Updated: Dec 18th, 06'. Added templates based, "manual" pagination mode for complete customization of the pagination interface.

Description: Using Ajax, this script makes it easy to display RSS feeds from other sites inside DIV containers. Each RSS box can be independently tailored, from the RSS feed to fetch, how many items to show (and whether to paginate them), to what portions of each entry (just the "title", or "title" plus "description" etc) to display. All this is done on the client side via the script's exposed methods.

On the server side, RSS Display Box relies on a simple yet versatile PHP RSS parser called SimplePie to fetch the RSS feeds first. This is required as JavaScript cannot access nor parse remote files. The script then uses Ajax to manipulate the feed and provide simple JavaScript methods for customizing the output and on the fly. The feed as a result can also be added to any page on your site, not just PHP pages.

Requirement of this script: Ability to run PHP on your server. The actual page(s) on your server displaying the RSS boxes can be any page, not just php pages.

It's helpful to list the features of this script in terms of what's possible on both the client side and server side, so here goes.

On the client side:

• Specify which RSS feed to fetch based on the list of RSS feed URLs listed inside the server side script.
• Specify how many items within the feed to display.
• Optionally, specify how many items to show per "page", with pagination links automatically or semi-automatically created to cycle though pages.
• New! Two types of pagination supported- "auto" or "manual". In the later, you dictate the exact format of the pagination interface using "pagination templates". See RSS Display Box syntax reference.
• Specify the name of the "template" used to format the body of each RSS item. This name is picked up by the server side script to display each item in the desired format, whether it's just the "title" of the item, "title" plus "description", or "title" plus "date" etc.
• Each RSS display box instance on the page generates a unique CSS ID attribute plus CSS classname, allowing you to easily style the RSS box via CSS.

Since the above settings are all done on the client side, a RSS box can be modified instantly and impulsively, without having to make any changes to/reupload the server side script.

On the server side:

• Uses the versatile PHP RSS parser called SimplePie to fetch the RSS feeds, with support for caching, error handling, international encoding, and much more.
• Format the body of the RSS item and limit the portions shown using all the functions available within Simplepie and the custom function "outputbody.php".

If you're looking to display RSS feeds on your site in a no fuss yet flexible manner, RSS Display Boxes is your script!

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