Adding rss feeds

Introduction
RSS Rich Site Summary is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format. An RSS document (feed) includes full or summarized text, plus metadata such as publishing dates and authorship.

You can set up Scratchpads so that selected pages in your site show these feeds. You can also format them according to your needs. To implement the use of RSS feeds in your site you will need to edit:
 * The Feed aggregator module
 * Views and
 * Blocks

Entering RSS feed URLs

 * 1) From the administration menu bar (top of page) go to ''Configuration > Web Services > Feed aggregator
 * 2) You can organise your feeds in categories. To add a new category of Feeds (e.g. News) click on + Add category
 * 3) Fill in the title and description of the category and click Save
 * 4) Click on + Add feed
 * 5) Add the title of your feed and the URL of the feed location. For example the RSS feed location of BHL is http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/RecentRss/100
 * 6) Select the interval period the system will update the feed from the source site
 * 7) Select the number of items you wish to be displayed at once from the feed
 * 8) Select the category of your feed. If you haven't created any categories you will not see the Categorize News Items section here
 * 9) Click Save

You can repeat the above procedure as many times as your different RSS feeds are.

Checking if the feeds work

 * 1) Go to Feed aggregator overview page
 * 2) Review the RSS feeds you created
 * 3) Click on update items on each row
 * 4) Check whether the items column is greater than 0 items. If it is equal to 0 you probably have entered a wrong RSS feed URL

Creating a new View

 * 1) From the administration menu bar (top of page) go to Structure > Views
 * 2) Click + Add new View
 * 3) Fill a name for your new View. This can be related to the content of the RSS feeds you wish to include in this view (e.g. External news)
 * 4) To put a description tick the description box
 * 5) Select Aggregator Item from the drop-down list next to SHOW
 * 6) If you want your feeds to be visible as a separate page tick Create a page. If you wish RSS feeds to show as blocks in selected existing pages click Create a block. You can select both

Creating a View page

 * 1) Give a title to the page that will present your feeds
 * 2) You can leave the path as it is or change it to a more brief one
 * 3) In Display format select the way you would like the feed items to be formatted. Choose between HTML List, Slideshow, Table and Unformatted list
 * 4) Select the number of items you wish to be visible at once
 * 5) Select Use a pager if you with the feed items to be paginated
 * 6) Select Create a menu link for the page to be visible in a site's menu
 * 7) Select Include an RSS feed to create a RSS feed for others to use in their sites
 * 8) Click on Continue & edit

Creating a View Block

 * 1) Give a title to the block
 * 2) In Display format select the way you would like the feed items to be formatted. Choose between HTML List, Slideshow, Table and Unformatted list
 * 3) Select the number of items you wish to be visible at once
 * 4) Select Use a pager if you with the feed items to be paginated
 * 5) Click on Continue & edit
 * sliding_rss_feeds.png

Editing the new View
You can edit the view at any time by going to Structure > Views > Name of View and click on Edit on the right

Editing the View Page

 * 1) Under Displays Select the Page box
 * 2) Click on add in Fields section
 * 3) Tick the boxes: Aggregator:Title, Aggregator:Body, Aggregator:Author. You can also add any other fields you would like to be displayed for each feed item
 * 4) Click Apply (all displays))
 * 5) Expand the Advanced section on the right side
 * 6) Click add' in Contectual filters''
 * 7) Tick Aggregator: Category ID to select the feeds you wish to include based on the category they belong OR tick Aggregator: Feed ID to select individual feed(s) you wish to include
 * 8) Click Apply (all displays))
 * 9) In the next screen select Provide default value under When the filter value is not provided by the URL
 * 10) Select Fixed value under TYPE
 * 11) In the FIXED VALUE field provide the ID of the category (if you selected Aggregator:Category ID in step 7) or else the feed ID. You can select multiple categories or feeds separated by comma. (e.g. 2,3). To check the ID of a feed or a category go to Configuration > Feed aggregator, click on the title of the Category or feed and write down the number after /categories or /sources (e.g. thymus.myspecies.info/aggregator/sources/2) in the URL of the page.
 * 12) Expand the More section of the overlay page
 * 13) Tick Allow multiple values if you used multiple categories or fields in step 11
 * 14) Click Apply (all displays))
 * 15) To change the settings of the format of feeds click Settings in the Format section > Show
 * 16) When finished Click Save on the top right corner of the page
 * 17) You can view the new page by clicking on the menu item created

Editing the View Block

 * 1) Under Displays Select the Block box
 * 2) Click on add in Fields section
 * 3) Tick the boxes: Aggregator:Title, Aggregator:Body, Aggregator:Author. You can also add any other fields you would like to be displayed for each feed item
 * 4) Click Apply (all displays))
 * 5) Expand the Advanced section on the right side
 * 6) Click add' in Contectual filters''
 * 7) Tick Aggregator: Category ID to select the feeds you wish to include based on the category they belong OR tick Aggregator: Feed ID to select individual feed(s) you wish to include
 * 8) Click Apply (all displays))
 * 9) In the next screen select Provide default value under When the filter value is not provided by the URL
 * 10) Select Fixed value under TYPE
 * 11) In the FIXED VALUE field provide the ID of the category (if you selected Aggregator:Category ID in step 7) or else the feed ID. You can select multiple categories or feeds separated by comma. (e.g. 2,3). To check the ID of a feed or a category go to Configuration > Feed aggregator, click on the title of the Category or feed and write down the number after /categories or /sources (e.g. thymus.myspecies.info/aggregator/sources/2) in the URL of the page.
 * 12) Expand the More section of the overlay page
 * 13) Tick Allow multiple values if you used multiple categories or fields in step 11
 * 14) Click Apply (all displays))
 * 15) To change the settings of the format of feeds click Settings in the Format section > Show
 * 16) When finished Click Save on the top right corner of the page
 * 17) A new block has been created with the name you provided when creating the View Box. To view the block and change its properties from the administration menu bar click Structure > Blocks > Name of Block

Inserting a Block in a page
In order for your feeds to be visible from in selected existing Scratchpad pages you will have to enable this Block. To do so please follow the instructions in Enabling Blocks