Post Templates support a number of advanced functions that let you customize how AutoBlogged handles a post. There are a number of variables that let you decide what feed items you want to appear in the post. In addition to the basic feed items, AutoBlogged also allows you to access custom namespace elements in an RSS or Atom feed.

Custom namespaces allow feed publishers to add additional feed elements that do not exist in the basic RSS or Atom specifications. Many sites have created custom namespaces to add additional information about the items in their feeds. For example, YouTube adds a namespace that allows them to include additional data such as the user ratings of a video. In a YouTube feed, they first define the namespace at the top of the feed like this:

<feed xmlns:gd=’http://schemas.google.com/g/2005′ >

Then, they refer to the namespace within the feed like this:

<gd:rating average=’4.9114695′ max=’5′ min=’1′ numRaters=’17734′ rel=’http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#overall’/>

We don’t want to go too much into the implementation details in this article, just introduce what custom namespaces are. If you want to learn more about namespaces go here or here.

It is important to note that many publishers simply add new XML elements to an RSS feed without actually declaring namespaces. This is not valid and AutoBlogged will not be able to parse them. If you run into a feed like this, we suggest pointing the publisher to the two links mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Accessing Namespaces

If you have a feed with custom namespaces, you can use them in your post template using the format %namespace:element@attribute% where namespace is the namespace URL or abbreviation, element is the element name, and attribute is an optional attribute of the element. In the YouTube rating example shown earlier, gd is the namespace, rating is the element, and average, max, min, numRaters, and rel are the attributes. Using that example, if you want to show the average rating in your Post Template, use the variable %gd:rating@average%.

If you are feeling a bit confused, below are a number of examples that may better illustrate how to use custom namespaces.

Examples

For our first example, we will take a simplified excerpt from a Yahoo Videofeed:

<item>
<title>Using Custom Namespaces</title>
<description>Using custom namespaces in AutoBlogged Post Templates.</description>
<link>http://video.yahoo.com/watch/……</link>
<pubDate>Sun, 28 Jan 2007 03:00:00 -0800</pubDate>
<media:keywords>autoblogged, autoblog, wordpress</media:keywords>
<media:thumbnail url=”http://l.yimg.com/a/i/us/sch/cn/v/v0/…..jpg />
<media:content type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” medium=”video” lang=”">
<media:player url=”http://d.yimg.com/ht/…” height=”512″ width=”322″ />
</media:content>
</item>

In the above feed, to show the keywords for the video, use the variable %media:keywords%. To include the thumbnail, use %media:thumbnail@url%

Now consider an example from a YouTube feed:

<media:group>
<media:category label=’Music’ scheme=’http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/categories.cat’>Music</media:category>
<media:content url=’http://www.youtube.com/……’ type=’application/x-shockwave-flash’ medium=’video’ isDefault=’true’ expression=’full’ duration=’334′ yt:format=’5′/>
<media:description type=’plain’>Using custom namespaces in AutoBlogged Post Templates.</media:keywords>
<media:player url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=……’/>
<media:thumbnail url=’http://i.ytimg.com/vi/……/2.jpg’ height=’90′ width=’120′ time=’00:02:47′/>
<media:thumbnail url=’http://i.ytimg.com/vi/……/1.jpg’ height=’90′ width=’120′ time=’00:01:23.500′/>
<media:title type=’plain’>Using AutoBlogged</media:title>
<yt:duration seconds=’334′/>
</media:group>
<gd:rating average=’4.9114695′ max=’5′ min=’1′ numRaters=’17734′ rel=’http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#overall’/>
<yt:statistics favoriteCount=’34363′ viewCount=’4928462′/>

This feed is a bit different because it uses nested elements. In other words, media:content is nested inside the media:group element. Due to a limitation in SimplePie, which we use to process RSS feeds, you must refer to these variables using the full hierarchy with a slash (“/”) between elements. So if you wish to show the media description you would use the variable %media:group/media:description%. If you want to show the duration of the video, you would use the variable %media:group/media:content@duration%.

Note that AutoBlogged currently does not support custom namespaces for attributes, so you would not be able to access the yt:format attribute in the media:content element above. Note also that when there are multiple custom fields with the same name, AutoBlogged will only return the first element it finds.

In addition to custom namespaces, you can specifically refer to certain RSS or Atom elements in a feed using the RSS and Atom namespaces. Consider the following RSS feed excerpt:

<item>
<title>Using Post Templates</title>
<link>http://www.autoblogged.com…….</link>
<guid>http://www.autoblogged.com…….</guid>
<pubDate>Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:18:51 -0700</pubDate>
</item>

In this feed, you can refer to the guid as %rss:guid% and the pubDate as %rss:pubDate%. With an atom feed you can do the same:

<entry>
<id>http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/……</id>
<published>2005-12-28T03:15:32.000Z</published>
<updated>2009-05-26T12:55:23.000Z</updated>
</entry>

With this feed you can refer to the published date as %atom:published%.

Uncommon Namespaces

Note that in order for AutoBlogged to use a custom namespace abbreviation, it needs to be defined in the modules.php file. If you open the file, you can see that we have already defined most common namespace modules. If you want to use a custom namespace that isn’t listed in that file, you have two options:

1. Edit modules.php to include your custom namespace, following the same format as the other definitions.

2. Always use the full namespace URL when referring to the namespace in your Post Template.

For example, consider this feed excerpt:

<rss version=”2.0″ xmlns:product=”http://www.example.com/schemas/product”>
<channel>
<title>Products Feed</title>
<item>
<title>New Product Announcement</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:18:51 -0700</pubDate>
<product:type>Tools</product:type>
<product:price>9.99</product:price>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>

In this example, if you want to use product:type in your Post Template, you can either add the line “product” => “http://www.example.com/schemas/product”, at the end of the list in modules.php and use %product:type% in your Post Template or you can simply use %http://www.example.com/schemas/product:type% in your Post Template without having to modify modules.php.

As you can see, referring to custom namespace elements is a bit of an advanced feature and it does require you to view the raw XML of your feed to find most variable names. However, it is a very powerful feature that can really make your blog stand out from the rest.

AutoBlogged is having problems processing one particular RSS feed you are using or is unable to open the feed in the feed viewer.

Solutions

• Try opening the feed URL directly in your web browser to make sure you have the correct URL.
• Check FeedValidator.org to confirm that your RSS or Atom feed is properly formatted.
• Try opening the feed in different browsers to make sure it isn’t a browser issue.
• Try viewing your feed using the SimplePie demo to make sure it isn’t an issue with SimplePie.
• Check the SimplePie FAQ to make sure it isn’t a known problematic feed.

More Information

FeedBurner Issues:

• http://feedburnerstatus.blogspot.com/
• http://feedburnerstatus.blogspot.com/2009/01/older-known-issues-workarounds.html
• http://feedburnerstatus.blogspot.com/2009/01/http-502-error-code-received-on-some.html
• http://feedburnerstatus.blogspot.com/2009/01/older-known-issues-workarounds.html

Blogger.com/Blogspot.com Issues:

• http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/blogger/browse?hl=en

Also see Workarounds for Poor Quality Feeds