My site is still under heavy construction, so I can't offer a link, but my situation is this: I've been reading quite a lot of podfic and I intend to add download links to the podfics. I would like to have the title of the latest podfic appear as a link to the proper download page along with a summary statement much in the way the "Most Recent" block works. If it isn't possible to do this automatically, would it be possible to create a text block such as the ones used for the "Welcome Message" and "Footer" so that I can manually update the information without editing each separate skin? The latter, I think, would also be helpful for my tentative intention of keeping an off-site recommendations list--it would be nice to be able to post my recommendation of choice in the header at will.
Suggestions? Has anyone done anything similar?
I've been toying with the idea of adding like an RSS feed block. One site I manage has an LJ comm (pre-existing to the fanfiction archive) where they post fandom news, and I think it would be cool to have that as a block on the eFiction site. Optimally if you're getting your podcasts from one site (or more, if it works in aggregate, I suppose) and they have an RSS feed, that could work, maybe.
For your recommendations list, have you considered using the recommendations module? It might not be exactly what you're looking for, but you can check it out at Tammy's site: http://hugosnebula.com/downloads/category-14.html I've got it in use here: http://classics.dracoandginny.com
Well, perhaps I should verify: I am not importing my podfics from an outside source. All podfic will be downloadable from my domain. I am making custom pages for them. RSS is unlikely to work for me. But, then, I have no idea what RSS even is, so maybe I'm mistaken.
What I want is to be able to format something a little like this:
{podfic_title} by {podfic_author} and read by {podfic_reader} {podfic_rating}
{podfic_summary}
Except I don't expect to be able to add podfic download links to the archive the way one adds fanfiction, so all I really require is a way to manually add the appropriate links without editing every skin template. If this were an ordinary site sans script, I would just use a PHP include, but I don't think that'll work. I suppose I could just usurp the {footer} for my purposes and add the standard footer/disclaimer to every template...
I'm glad you pointed out the recommendations module, though! I didn't know about that at all. I looked at your site and it looks much better than what I had tentatively planned...
Here's an example of a podcast RSS feed: http://wireless.dracoandginny.com/feed.php. Come to think of it, I might actually want to put that feed on the main page of the site, which is eFiction. eFic also comes with a feed, so you can check out rss.php if you want.
So maybe setting up some sort of blog and incorporating the rss feed might work?
I like what you did with your podcast archive there. Straightforward and well organized. 🙂
May I suggest taking a look at some [url= http://gog.is/rss parser php]RSS parsers[/url]? 🙂
That could work. Using a blog would save you the trouble of creating it yourself. You can do lots of fun things with RSS feeds. For example, back in the day (before my time), someone set up a Livejournal syndication thing for my site. It pulls the feed, and then people can friend it, so that the Most Recent is showing up on their friend lists. ( http://syndicated.livejournal.com/dandgdotcom/)
The Podcast Management Script (PMS, lol) was actually written by Jenny/elyaeru. It is pretty rad.
And thanks, Becca!
Maybe you could use a Delicious account for that - it would certainly save you the trouble of installing a blog for the sole purpose of importing its RSS. I include my last three fics saved to Delicious on my site: http://michelle.fancrone.net (on the right sidebar). I think the same should be possible with eFic.
