Forums » Mac OS X Server and Services

• Eric Givens

  

  • 4 posts
   

  August 24, 2010 11:47:58 PM PDT

  We would like to have our Podcast Producer Library feeds show up directly in Blackboard (ver. 9). I have searched for a BB building block to pull in external RSS feeds with no luck; have tried the Feed2JS trick that many people use for pulling in external feeds into BB, but the XML in the PcP feeds is just quirky enough that it doesn't quite do the job: One can see the titles and descriptions of the feed, but links do not work, and the audio/video link is not there at all.
  
  Is anyone else attempting something similar with any luck?
  
  Eric Givens
  Gordon College - Wenham, MA

• Chris Brewer

  

  • 32 posts
   

  August 27, 2010 8:59:21 PM PDT

  Hi Eric,
  
  I don't have any BB experience, but I do a lot of XML/RSS parsing and regenerating of RSS feeds from Apple's Wiki/Blog server. Have you looked at Yahoo Pipes (http://pipes.yahoo.com)? I'd be willing to collaborate to the extent I'm able.
• Eric Givens

  

  • 4 posts
   

  August 30, 2010 1:07:19 AM PDT

  Actually found a bit of a workaround: Instead of using the raw PcP atom feed, I have my workflow publish to a blog. I then use a snippet of javascript generated by RSSinclude.com to embed the blog feed in the Blackboard page. The blog feed XML seems to play much nicer with services like Feed2JS, RSSInclude (and Yahoo Pipes, one would assume).
  
  Thanks for the offer. I'll check out Pipes as well, see what it offers.
• Richard Wolf

  

  • 3 posts
   

  August 30, 2010 6:41:53 AM PDT

  ric, I think Atom is the heart of the problem. PcP2 publishes Atom feeds which are different enough from what most RSS aggregators expect so-as-to goof them up. I like your solution…it sounds as if your fix degronifies Atom enough to get Blackboard to accept it as straight-up RSS. :)
• Eric Givens

  

  • 4 posts
   

  September 2, 2010 5:39:25 AM PDT

  @richwolf - Yes, you are right: the Atom feeds are part of the problem. I tried using the RSS version of the PcP feeds as well, thinking the Feed2JS-type parsers would have better luck, but still did not find a workable solution.
  
  However, @chris, Yahoo Pipes worked beautifully! Using a mind-numbingly simple 'Fetch Feed' action it did exactly what I needed to do, and it displays beautifully embedded in the Blackboard page, whereas the other solutions like RSSinclude had all kinds of browser inconsistencies. Thanks for the suggestion.
• Chris Brewer

  

  • 32 posts
   

  September 2, 2010 9:29:18 PM PDT

  @Eric, no problem. I've found Pipes to be one of the most underrated integration technologies out there. When you get a chance, check out their Yahoo Query Language (YQL), which lets you query the XML nodes of an RSS feed as if it were a database, extracting information from it, and reforming it as another output. Truly amazing. Also, you can use Pipes to scrape content off a page or pages and put that data into an XML/RSS feed. Anyway, glad it worked for you!
  
  If you get a chance, could you share a write-up with the community on your integration of PcP feeds into BB9?