RSS is BROKEN!

MLMCC · Post by **MLMCC** » August 7th, 2006, 6:58 am

I hope that is a sufficently inflamitory statement to attract the attention of those in the know.

I posted here on 7/12 stating that I was unable to get the RSS feature to work properly. Since then I have experimented with several versions of the app on two different machines. I have tried who knows how many command line options. It just doesn't work.

In all cases, when the app is started up, the first headline (my only interest) in a long string of headlines know to exist, is displayed. That's the end of the road. It never rolls to the next headline no matter what you change; command line, version, whatever.

Other than the RSS feature, I can get the app to work perfectly.

I'd REALLY like for someone to prove me wrong, where "proving me wrong" means showing me how to get this feature to work, or fixing the bug, not simply flaming me.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Mike

Post by **caesar** » August 7th, 2006, 8:12 am

Hi!
What command are you using in Smartie? If you post it we may be able to help you out.

RSS works good for me...

This is what I use to get the first headline:
t stands for title and 1 to show just the first one.
$Rss(http://site/rss.xml,t,1)

If you want then to show the news contents of the first title then you would use this:
$Rss(http://site/rss.xml,d,1)

Or show both:
$Rss(http://site/rss.xml,b,1)

MLMCC · Post by **MLMCC** » August 7th, 2006, 4:39 pm

Thanks for your reply.

I used $Rss(http://site/rss.xml,t) (among many others...), thus implying "show all" by default. I can't insern a number there, in that the number changes, depending on what the content provider has posted at any given time.

I *DID* get a header to display, no problem, every time. But only one, it never "rolled" to the next heading.

To clarify, my objective is to display all headings in the current BBC International RSS feed, showing each one for a few seconds. Starting at #1, continuing to #n, and then rolling back to #1, forever.

Thanks again,

Mike

Post by **IFR** » August 7th, 2006, 7:30 pm

Could you give us the exact rss URLs that you want to display and the version of LCDSmartie you are using?

MLMCC · Post by **MLMCC** » August 7th, 2006, 8:21 pm

the URL that I access using an app called "LCD Hype" is

http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline ... ge/rss.xml

My target environment is an ancient low resource box running WIN98SE, doing little else but driving an LCD via the parallel port.

BTW, LCD Hype is a *truly* sorry app.

I have Smartie running on another machine driving an LCD via the parallel port, displaying non-RSS info, and it runs perfectly. Zero problems.

LCD Hype, which *will* access and display the above RSS feed in the fashion that I desire, crashes so often that I have installed a reboot utility on the machine such that it is auto-rebooted *once an hour*. Otherwise, after 2-3 hours of runtime LCD Hype will, without fail, lock the machine up.

Now you see why I want to go "all Smartie".

Post by **IFR** » August 8th, 2006, 12:22 am

This command line works great for me with LCDSmartie 5.3.2

Code: Select all

$Rss(http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_world_edition/front_page/rss.xml,t,0,)

MLMCC · Post by **MLMCC** » August 8th, 2006, 6:52 pm

I cut/pasted this line

$Rss(http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline ... ss.xml,t,0,)

from the above message into the command line field on my otherwise-working-perfectly 5.3.3 install.

It captures one header and never advances past that one.

I know this *can* be made to work, in that I'm watching it work at this moment, using this sorry Brand X LCD software that locks up the computer it runs on. Gets a header, advances to the next, rolls back to #1. Contines forever, autoimporting the changes that the BBC makes in the RSS stream (till it locks up...).

Are there are other parameters that I must have set to make this work?

Other things that I must do to enable this feature?

Any other suggestions?

Post by **IFR** » August 8th, 2006, 8:10 pm

Is this what you are trying to get?

Make sure the "Don't scroll this line" checkbox is not checked.

MLMCC · Post by **MLMCC** » August 8th, 2006, 9:19 pm

This is very good, I've made some headway.

To answer your question... close, but not exactly.

What you have enabled me to do, which I was unable to figure out, is the combination of the correct command line and the unchecked "do not scroll" box.

By using your command line, and unchecking that box, I now see *all* the headers. That *is* the entire set of data that I'm after.

However, it's not being displayed in the way that I would like to have it displayed. That's why I had the "do not scroll" box checked, which is the reason I never saw anything but the first header.

I would prefer to have each header displayed in static, non-moving text for the period of time set by the "display for ?" selection. The display would then clear, display the *next* header for the same period of time, clear again, etc. until it rolled around to the first header. This would continue forever.

Is this possible?

Thanks again,

Mike

Post by **IFR** » August 8th, 2006, 9:59 pm

MLMCC wrote:This is very good, I've made some headway.

To answer your question... close, but not exactly.

What you have enabled me to do, which I was unable to figure out, is the combination of the correct command line and the unchecked "do not scroll" box.

By using your command line, and unchecking that box, I now see *all* the headers. That *is* the entire set of data that I'm after.

However, it's not being displayed in the way that I would like to have it displayed. That's why I had the "do not scroll" box checked, which is the reason I never saw anything but the first header.

I would prefer to have each header displayed in static, non-moving text for the period of time set by the "display for ?" selection. The display would then clear, display the *next* header for the same period of time, clear again, etc. until it rolled around to the first header. This would continue forever.

Is this possible?

Thanks again,

Mike

Well that's another problem. You will need a plugin that does exactly what you want. An alternative solution is to put $Rss(http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline ... /rss.xml,t,x,)
on each screen where x is a number from 1 to the last headline. Then you change "Time to show" options to the interval you want between headline news.

MLMCC · Post by **MLMCC** » August 10th, 2006, 4:56 pm

Understood. I see how that would work.

However, is there any way to have the existing software determine what 'x' should be, and then use that as a dynamic variable in the existing plugin?

Obviously, an arbitrarly high number could be used. But then you end up looking at a lot of white space if that number is >> the correct 'x' for any given point in time.