Dynamic content collections (e.g. news) can be shared on or outside your site.
Last reviewed: March 25, 2024
Browsers handle RSS feeds differently and those without a built-in RSS reader will display your feed as raw XML code or even throw up an error (e.g. Firefox and IE have RSS readers, but Chrome does not).
Using RSS, UBCMS content, especially news or announcements, can be embedded onto another website or pushed to subscribers. The technology is dated, but has regained some popularity (read more about RSS). For the UBCMS, setting up an RSS feed requires additional steps in the 'backend' (in CRXDE).
While any UBCMS page with a list can be set as an RSS feed, we recommend building a page for each feed in a clearly labeled /rss folder in your site. This will help with stewardship, and reduce the risk of that page being accidentally modified or deleted.
In the examples, the News Center feeds have been shortened from
/content/www/news/rss/________/jcr:content/par/list.txt.rss
to /content/www/news/rss/________.rss
To pull an external RSS feed into your UBCMS page, you will need to create a Shared Content page, and then place that page onto your website using a Shared Content Reference.
Be careful to use the right folder name. /content/shared/..../feeds is required for this to work automatically.
Learn more about using shared content.
Use a Shared Content Reference to pull the feed through your new Shared Content page onto your UBCMS Web page.
> Read more about using the Shared Content Reference.
Please Note: This solution does not allow any control over the feed, such as the number of entries displayed.
Use a List Builder Component to gain more control , including the number of items revealed from the feed.
Using a List Builder, you can control how many items from the feed you wish to display.
> Read more about the List Builder Component.
An example -- below are the first entries from the Music Library's news feed (http://libweb.lib.buffalo.edu/blog/music/?feed=rss2) displayed using a List Builder component.
While your feed may be set to refresh frequently (default is 300 seconds), the page(s) it is displayed on may not update as regularly due to server caching. To ensure it stays current, set a Flush Trigger.
That would go in the Properties of any page displaying the feed. In the Advanced tab, under Server Caching, and Add a Flush Trigger referencing your /feed page (read more about Flush Triggers).
From 5 a.m. - 9 p.m. daily limits are set to reduce server load. Feed imports are limited to 50 items for each import. If an import exceeds that number of records, the import will not occur until after the 9 p.m.
Best Practice:
The UBCMS only makes a simple comparison during the import to see if a record already exists. It does not check each field in the entry, so changes to the headline, date, time, description, etc. will be ignored and the existing record in the UBCMS will be displayed.
Best Practice: