April 22, 2011

Two basic RSS Readers for Google Sites

I've looked high and low for a good, never mind best RSS reader, for Google Sites...I'm posting this here to remind myself and also for anyone else who might find this useful.

The basic "Featured" RSS reader in Google Sites is pretty good.  So when you're in Google Sites, click 
  • Insert -> More gadgets -> Featured -> RSS Feed (should be from www.gmodules.com).
BUT this RSS reader needs to be tweaked to work well.  Once it's inserted:
  1. uncheck "Include a scrollbar on gadget when necessary"
  2. uncheck "Include a border around gadget"
  3. set the height to something like 275 or 300 so that it's tall enough to accommodate the number of posts you've selected 
What I like about this reader is that it creates expandable feeds so that you can read the entire post right in the website.
 
Alternatively, a easy way to do this is to copy and paste the following code and then edit the feed by clicking on the gadget's Properties button.  In the code below, the url of the feed is bold (and it's a feed based on label-specific Blogger feed (see previous post).

Here's the code for the basic Google RSS reader:


<img src="https://www.google.com/chart?chc=sites&amp;cht=d&amp;chdp=sites&amp;chl=%5B%5BGoogle+Gadget'%3D16'f%5Cbf%5Chv'a%5C%3D248'0'%3D247'0'dim'%5Cbox1'b%5CDBD9BB'fC%5CDBD9BB'eC%5C15'sk'%5C%5B%22RSS+Feed%22'%5Dh'a%5CV%5C%3D12'f%5Cbf%5C%5DV%5Cta%5C%3D249'%3D0'%3D248'%3D272'dim'%5C%3D249'%3D0'%3D248'%3D272'vdim'%5Cbox1'b%5Cva%5CFFFEF0'fC%5CDBD9BB'eC%5Csites_gadget'i%5Chv-0-0'a%5C%5Do%5CLauto'f%5C&amp;sig=8q12NsO0qyvxExYEGo5phbSc6FI" igsrc="http://80.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?mid=80&amp;synd=trogedit&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gmodules.com%2Fig%2Fmodules%2Frss%2Frss.xml&amp;up_items_to_show=3&amp;up_rss_feed_url=http%3A%2F%2Fmaggiescommunitygarden.blogspot.com%2Ffeeds%2Fposts%2Fdefault%2F-%2FGarden%2520Event&amp;h=275&amp;w=100%25" type="ggs-gadget" props="align:left;borderTitle:Upcoming Garden Events / Meetings;height:275;igsrc:http#58//80.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?mid=80&amp;synd=trogedit&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gmodules.com%2Fig%2Fmodules%2Frss%2Frss.xml&amp;up_items_to_show=3&amp;up_rss_feed_url=http%3A%2F%2Fmaggiescommunitygarden.blogspot.com%2Ffeeds%2Fposts%2Fdefault%2F-%2FGarden%2520Event&amp;h=275&amp;w=100%25;mid:80;scrolling:no;showBorder:false;showBorderTitle:true;spec:http#58//www.gmodules.com/ig/modules/rss/rss.xml;up_items_to_show:3;up_rss_feed_url:http#58//maggiescommunitygarden.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/-/Garden%20Event;view:default;width:100%;" width="500" height="275" style="display:block;text-align:left;margin-right:auto;" class="igm">
<div>
 
If you want to see what it looks like, please visit: www.maggiescommunitygarden.com



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A second favorite RSS reader of mine is from Xblogs...but I can't seem to find the gadget through the Insert gadget command anymore, so here's the code.  Again, easier than editing the html is just to copy and paste the html in the html editor and then switch back to visual editing and edit the feed using the Properties button:

What I like about this reader is that it shows snippets and is a pretty solid, reliable reader.

<img src="https://www.google.com/chart?chc=sites&amp;cht=d&amp;chdp=sites&amp;chl=%5B%5BGoogle+Gadget'%3D16'f%5Cbf%5Chv'a%5C%3D248'0'%3D247'0'dim'%5Cbox1'b%5CDBD9BB'fC%5CDBD9BB'eC%5C15'sk'%5C%5B%22theXblogs%22'%5Dh'a%5CV%5C%3D12'f%5Cbf%5C%5DV%5Cta%5C%3D249'%3D0'%3D248'%3D497'dim'%5C%3D249'%3D0'%3D248'%3D497'vdim'%5Cbox1'b%5Cva%5CFFFEF0'fC%5CDBD9BB'eC%5Csites_gadget'i%5Chv-0-0'a%5C%5Do%5CLauto'f%5C&amp;sig=I173LI_-d0BM61oxMzQn_-uF2Js" igsrc="http://235.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?mid=235&amp;synd=trogedit&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fhosting.gmodules.com%2Fig%2Fgadgets%2Ffile%2F101638777846294812126%2F4.xml&amp;up_url=http%3A%2F%2Fmaggiescommunitygarden.blogspot.com%2Ffeeds%2Fposts%2Fdefault&amp;up_style=1&amp;up_articles=4&amp;up_date=1&amp;up_size=250&amp;up_sort=false&amp;up_acolor=%230000CC&amp;up_color=%23333333&amp;up_ads=true&amp;up_title=&amp;h=500&amp;w=100%25" type="ggs-gadget" props="align:left;borderTitle:Our Recent Posts;height:500;igsrc:http#58//235.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?mid=235&amp;synd=trogedit&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fhosting.gmodules.com%2Fig%2Fgadgets%2Ffile%2F101638777846294812126%2F4.xml&amp;up_url=http%3A%2F%2Fmaggiescommunitygarden.blogspot.com%2Ffeeds%2Fposts%2Fdefault&amp;up_style=1&amp;up_articles=4&amp;up_date=1&amp;up_size=250&amp;up_sort=false&amp;up_acolor=%230000CC&amp;up_color=%23333333&amp;up_ads=true&amp;up_title=&amp;h=500&amp;w=100%25;mid:235;scrolling:auto;showBorder:false;showBorderTitle:true;spec:http#58//hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/101638777846294812126/4.xml;up_acolor:#350000CC;up_ads:true;up_articles:4;up_color:#35333333;up_date:1;up_size:250;up_sort:false;up_style:1;up_title:;up_url:http#58//maggiescommunitygarden.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default;width:100%;" width="500" height="500" style="display:block;text-align:left;margin-right:auto;" class="igm">

Click here to view what it would look like.

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