Last updated on August 04, 2015

Widget: RSS Viewer

Introduction

This widget displays live information from public or custom RSS feeds in a playlist of feed items. All RSS components such as headlines, media, and body content can be displayed in various layouts with extensive formatting options.

This widget differs from the RSS Ticker widget in that it sequentially displays individual text content from the RSS feeds, one after another. This enables users to digest the information more thoroughly rather than in one continuous stream.

A RSS Viewer widget is commonly used for:

  • Displaying the latest news feeds and/or headlines from online media broadcasts including news sites
  • Providing the latest updates from users on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook
  • Sharing of new content from blogs and organizations with regularly maintained websites

This article provides the instructions to add and configure a RSS Viewer widget.

Adding a RSS Viewer Widget

To add a RSS Viewer widget to your Signs application, follow the instructions in the Adding Widgets section in the Managing Widgets article and select the RSS Viewer widget in the Widget Library.

Configuring a RSS Viewer Widget

To configure a RSS Viewer widget’s properties, please follow the instructions below:

  1. In your Signs application’s layout, click the RSS Viewer widget name under the Widgets section.

  2. In the Widget Properties window, configure the common tabs as per this article: Configuring Widget Properties.

  3. In the Widget Properties window, click the APPEARANCE tab.

  4. In the PROPERTIES section, you can alter the behavior of the text being displayed. To change the Display Layout, click on the [+] sign.

  5. In the Layout Display window, click and drag any of the elements from the Available Element column and drop it into the Display Element column in order to display it in the RSS Viewer, and vice-versa to hide it. You may also re-order any of the elements in the Display Element using the drag and drop method. Click OK to complete your layout selection.

    Note

    The Media element in the Layout Display refers to the embedded media within the RSS Feed (usually a logo or website icon), whereas the Date, Title, and Text elements are the textual component of an RSS feed item.

  6. In the FONT section, you can utilize the tabs for customizing the look of the TITLE, DATE, TEXT, and MEDIA using a variety of formatting options, including font type, size, alignment, and color.

    Title, Date, and Text Tab

    Property Name Description
    Font Provides the options to select the font from the dropdown list
    Size Assigns a selection of sizes for the designated text (from 8 to 120)
    Align Designates the positioning of the text in the layout (Left Align, Right Align or Center Align)
    Color Customizes the color of the text to be displayed
    Bold Toggles the text to be formatted in BOLD

    Media Tab

    For the MEDIA tab, the customization involves the physical attributes and behavior of media (usually photos) retrieved from the RSS feed:

    Property Name Description
    Media Stretch Provides the options to either to stretch and Fill the entire allocated space with the media, or to scale it in a Uniform manner, based on the Media Size setting
    Media Alignment Designates the positioning of the media in the layout (TopLeft, BottomRight and Center)
    Media Size Assigns a selection of sizes for the media to be displayed (from 10% to 100%)
    Media Duration Indicates the length of time allocated for the display of individual media item (when there are multiple media content associated with an RSS feed item).
    Media Border Refers to the thickness of the border around the media (numeric value, where 0 means no border)
    Media Border Color Denotes the color of the border around the media

Adding a RSS Feed

  1. In the Widget Properties window, click the CONTENT tab.

  2. Click the Add RSS button or link.

  3. In the RSS Feed window, select the Common Feeds option to add web feeds based on feed channels that are free, and select a feed.

  4. If you choose the Custom Feeds option, you can assign your own tailor-made web feed based on the URL you provide. If necessary, check the ‘Require authentication’ checkbox and fill in your credentials in the Username and Password text boxes. Select the Custom Feeds option and enter the web address into the URL box.

    Note

    With Appspace 5.5, authentication can be enabled for custom feeds if necessary, and SharePoint feeds are accepted in Custom Feeds.

  5. Set the Refresh Rate, Display Duration, and Max Items Per Feed for both Common Feeds and Custom Feeds,

Editing a RSS Feed

  1. In the Widget Properties window, click the CONTENT tab.

  2. Click the date link of the designated RSS feed under the Updated column.

  3. In the RSS Feed window, make the changes to the Refresh Rate, Display Duration and/or Max Items Per Feed options. Click Apply to confirm the changes made.

Removing a RSS Feed

  1. In the Widget Properties window, click the CONTENT tab.

  2. Click the Remove link in line with the RSS feed to be deleted.

  3. Click OK in the Confirmation dialog box. The entry will no longer be displayed in the list of RSS feeds.