Feed Display Module (Joomla 2.5)

A news feed (also called a web feed or a syndicated feed) is a way to provide users with automatically updated data from other resources. Many data providers syndicate their news which allows users to subscribe and feature their content. Your Joomla 2.5 site has an aggregator, or an RSS (Really Simply Syndication) engine that will read and display a news feed in a module that can be placed in a variety of positions depending on the current default template for a site. This tutorial explains how to create a Feed Display Module in Joomla 2.5.

Identifying a RSS News Feed

How to Create a Feed Display Module

Identifying a RSS News Feed

RSS feeds are associated with an image similar to the following:

The first step is to find the news feed URL that you'd like to display. Although the icon may or may not appear where you find the feed, the letters "rss" can usually be found in the URL itself. Once you find the URL for the feed that you'd like to display, log in to the back end of your site.

Back to Top

Creating a Feed Display Module

Before creating the module, visit the module map for your site, and determine the position where you'd like to feature the RSS feed. For the purposes of this tutorial, we will create a Feed Display Module that features a CNN.com RSS feed and we will feature it in the feature-a position in the Cloudbase 2.0 template. To get started in the back end of your Joomla site, go to the Module Manager.

Select the "New" button in the toolbar to create a new module.

And when you're prompted to select a module type, select "Feed Display" from the list that appears.

After selecting the module yype, create a title for the module, select the module position, and in the "Basic Options" area, paste in the RSS feed URL that you'd like to display. There are some other options in the "Basic Option"s area that can be useful; be sure to explore this core Joomla function. Also be sure to save your work.

Return to the front end and refresh the site. Your RSS feed will be displayed in the module position that you chose.

Back to Top