Configuring content syndication

Actor: Site Manager

Syndication is the process by which a site is able to share information with other sites. The AP news service, for example, allows newspapers and other media to recieve news stories which they can publish with their own presentation without actually generating the content in-house.

Content syndication in the CMF allows you to make content available to other sites. The Syndication Tool allows site managers to control sitewide syndication of content.

Syndicated content is made available in RSS format for folders where syndication has been enabled. The DTML Method objects that control the RSS formatting for RSS feeds are located in the "generic" skin:

• RSS.dtml
• itemRSS.dtml
• rssBody.dtml
• rssDisabled

Advanced users with a knowledge of the RSS format may edit these DTML Methods to customize the RSS output.

Before content can be syndicated from a site, the site manager must enable syndication using the Syndication Tool. To access this tool, visit the Zope management interface of the CMF Site object that represents your site. From the Contents view of the site object, click on the portal_syndication tool to navigate to the Syndication Tool.

Now you should be looking at the Overview tab of the Syndication Tool. This page provides a basic description of the tool. To view the current syndication policy for the site, click the Properties tab.

If you have never visited the Syndication Tool before, syndication is disabled for the site and you will see a single button Enable syndication. To enable syndication, click the Enable syndication button.

Once you have enabled syndication, the Properties form will display the sitewide syndication properties:

• Update Period -- Describes the period over which the channel feed is updated. Acceptable values are: hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. If omitted, daily is assumed.
• Update Frequency -- Used to describe the frequency of updates in relation to the update period. A positive integer indicates how many times in that period the channel is updated. For example, an updatePeriod of daily, and an updateFrequency of 2 indicates the channel format is updated twice daily. If omitted a value of 1 is assumed.
• Update Base -- Defines a base date to be used in concert with updatePeriod and updateFrequency to calculate the publishing schedule. By default the sitewide date is the DateTime of the tool initialization. The date format should be of the form: yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm.
• Max Items -- Defines the max number of items which are included in the syndication feed. The RSS specification recommends this not exceed 15, which is the default.

Click Save to save your changes to the sitewide syndication policy. If you later decide you want to disable content syndication, you can visit the Properties tab of the Syndication Tool and click the "Disable syndication" button.

Once syndication has been enabled in the Syndication Tool, CMF folders will be syndicateable. A new Syndication action will become available in the actions box of folders. You can click on the Syndication link in the actions box of a folder to enable syndication for that Folder.

For example, let's say you have a /news folder on your site containing various News Items. After sitewide syndication has been enabled, you can enable syndication for the /news folder using the Syndication link in the action box. After that, you can visit the url to your news folder and append RSS to obtain the RSS feed: http://www.example.com/news/RSS.