How to Find out What's New?

There are three ways to find out what's new in each TWiki web:

1. WebChanges shows recent changes
2. People subscribed in WebNotify get notified of recent changes by e-mail
3. A news feed can be exported in RSS 1.0 format for TWiki:Codev/TWikiSyndication. RSS news readers like TWiki:Plugins/HeadlinesPlugin can display the recent changes

RSS Feed Usage

• The URL for an RSS feed is http://wiki.gnhlug.org/bin/view/<web>/WebRss?skin=rss
• For this TWiki web it is http://wiki.gnhlug.org/bin/view/TWiki/WebRss?skin=rss (or http://wiki.gnhlug.org/bin/view/Main/WebRss?skin=rss&contenttype=text/plain for plain text RSS)
• You can also create a custom feed based on a search. Add a search=value parameter to the URL, e.g. http://wiki.gnhlug.org/bin/view/TWiki/WebRss?skin=rss&search=plugin= is a what's new feed about Plugins.

RSS Feed Internals

Each web has a WebRss topic which includes part of this WebRssBase topic. This topic is the base for the RSS feed and generates an RSS 1.0 feed for TWiki:Codev/TWikiSyndication.

The WebRss topic in each web contains the following text:

<channel rdf:about="%SCRIPTURL%/view%SCRIPTSUFFIX%/%INCLUDINGWEB%">
  <title>%WIKITOOLNAME%'s %INCLUDINGWEB% web</title>
  <link>%SCRIPTURL%/view%SCRIPTSUFFIX%/%INCLUDINGWEB%</link>
  <description>(the description of the web). TWiki is a Web-Based Collaboration Platform for the Corporate World.</description>
%INCLUDE{"%TWIKIWEB%.WebRssBase"}%

Below part is included by each WebRss topic:

%STARTINCLUDE%  <image rdf:resource="%PUBURL%/%TWIKIWEB%/TWikiLogos/twikilogo88x31.gif" />
  <dc:language>en-us</dc:language>
  <dc:rights>Copyright %GMTIME{"$year"}%, Peter Thoeny and contributing authors.</dc:rights>
  <dc:publisher>Peter Thoeny [Peter@Thoeny.com]</dc:publisher>
  <dc:creator>Peter Thoeny [Peter@Thoeny.com]</dc:creator>
  <dc:source>TWiki</dc:source>
  <wiki:interwiki>
    <rdf:Description link="%SCRIPTURL%/view%SCRIPTSUFFIX%/%INCLUDINGWEB%/">
      <rdf:value>TWiki.%INCLUDINGWEB%</rdf:value>
    </rdf:Description>
  </wiki:interwiki>
  <items>
    <rdf:Seq>
%SEARCH{"%URLPARAM{"search" default=".*" }%" web="%INCLUDINGWEB%" regex="on" nosearch="on" order="modified" reverse="on" nototal="on" limit="16" format="      <rdf:li rdf:resource=\"%SCRIPTURL%/view%SCRIPTSUFFIX%/$web/$topic\" />"}%
    </rdf:Seq>
  </items>
</channel>
<image rdf:about="%PUBURL%/%TWIKIWEB%/TWikiLogos/twikilogo88x31.gif">
  <title>TWiki.%INCLUDINGWEB%</title>
  <link>%SCRIPTURL%/view%SCRIPTSUFFIX%/%INCLUDINGWEB%</link>
  <url>%PUBURL%/%TWIKIWEB%/TWikiLogos/twikilogo88x31.gif</url>
</image>
%SEARCH{"%URLPARAM{"search" default=".*" }%" web="%INCLUDINGWEB%" regex="on" nosearch="on" order="modified" reverse="on" nototal="on" limit="16" format="<item rdf:about=\"%SCRIPTURL%/view%SCRIPTSUFFIX%/$web/$topic\">$n  <title>$topic</title>$n  <link>%SCRIPTURL%/view%SCRIPTSUFFIX%/$web/$topic</link>$n  <description>$summary</description>$n  <dc:date>$isodate</dc:date>$n  <dc:contributor>$n    <rdf:Description link=\"%SCRIPTURL%/view%SCRIPTSUFFIX%?topic=$wikiusername\">$n      <rdf:value>$username</rdf:value>$n    </rdf:Description>$n  </dc:contributor>$n  <wiki:version>$rev</wiki:version>$n  <wiki:status>updated</wiki:status>$n  <wiki:importance>major</wiki:importance>$n  <wiki:diff>%SCRIPTURL%/rdiff%SCRIPTSUFFIX%/$web/$topic</wiki:diff>$n  <wiki:history>%SCRIPTURL%/rdiff%SCRIPTSUFFIX%/$web/$topic</wiki:history>$n</item>"}%
%STOPINCLUDE%

See also: TWiki:Codev/RichSiteSummary, TWiki:Codev/TWikiSyndication

-- PeterThoeny - 02 Sep 2003