confirm the feed URL is accurate.

When checked, the Shared Feed checkbox makes the feed available (although not necessarily visible) to all courses on the Moodle site. This would be useful, for example, when a college has an urgent announcements feed that would be of interest to all students, regardless of the Moodle course in which they are enrolled. Leave unchecked if the feed is of interest only to a single course.

Click the Add button to submit the feed.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-'''''shamelessly unedited hence unfinished'''''
+{{Blocks}}
+{{Note|The Remote RSS feeds block is disabled in new installations of Moodle 4.x.}}
+==Enabling the Remote RSS feeds block==
+An administrator can enable the block from ''Site administration > Plugins > Blocks'' and opening the 'eye' of Remote RSS feeds.
+From the Settings link, certain defaults may be specified:
+* ''block_rss_client_num_entries'' - The default number of entries to show per feed shown in the block. This can be overridden when you actually set up a block in a course.
+* ''block_rss_timeout'' - The time in minutes between a reread of the feed by Moodle. Since some feeds on busy sites can take long to load, it can slow down the load of your course page. Therefore, it is wise to set this time rather high, so only every now and then a visitor of your course is the victim of the slow remote server. Time is in minutes here.
+==Using the Remote RSS feeds block==
+A course teacher can add the block by enabling Edit mode, and adding the Remote RSS feeds block from the block drawer.
+==Configuring the Remote RSS feeds block==
+After adding the block, click the action menu and select Configure Remote news feed blcok.
+;Display each link's description?
+:Choose yes or no from the drop-down menu to determine whether the block will display a description of each article, or just the title of the article. Both the title and description are generated by the external feed.
-RSS is a technology where visitors to your site can choose to have the site send new postings to an RSS reader. RSS allows a user to build a custom news service. When users “subscribe” to your RSS-enabled page, they will get new postings from Forums and/or new entries in Glossaries, without having to visit your Moodle. Moodle has an RSS aggregator (collector) for these modules.
+;Max number of entries to show per block
-The end user does need a way to display the news-feed. Windows and Macintosh RSS news readers can be found at:
+:Determines how many articles will be displayed. The most recent will be displayed first.
-• http://www.bloglines.com/ (web based)
-• http://www.fastbuzz.com/main.jsp (web based)
-- or you can put RSS into a search engine to find more.
-Why use RSS? If you normally try to keep updated on what is happening on say 10 or 15 different websites, RSS can help. If all these web pages are RSS enabled, then you can put all 15 RSS feeds into your RSS news-reader, and see all the new things going on in one place.
+;Choose the feeds to make available
+:Check the box next to each feed you would displayed in this block. You can have more than one instance of the RSS feed block if you would like to break them up.
-RSS Feeds Moodle supports outgoing (out of Moodle) RSS feeds. This option needs to be enabled by your Moodle administrator. Once enabled, RSS is available in the Forum and Glossary modules.
+;Title
+:Enter a title for the block. If you leave this blank a title will be taken from the RSS feeds, which can be confusing if there are multiple feeds in one block.
+;Display a link?
+:Each article headline should link to the full article, but you can also display a link to the original site where available.
-RSS RSS is a technology where visitors to your site can choose to have the site send new postings to an RSS aggregator (a collector). RSS allows a user to build a custom news service. When users “subscribe” to your RSS-enabled page, they will get new postings from forums and/or new entries in glossaries without having to visit your Moodle site every day. The end user does need a way to collect the news-feed, called an aggregator. Some aggregators can be found at: http://www.bloglines.com/ (web based) http://www.fastbuzz.com/main.jsp (web based) or you can put RSS into a search engine to find more.
+;Show channel image?
+:Some feeds supply an image or logo from the original site which you can choose to display when available.
+==Add/Manage all RSS feeds ==
+All the Moodle site's RSS feeds can be managed on the ''Manage all my feeds'' tab in the RSS News Feed edit menu. The site administrator may give other roles permission to use this tab. This tab creates a list of RSS feeds that can be selected for display in every course on the Moodle site.
-Why use RSS? If you normally try to keep updated on what is happening on 10 or 15 different webpages, RSS can help. If all 15 pages are RSS enabled, then you can put all 15 RSS feeds into your one aggregator, and can see all the new things going on in all the pages, but you only have to look one place.
+Copy and paste (or type) the URL address of the RSS feed in the space provided. This the generating site's actual RSS page address. For example, here is a Moodle RSS feed address : http://moodle.org/rss/file.php/1/1/forum/1/rss.xml
+Adding a custom title will take the place of the one supplied by the generating site.There is a validation tool included to confirm the feed URL is accurate.
-.2 RSS in Forums When RSS is enabled, you will see two new questions in the Forum setup:
+When checked, the Shared Feed checkbox makes the feed available (although not necessarily visible) to all courses on the Moodle site. This would be useful, for example, when a college has an urgent announcements feed that would be of interest to all students, regardless of the Moodle course in which they are enrolled. Leave unchecked if the feed is of interest only to a single course.
-- RSS feed for this activity: This turns RSS on or off for this forum. When set to “None,” RSS is disabled. When set to “Discussions,” the RSS feed will send out new discussions to subscribers. When set to “Posts,” the RSS feed will send out any new posts to subscribers. - Number of RSS recent articles: This number sets the number of articles that go out via RSS. If this number is set to 5, then the 5 most recent articles will be sent to subscribers. As new posts (or discussions) get added, the oldest post/discussion gets replaced on the RSS feed. If your forum gets a lot of posts every day, you will want to set this number high. When you enable RSS in your forum, your users will see an orange RSS button on the main page of the forum (in the upper right-hand side): Notice the forum description tells the users about RSS. I do that in case students are not familiar with RSS. If you click on the RSS button, you will get taken to a page that looks something like this:
-The stuff on the page is not important to you or your users (but Moodle needs it!). For the purposes of RSS feeds, you (or the user) would copy the URL (the web address) from the top of the browser, like this: You (or your user) would then paste this address into an RSS aggregator. When I put the address into my test account at bloglines.com, it looks like this: Now you (or your user) can get the latest posts or discussions along with all the other RSS (news) feeds that you are subscribed to.
+Click the ''Add'' button to submit the feed.
-.3 RSS in Glossaries Moodle’s RSS feed works almost the same in the glossary module as it does in the forum module (see 3.2 for RSS in forums). If RSS is enabled, you will see two additional fields under the glossary setup page: - RSS feed for this activity: This turns RSS on or off. When set to “None,” the RSS feed is disabled. When set to “Concepts with authors,” the RSS feed will send out the glossary entries with the name of the author. When set to “Concepts without authors,” the RSS feed sends out glossary entries without the name of the author. - Number of RSS recent articles: This number sets the number of entries that go out via RSS. If this number is set to 5, then the 5 most recent articles will be sent to subscribers. As new entries get added, the oldest entry gets replaced on the RSS feed. If your glossary gets a lot of posts every day, you will want to set this number high. When RSS is enabled for your glossary, an orange RSS button appears on the main page (in the upper right-hand side): Notice the glossary description tells the users about RSS. I do that in case students are not familiar with RSS. When you click on the RSS button, you should see a page something like this:
+== See also ==
-The stuff on the page is not important to you or your users (but Moodle needs it!). For the purposes of RSS feeds, you (or the user) would copy the URL (the web address) from the top of the browser, like this: You (or your user) would then paste this address into an RSS aggregator. When I put the address into my test account at bloglines.com, it looks like this: Now you (or your user) can get the latest posts or discussions along with all the other RSS (news) feeds that you are subscribed to.
+[https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=448097#p1800877 Showing announcements from a course on the site homepage with an RSS feeds block] (forum discussion)
+[[Category:RSS]]
+[[Category:Site administration]]
-RSS in Forums
+[[de:RSS Feeds Block]]
-When RSS is enabled, two new properties in Forum setup appear (Fig. 45).
+[[eu:RSS jarioak blokea]]
-• RSS feed for this activity: This turns RSS on or off for this forum. When set to “None,” RSS is disabled.
+[[fr:Bloc Flux RSS]]
-When set to “Discussions,” the RSS
+[[es:Bloque de canales RSS remotos]]
-feed will send out new discussions to subscribers. When set to “Posts,” the RSS feed will
-send out any new posts to subscribers.
-• Number of RSS recent articles: This number sets the number of articles that go out via
-RSS. If this number is set to 5, then the 5 most recent articles will be sent to subscribers.
-As new posts (or discussions) get added, the oldest post/discussion gets replaced on the
-RSS feed. If your forum gets a lot of posts every day, you will want to set this number
-high.
-When you enable RSS in your Forum, your users will see an orange RSS button on the main
-page of the forum (in the upper right-hand side), as shown in Fig. 46. If you click on the RSS
-button you will get taken to a page that looks something like Fig. 47.
-The stuff on the page is not important to you or your users (but Moodle needs it!). For the
-purposes of RSS feeds, you (or the user) would copy the URL (the web address) from the top
-of the browser, and paste this address into an RSS news-reader. Now you (or your students)
-can get the latest posts or discussions along with all the other RSS (news) feeds that you are
-subscribed to.
-More about RSS in Glossaries you will find [[RSS in Glossaries|here]]
-More about RSS in Forums you will find [[RSS in Forums|here]]
-Moodle’s RSS feed works almost the same in the
-Glossary module as it does in the Forum module.
-If RSS is enabled, you will see two additional
-fields in Glossary setup (Fig. 48).
-• RSS feed for this activity: This turns RSS on or off. When set to “None,” the RSS feed is
-disabled. When set to “Concepts with authors,” the RSS feed will send out the glossary
-entries with the name of the author. When set to “Concepts without authors,” the RSS feed
-sends out glossary entries without the name of the author.
-• Number of RSS recent articles: This number sets the number of entries that go out via
-RSS. If this number is set to 5, then the 5 most recent articles will be sent to subscribers.
-As new entries get added, the oldest entry gets replaced on the RSS feed. If your glossary
-gets a lot of posts every day, you will want to set this number high.
-When RSS is enabled for your
-Glossary, an orange RSS button
-appears on the main page (Fig. 49),
-just like when the Forum is enabled.
-Create a Glossary description that
-tells students about RSS. When a
-user clicks on the RSS button, they
-see the XML code displayed
-(Fig. 47), needed by the news-reader.
-Once a user has the RSS news-feed
-link, adding it to a reader (Fig. 50) is
-simple and will then display Forum
-and Glossary aggregated information,
-along with other information they
-subscribe to.
-Bloglines is an example of an online web-based RSS news-reader.
-Fig. 48
-Fig. 49
-Fig. 50
-Course Management
-http://moodle.org
-Fig. 55
-Learner Management Features
-In this section of the manual you will be introduced to Moodle’s features for managing learner
-activity, including:
-• Groups
-• Activities block
-• Administration block

Documentation