Adding XML to RSS.PHP

I've had a look at the site yesterday and really like what I see so far (there could still be improvements, of course, but the idea is great).

Unfortunately I never bothered to play with my RSS, so I don't even know where to start. But let's hope someone can get this to work!

It would not be too hard to get it working to some degree.  I do agree with Tammy that it should be a mod since some site owners would not want it added.

As I see it the best option would be to create a new file, not having it included in the current rss.php.  That way you will still have the basic RSS feed to uses, as well as the option for this feed.

What I'm most concerned about is whether there's a way to take the variables that eFic uses for RSS (even if they're in a separate RSS/XML file) and "translate" them into the ones that FF uses. That way, we could probably save time in filling in the FF fields, though that might be contingent on whether a) someone is already an FF member and b) is already logged in.

Well, the RSS feeds looks a bit independent of manual submissions so an account would not be totally necessary...at least that is how I am reading it.  The down side would be that everything that gets submitted to your archive will be added...not sure if that is the best way to ensure quality submissions.

Variable wise it should not be that hard.  It is just assigning the different variables to where you need them.  When eFic does not have a matching one you build in some logic to fill in the gap.

Ah, I think I was confused between the button and the RSS. So an account wouldn't be necessary for the RSS feed to work, save for my own account at both FF and on the eFic archive; other eFic members on my archive (that is, users of my archive) would probably not need to. I already pre-screen things before they get posted at my archive, and I just wanted to give them the chance to have more time in the limelight, which is why I wanted them "auto-added" to a feed that submits to FF.

I have code floating around for a per-author RSS feed, this could easily be adapted to allow each author to submit there own stories.  The main RSS feed also would adapt well to this use.

Let me see how busy I am tonight...I will try to throw something together.

On a side note, thanks for posting about this site...I was looking for a tool just like this for a while.  I had tried Zoints Synergy but it had no fanfiction integration and the support is just not there.  Giving this one a try on my site 🙂

If you did throw something together and it worked for both sites, that would be great! Thanks for your help and input in this matter.

I'm currently working with the developer of fanworksfinder.com on an efiction module that will automatically list all stories posted to an efiction archive on fanworksfinder, update the listing when the story status changes and remove the listing if the story is deleted. We are still working out the details of how the interface will work at the moment and doing proof of concept tests but things are looking good.

That sounds very promising.  Will it be RSS based or some other type of connection?

I can still put together the feed until such a link was available if people are interested.  It's easy enough to do, just reformatting outputs.

It won't be RSS - the efiction archive will push data into fanworks finder rather than the other way around.  SOAP is currently looking like the best solution.

The most challenging part of the problem is to determine how to manually populate the following fanworks fields in a generic manner for all efiction archives:

Category: Is it ART/FIC and MEDIA/REAL PERSON based. Some efiction archives may mix these in different ways.
Fandom: Is everything on the site the same fandom? Are different categories different fandoms? Do some categories contain fandom names but not others?
Genres: Does the archive owner use the genre field for the same purpose as fanworks or does it have some fandom-specific genres?
Type: fanworks has specific fields for gen/slash/femslash and combinations of those that frankly won't work well with any archive.
Rating: fanworks only has Adult and Not Adult - efiction is flexible

This is going to be as a big a problem for an augmented RSS feed as it is for the module.

Good points.  I had seen some of the fields doing the javascript submission method, and populated them by hand.  I had not taken into account how it would work on a larger scale (RSS, SOAP).

It may be better off to leave it somewhat open ended and let the admin of the archive fill in the blanks (via config file or something like that).  For example, my archive does not even use the fandom field.  Depending on the setup the config will vary from site to site, at times greatly.

You could always setup custom classifications as a requirement to use the submission system.  Then make them required to be filled out by the author.  It puts some of the extra work on them, but it is probably the simplest method to work out the differences.

Yeah, I hadn't realized how difficult it would be to customize everything, since once one sets up their eFic archive, everything usually stays the same (that is, genres, warnings, categories, and other classifications, unless more are added later). I'm thinking the best way to accomplish a "translation" would be a setup where the FF module looks at what eFic has setup for classifications, and then has the archive admin say how they match up to FF's variables. For example, some archives may use the FictionRatings.com ratings; others may use their own, or the MPAA's. If the module sees whatever ratings are in place in eFic, then the admin running the module can check which ratings apply to "not adult" and which ones apply to "adult." It's some of the other things (as mentioned, the het/slash/gen/etc.) that have me concerned, since that opens up the likelihood for confusion a lot more. In my case, my archive ONLY offers het or gen, though I suppose if people had secondary pairings (the main pairing is specific for this archive; it's for a particular fandom & pairing) containing slash or femmeslash, that might alter the options. The only way I can see THAT cleanly working is if the FF module looks at the characters set in eFic and sees their "gender"-- but we don't have anything in eFic that currently does that. It might be an interesting additional module to consider, but it would make this whole process a LOT more complicated.

Still, there's no rush (in my case, anyway).