Alex Harries's diary

At last, I think the RSS system can be finally put to bed for at least the next couple of months - the last few days have been spent finishing off the extensions to the RSS system. UPSU.net now boasts one of the most comprehensive syndication systems anywhere (ironic timing of course - Summer is the Union's quietest period, so there's not likely to be much happening over the next two months...!).

The site can now offer several different flavours of RSS feeds for news, forums, comments, and events. The last bit of work - the forums extensions - were one of the hardest to do as I had to figure out a way of allowing for the nested forum system (where you can have a forum inside a forum inside a forum inside a forum inside.... ad nauseam) which I'm hoping to get round to doing well in advance of the start of the new academic year.

Look out for the RSS symbol in the forums if you want to keep an eye on what's happening:

RSS link in forums section view


RSS link in category view


RSS links at the top of a thread


... and expanded to show all feeds:


RSS links at the bottom of discussion threads


Anyhoo, instead of having to burden yourself with visiting UPSU.net to stay up to date with the latest <whatever>, you can use a news reader - e.g. Google Reader - to stay up to date. Take a look at our "about RSS" page to see a list of the most useful feeds on the site.

A typical worry of mine; after all this work, I do hope I'm not the only person using this system...! /al