Using Media RSS Feeds

What is RSS? Short for Rich Site Summary, RSS is simply a text file describing an aggregated summary of a website's content. Feeds could contain news headlines with links to articles, or in the case of Media RSS could contain links to media such as images or video. This article will describe how you can incorporate the media from these 3rd party providers into your own Revel Digital playlists.

There are a number of Media RSS providers including Flickr, Picasa, and ScreenFeed. Each provider will have their own unique RSS feed URL which you will need. In the case of Flickr, for example, they have a feed for public content:

https://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne

If you open this URL in a browser you will see a bunch of text describing the feed content. We just need the link itself.

RSS in Playlists

Once you have the link to your feed, just add a new source to your playlist and select RSS. Paste your link in the Media RSS URL field.

That's it! Now save the Playlist and you're done. The media referenced in the RSS feed will automatically be placed in line with your other playlist content.

RSS in Templates

Another option for using RSS is by adding an RSS gadget to your template. A gadget is a special type of template zone designed for dynamic content. Revel Digital provides a few gadgets compatible with RSS feeds including the News, RSS Slideshow, and RSS Vertical Scroller gadgets. To use these you'll need to add a gadget zone to your template, then click 'Select Gadget' to browse the available gadgets.

With the gadget selected, enter your RSS feed URL in the appropriate configuration field.

Done - now you can click the preview button (Play icon in the toolbar) and adjust the other gadget preferences as you see fit.

If you get stuck just post a question in our Community section and we'll help you out.