Better Feed is a plugin for WordPress that allows you to enhance your feeds with several highly customizable features.
Features
Using a convenient interface with real time preview, Better Feed will allow you to add anything below each entry in your RSS feed. It also brings back the ability to split your feed with "Read More" links, just like your blog posts.
- Add "Read more" links
On your site, you can split post on two parts, teaser and body, using the tag <!–more–>. Why not have a "Read more" link as well in your feed, for longer posts, or when you want to tease and keep the surprise off the feed ?
(By the way, while I'm at it : "summary" feeds truncated after 40 words just suck big time. Read more) - Add a copyright notice
Concerned with content stealers reproducing your posts automatically somewhere without giving you credit ? Why not add something like "© Joe – 2005" and a link to some neat Creative Commons License ? - Add the number of comments
When you find an interesting post via your feed reader, you often have to check the website for new comments, or to subscribe to the comment feed. Why not add, at the end of every RSS item, something like "13 comments", just like in your blog frontpage ? - Add a "Add to del.icio.us" link
Let your readers bookmark your entries right from within their RSS reader - Add a link for incoming links in Technorati or Google
Why not add a handy link to quickly check who's linking to your post ? - Add anything
There's so many stuff you could think of that I just can't list them all :)
Download
wp_ozh_betterfeed.zip
Extract and upload to your blog, preserving directory structure if any.
Note: download counter here and stats on wordpress.org may differ and reflect the number of downloads before this plugin was hosted on the plugin directory
Once you're done installing it, head to "Settings" and then "Better Feed". Everything is configured and tested from there.
Please note
A few things you might not get on first run that will save me some support:
- If you include the number of comments in each feed item, be warned that some feed readers will display an item as "New" every time someone comments on it. It's normal, and it is how I intented it to behave so following conversation is easier than ever.
- If you're using Feedburner, your feed won't immediately show changes after you've activated the plugin. To do so, go to your Feedburner Dashboard → Troubleshootize → Synchronize.
- You won't notice any change if you're viewing your feed with your regular browser. Use a feed reader, or this simple service I set up especially for you: RSS 2 HTML
License
This plugin is released under the terms of the BAI & SMYF License. BAI means "Blog About It". Like the plugin? Let your readers know! SMYF stands for "Show Me Your Feed", so if you happen to use my plugin, just tell me so I can see what you've done (and maybe subscribe to your feed if it's cool !)
Shorter URL
Want to share or tweet this page? Please use this short URL: http://ozh.in/kt
Perfect timing. I was going to ask you about something which could add a Read more in my feed.
Tim, we will soon discover we can't live one without the other :)
[…] This new WordPress plugin has some sweet new features for your feed. […]
Ozh, thanks for this! I've been searching for a way to add a "comment at the site" footer to my rss, to stop those pesky livejournalers from commenting on the feed and getting confused as to when i don't respond… Let's hope this does the trick.
Perfect!
I was looking for something like this and was actually getting ready to write a forum post to ask someone to make a plug-in like this since I do not do any programming myself. Sweet! Looking forward to try it out (when my server is back up…)
Thanks for your great work.
I think now you can add google blog search :P.
[…] 11) Better Feed […]
Very nice plugin.
Cant wait to install it.
Hope the updates bring more.
Thanks for the good work.
[…] 　　Better Feed，å¯ä»¥ä¸ºä½ çš„Feedå¢žåŠ æ–°ç‰¹æ€§ï¼š å¢žåŠ "Read More"链接 […]
[…] RSS is geen onbekende meer, met dank aan Pietel om dit aan de Vlaamsche blogosfeer duidelijk te maken. En voor hen die hun WP-feeds willen uitbreiden is er nu Better Feed. […]
[…] planetOzh Has released a plugin that allows for customization of your feed. Seems like an infinite amount of options. With the growing popularity of RSS, this should prove to be a handy tool, no doubt. […]
[…] Der eine abonniert Feeds, um Beiträge aus allen möglichen Blogs "gesammelt" an einer Stelle zu haben, der andere möchte (z. B. wegen einer langsamen Modem-Verbindung) nur die ersten Sätze, der nächste mit Bildern, der andere ohne usw. usw. Ich stelle daher ja schon länger verschiedene RSS-Abo-Varianten zur Verfügung. Aber es geht noch besser: Durch das WordPress-PlugIn "Better Feeds" wird jeder Beitrag (in der RSS 2.0-Version) um sinnvolle Links ergänzt: So wird angezeigt, ob Kommentare vorhanden sind, die Verlinkung bei Technorati ist dabei, der Vorschlagslink für del.icio.us usw. Sicher wird nicht jeder Abonnent diese Links immer nutzen – aber falls in doch mal ein Artikel mehr interessiert, hat er hier gleich die passenden Short-Cuts. […]
Not another RSS post
This is hopefully the last one for a while. You may have noticed that this site's feed started displaying a few new features over the weekend. That's thanks to a great new WordPress plugin called Better Feed. I've used it to add an …
This plugin sounds very interesting!
I've downloaded it, configured it, activated it, and it doesn't seem to work. :-(
My feeds are always the same old ones, no changes at all… Maybe I'm missing something…
I'm using WP 1.5.2
Zelig » sorry, can't help you. Usually when you download, configure, activate, it just… works :)
The plugin does sound great but it isn't working here either.
Do I just have to activate the plug-in? Or do I need to add code to the themes?
I`m using 1.5.2 with the K2 template
You just have to activate the plugin. Editing is optionnal (but recommended to suit your needs)
I've seen numerous feeds using this plugin, so I guess your problem may be K2 related. If any other K2 user is reporting troubles, I *may* investigate a bit
[…] Schon eine ganze Weile störte es micht, dass im Feed nicht die Anzahl der Kommentare angezeigt werden und die "read more"-Funktion nicht funktionierte. Aber Karsten erinnerte mich grade an ein Plugin was er nutzt, welches genau diese Funktionen unterstützt. Als habe ich Better Feed kurzerhand installiert und nun sollte es laufen. Wer probleme mit dem Feed hat einfach kurz melden. Ich finde es auf jeden Fall eine gute Lösung und macht den Feed viel anschaulicher. […]
I also installed and activated the plugin and can´t see any changes. Iam using wordpress 1.5.2, changing themes did not help either so i suppose it must be plugin related.
Themes has nothing to do. Indeed it is probably plugin related : another plugin conflicting. (Although I know no other plugin that plays with feeds)
Iam not using that many plugins:
Adsense-Deluxe, AttachFile, Counterize, eMiniMall, Google Sitemaps, WP-ContactForm and Better Feed
Hej just another questions, could you tell me how you incorporated google adsense in the comments area ? I suppose you edited the comments.php file but I´am not really that good in php that i can do that on my own.
Would be really nice if you could tell me what to change to make ads appear in my comments as well.
thank you
Martin
Ozx, I really like the plugin except for one issue. It seems to display an entry as new in a feed reader (I use Bloglines) everytime the comment count on a recent entry changes, even if there aren't actually any new entries. Is there a way around this?
Jacob, as far as I know Bloglines is the only feed reader with such a behavior.
And to be honest, this is exactly what I intented : how would you be supposed to track how many comments there are on a given entry if the feed item never updates as "new" ? Otherwise, entries would always show 0 comments (i.e. number of comment when blogline refreshes your feed) and never update.
Ah, that is a good point. The only time it could be annoying is when it sends a "false alarm" to readers that there's a new entry. I guess I'll consider this an incentive to make sure I always have new content up :)
Thanks for the plugin!
If "false alarm" is an issue, you could still use the plugin with a feed item footer mentionning no comment count. This way, text wouldn't change.
And thanks for your feedback, I appreciate :)
[…] Anyhow, such that all my hard work does not go unnoticed, there is now a neat little footer to each post. Essentially you have a link to the actual post itself (useful if'n anyone wants to link to a specific post from offiste), a link to the post comments (essentially the same as clicking the number to the right of the post title), a link to add the post to your delicious bookmarks account, a link track links to this post at Technorati, and a link to browse other posts in the same category. The plugin, if anyone is interested, is a modified version of the Better Feed plugin by Ozh. […]
not getting it to work – are there any known conflicts with other plugins? I have wp-cron future pings (1.1) and smart update pinger 1.2….
Don't know. It just works anywhere I've tested it.
I think this plugin won't work if you have the WordPress Feedburner Plugin by Steve Smith installed on your WordPress. I have to disable Steve's plugin to make your plugin work on my site. Can you recommend any fix? Thanks.
Sorry, I also run the Feedburner plugin on all my blogs :)
It's ok now… it seem i was wrong.. it seems feedburner took a little more time to update my feed. Now everything is perfect. Thank you!
Just starting using this plugin, and wanted to thank you for it, its absolutely great.
Works perfect with WordPress 2.0 RC1 as well.
Thank you for your feedback :)
I found this script/plugin to be very helpful. Thanks
[…] The Better Feed WordPress plugin has been just the thing I have been looking for to improve the value of my RSS feed and to provide higher user interaction between my feed and my website. […]
i deactived all plugins and just active this and write a new post but nothing aactived!
:-?
I'm setting up your plugin for my feed but I am having problems with the "post to del.ico.us" part. Some of my posts have titles that include commas and quotations, and when that is written in the URL it messes up the del.ico.us link. Is there any way I can get it to work and still keep my commas/quotations in article titles?
http://crazycore.com[…]
user:test
pass:test
plugin uploaded and chmoded to 777
and actived
and test post published but
Better Feed plugin doesn’t work at all!
Ozh please test and see
ehsan » excuse me but all I see is a working plugin…
Mark » indeed, a double quote makes the link go moo.
The following trick should work. Replace the line :
$string = str_replace('%%posttitle%%', get_the_title(), $string);
With :
$string = str_replace('%%posttitle%%', str_replace('"','"',get_the_title_rss()), $string);
Ozh, I can't get the replaced trick to work… when I replace with the new code the quotes in the code don't close properly and things get all wacky… I tried smoothing it out by replacing with different types of quotes in the code to match what is in the plugin file but it wasn't working… could you send me the updated plugin file with the working fix?
[…] setzt man das WordPress-Plugin Better Feed ein, was ich testhalber getan habe, sieht man zB in Bloglines folgende Zusatzangabem, die das Plugin im RSS Feed ergänzt hat: (Negativbild) […]
[…] Mit dem WordPress Plugin Better Feed lässt sich der RSS Feed […]
Mark » sorry, I didn't check how my comment outputted. What I meant was :
$string = str_replace('%%posttitle%%', str_replace('"','"',get_the_title()), $string);
[…] WordPress Plugin : Better Feed « planetOzh WordPress Plugin : Better Feed « planetOzh (tags: wordpress plugin rss blog plugins blogging blogs design webdev lazysheep) […]
Does this plug-in work with WP 2.0+? I tried to install it but didnt appear to be working correctly.
Also will this allow the display of images from our RSS Feed?
Mickey » I'm using it right here.
[…] Better Feed […]
This is what i`ve looking for, gonna use it on 1 of my blog. thanks :)
[…] WordPress Plugin : Better Feed « planetOzh Better Feed is a plugin for WordPress that allows you to enhance your feeds with several highly customisable features. […]