How do I create a sidebar item for a remote feed?
You can use any (public) RSS or Atom feed to generate dynamic content for your sidebar from a number of sources.
- Go to your Sidebar admin page by clicking the "Admin" link at the top right of your blog (whilst signed in) and then clicking on the Sidebar link to see a list of items on your sidebar.
- Click "Custom..." from the "Add a sidebar item to your blog" box
- Select "Syndication of a remote RSS or Atom feed" from the window that pops up
- In the title field, enter the title for the sidebar item, for example "My flickr photos". You can leave this blank if you want.
- Find the remote feed that you wish to syndicate, in this case of some Flickr photos.
- Copy the url and paste it into the "remote feed URL" field
- Select the number of items you wish to show. This is the number of items you wish to show at once on your blog. By using the "More" links (if turned on), a user can get as many more again (and again, until the whole feed has been read).
- Select the style of display for your feed.
Titles only - This is a link-style, which only shows the title of each item in the feed with a link to the URL provided in the feed
Titles and descriptions - This shows the title of each item and a short description underneath it (the length of the description is based on what the feed provides)
Images - Any images that are available in the feed (using the Yahoo MediaRSS standard that Flickr and other sites use) will be displayed in a photo-box style.
Podcast - Any MP3s available in the feed (in <enclosure> tags) are displayed with an inline player - Select whether you want a "More..." link or information about your feed by using the checkboxes at the bottom of the form. If you select to show feed details, any images and a link to the feed location at the top of the sidebar item, and if you select to show a "More..." link then it will allow users to browse more items in your sidebar if there are more available in the feed
- Click submit and your sidebar item is created
