[TYPO3] TIMTAB Questions - Trackback, RSS, & Webservices API

[Oliver Rowlands]

Hi JL,

Please see my comments bellow:

J.L. Reid wrote:
> I have a test blog set up and everything seems to working fine.  To finish my 
> setup, though, I'd like to test some of TIMTAB's "advanced" features.
> 
> Trackbacks...
> The manual talks about TBs, but only from the perspective of pinging other 
> blogs.  Searching in this mailing list's archives, I think I saw references 
> to TBs to your blog, and I believe they show up as comments on your blog.  
> However, I don't see any reference to a TB url or permalink url created by 
> the blog..  I tried creating a post within my test blog that links to a 
> previous post...  But that previous post, when I look at it's single page 
> view doesn't have a trackback comment in it.  So I must be missing something.
> 
> How do I get this aspect of TB working on my blog?

You can insert a TB link by using the following marker in the single 
view of your tt_news template:

###BLOG_TRACKBACK_LINK###

The auto-discovery TB RDF link can be inserted by using the marker:

###BLOG_TRACKBACK_RDF###

You will also need to enable the 'Blog Webservices' static include in 
your root template. See my comments about the MetawebLog API bellow to 
find out how.

My experience with the TB is that they are still rather buggy and not 
ready for production though I'm sure others will disagree.

> 
> 
> RSS
> In my template record I've applied the static template for RSS for news items, 
> but I'm at a loss beyond this point.  I figured that this might create an rss 
> feed url for autodiscovery in my html code, but I don't see anything there.
> 
> What else do I have to do to create and display a working rss fee using 
> TIMTAB?

This all depends on how your TS has been setup. As far as I am aware 
timtab does not create auto-discovery RSS feed links automatically. You 
can on the other hand insert them manually into your page headers by 
using the following TS in your root template 'Setup' field:

page {
   headerData {
     ### RSS feed ###
     5 = TEXT
     5.value (
     <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="[FEED 
NAME]" href="http://[DOMAIN NAME]/index.php?type=100" />
     )
   }
}

The 'type=100' should corresponds to the page type number you have 
defined in your TS for the RSS2 feed format. If you used the default 
tt_news TS setup your should have something like this in your root 
template TS setup:

### RSS news feed ###
rss2feed = PAGE
rss2feed {
    typeNum = 100
    10 >
    10 < plugin.tt_news
    10.catTextMode = 1
    10.defaultCode = XML
    config {
      disableAllHeaderCode = 1
      additionalHeaders = Content-type:text/xml
      no_cache = 1
      xhtml_cleaning = 0
    }
}

If you do not, add it.

You should now be able to view your RSS feed at the following URI:

http://www.domain.com/index.php?type=100

Ideally you also have RealURL installed you can match the filename 
'rss.xml' to the page type 100:

$TYPO3_CONF_VARS['EXTCONF']['realurl']['_DEFAULT'] = array(

[...]

'fileName' => array(
     'index' => array(
       'rss.xml' => array('keyValues' => array('type' => 100)),
     ),

[...]

);

Then you should be able to view your feed by using the URI:

http://www.domain.com/rss.xml

> 
> Metaweblog API
> The manual briefly discusses using an external app to post to TIMTAB, but it 
> doesn't explain how to configure this service.  Does anyone have this 
> working?  If so, could you explain how to set this up?

Indeed the documentation for the XML-RPC API integration is 
none-existent. I've managed to get timtab working with Windows Live 
Writer and the MetaWeblog API but it did require modifying timtab's 
source code. The MetaWeblog API spec is so vague that it has been 
interpreted in many different ways by many different vendors. Of course 
timtab is not to blame, the Microsoft developers simply did not 
implement the spec correctly ;)

Anyway in order to get the Metaweblog API enabled you will have to do 
the following:

- Enable the the 'Blog Webservices (timtab)' static include in your root 
template: 'List' mode > Click the page title of the page containing your 
root template > Edit the template > Select 'Blog Webservices (timtab)' 
in the 'Include static (from extensions)' field' > Save and close.

- Add the following TS to your root templates TS constants:

plugin {
   tx_timtab {
     homepage = http://[DOMAIN]/path/to/blog/
     title = [BLOG TITLE]
     blogPid = [BLOG HOMEPAGE ID]
     homePid = [SITE HOMEPAGE ID]
     clearPageCacheOnUpdate = 1,31,169 # Insert a comma separated list 
of page IDs which contain the tt_news / timtab plugins (LIST, SINGLE, etc)
   }
   tx_timtab_pi2 {
     enableBlogger = 1
     enableMetaWeblog = 1
     pidStorePosts = [SYSFOLDER PAGE ID WHERE THE POSTS ARE STORED]
     enableUploads = 1
   }
}

You should now be able to access your Metaweblog XML-RPC interface at 
the following URI (this is the URI you should use in your desktop 
publishing application):

http://www.domain.com/index.php?type=200

As with the RSS feed you can remap this page type in RealURL to a unique 
filename for example:

$TYPO3_CONF_VARS['EXTCONF']['realurl']['_DEFAULT'] = array(

[...]

'fileName' => array(
     'index' => array(
       'rpc.xml' => array('keyValues' => array('type' => 20)),
     ),

[...]

);

And you should then be able access it using the far more elegant:

http://www.domain.com/rpc.xml

I hope this helps,

Oliver

> 
> Sorry for the long, multi-question, but I'd really love to finish my blog 
> setup and get everything working perfectly.
> 
> Thanks for any help/advice.
> 
> 
> 
> -JL


-- 
Oliver Rowlands
:: Liquid Light ::

E - oliver at liquidlight.co.uk
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