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How to Import Data FROM RSS Feeds and RSS Aggregators like Feedly

KW Kenneth Wright
Kenneth Wright
Member

Team,

I see that Simple:Press has excellent RSS “export” facilities at various levels in the SP data hierarchy, BUT I am looking for a way to get or input data that is located in an RSS aggregator like but not limited to e..g. Feedly and to populate Simple:Press with that data. Maybe Yahoo Pipes is a possibility?

Any ideas how to do this please.

Thanks

Ken

15 Answers

New Answer

YS Yellow Swordfish
Yellow Swordfish
Member

Well it would need custom code being written which could populate the Simple:Press post class data requirements in much the same way that our ‘post by email’ plugin does. But the important bit here is needing code to be written.

KW Kenneth Wright
Kenneth Wright
Member

So …. how do we accomplish this “needing code to be written” step in your world please

Thanks

Best Regards

Ken

YS Yellow Swordfish
Yellow Swordfish
Member

Ah… well. I guess the first question has to be do you write php code? Because the first thing that is needed is a php programmer.

KW Kenneth Wright
Kenneth Wright
Member

Well …. I could try …. but I do not know the ins and outs of SimplePress AND I certainly am not as good as I am sure you are or others you know who have written code for the Simple:Press Product or plugins for it

I just want to run a Forum not become a super php coder. 

What I was as subtly as possible asking was …. what’s it gonna cost me to get what I need ….. code that feeds RSS data into SimplePress from Feedly.

Thanks

Best Regards

Ken

YS Yellow Swordfish
Yellow Swordfish
Member

smile Well we would need to first establish what data items we would be getting. New topics need a forum ID and a topic title and post content,  a user ID or guest poster name and email – at the very least. Existing topics need the above plus topic ID and the post (of course). So what could we expect to receive?

KW Kenneth Wright
Kenneth Wright
Member

(1) Lets say that I can provide a JSON feed over HTTP.

(2) Lets say I can provide the needed fields in that JSON/HTTP that would match the variable names required to populate all the Simple:Press fields where I would like that data to go including Groups, Forum ID, Topic Title, Poster Name, email etc etc … basically anything you would need (i.e whatever variables you tell me you need) to populate the forum with the data from the JSON/HTTP feed.

I assume what would then be needed was some code to parse the array and feed MySQL statements into the database.

Of course if Simple:Press had a REST API or some way of talking to my REST source, this would be even better. Maybe I could even use bbPress or PHPbb to be an intermediary to act as an REST API intermediary. Just tossing some ideas around.

Basically I can get you whatever data you need with whatever variable names you need and in whatever datatype you need, so as to populate every element of the Forum a typical user may typically want (no statistical data just post content). What I don’t know are the variable names and datatypes that are essential to populate your Forum with that typical data. 

I also would like to set this up so that it is not sensitive to any future changes you may make to the database schema already exposed by Simple:Press

Is this any help?

Thanks

Ken

 

 

 

YS Yellow Swordfish
Yellow Swordfish
Member

If you take a quick look at the file /simple-press/forum/library/sp-post.php then basically you would need to be replacing all of the $_POST variables on your JSON response. If that is possible then it really shouldn’t be a hard task to just re-construct that code accordingly.

We will need to discuss it a little here but we can get back to you on it…

KW Kenneth Wright
Kenneth Wright
Member

Thanks for the response … this sounds workable to me. I will take a look at this as well.

Best Regards

Ken

KW Kenneth Wright
Kenneth Wright
Member

Guys,

I have taken a loo at this code and I can see how it could be made to work. It looks like it does not recognise Groups in Simplepress. Or maybe a Group is recognised by forumid?

It may be possible to use: http://developer.wordpress.com/docs/api/  (REST API) ….. I see that this MAY have a wordpress.com focus feather than wordpress.org, but it looks like everything is there to recognise JSON/HTTP if we could use it in a plugin.

All that would remain is to make an ‘interface” which would allow this REST API to “interact” with sp-post.php

Ideally if this combination could be made into a ServicePress plugin, I think we would be very close to aching my objective.

Best Regards

Ken

 

 

KW Kenneth Wright
Kenneth Wright
Member

Another idea?

https://github.com/WP-API/WP-API/tree/master/docs

I think this is the “in progress” work on a wordpress.org REST API: 
http://wordpress.org/plugins/json-rest-api/changelog/

Regards

Ken

YS Yellow Swordfish
Yellow Swordfish
Member

Oh I see no serious issues on doing it (although my colleague here did ask about whether your feed is likely to present the same post on subsequent requests). Our main problem, if you were after us doing it – is mainly an issue of time. certainly as plans stand at the moment it couldn’t happen this year.

KW Kenneth Wright
Kenneth Wright
Member

OK understand its now down to me.

Can you respond to the formumid vs groupid variables question? There seemed to be no groupid variable in the sp-post.php code. Is the Group field data NOT stored in the database?

YS Yellow Swordfish
Yellow Swordfish
Member

One of the most immediate things we are up against is WordPress 3.9 which introduces a new look to the admin and means we have quite a bit to do to get SP up to scratch for that – and that is due to hit the streets mid-December.

OK – so no – you do not need to pass the Group ID. That is determined by the post class code when the Forum ID is known.

KW Kenneth Wright
Kenneth Wright
Member

Thanks very much for your help and guidance. I am now going to look for a good PHP coder that can help me pith this together. 

When I get it working I will let you know. Maybe I can contribute something to SimplePress.

Best Regards

Ken