So i've been trying to make this work, but it just isnt quite right... I've created an excel spreadsheet for racing events, and from this, i generate an rss file. Title (actually, its a date), Link, Description, and also a description line 2. heres a sample: http://ukracetrackfinder.curzonweb.co.uk/newsmaster.xml in an rss reader (such as m.simplepie.org or even internet explorer) i get the desired effect Date (Link where i have included a link) Description (event organiser) Description (event type) but darned if i can get Simple RSS reader to manage it right... Anyone more proficient with RSS want to have a crack and/or tell me where im going wrong? (or is there a better way to achieve my end result?) Thanks :)

in an ideal world, i wouldnt want to show 'past' events... not sure how i would achieve that.

I thought I'd take a peek, I like to use RSS but I am no guru. I loaded your rss into an app. It works, except that I don't see the second part of the description. I took an extract (below), the content between the description tags looks a bit odd. Looks lke something in there? <item> <title>25 - 26 May 2013</title> <link>http://www.hottrax-motorsport.co.uk</link> <description> <![CDATA[<b>Hottrax Motorsport Racing Club</b><br>]]><![CDATA[Motorcycle Racing]]> </description> </item>

This probably won't help........... http://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_cdata.asp

hmmm, interesting linky... odd that even IE can parse it ok though

i HATE RSS!! Mostly because i can see how it could have so many great uses, yet i cant grasp it! Using 'xml to html' php script i found on t'web, i manage to draw up this: http://ukracetrackfinder.curzonweb.co.uk/test/index.php I just need to find a less problematic way of updating a lot of dates :o/

Hi @trouty Just trying to recap, you have a spreadsheet that holds content that you want to publish as RSS. It looks as if something has changed - before it looked like it wasn't putting in all the CDATA, now it seems some of the links are missing (there is a joke in there somewhere). Question - how do you actually create the RSS at the moment? Alan

Hi I was using an excel>xml tool that i found online, called RssCreate, from www.automateexcel.com that generated this: http://ukracetrackfinder.curzonweb.co.uk/newsmaster.xml which successfully shows: Date Link (if i entered one) Organiser Event Type what i'm ultimately trying to achieve, is an events list that i can create in excel, host online, and display within the app (per venue). Bearing in mind that i may have upwards of 600+ events across various different venues (i dont mind doing a spreadsheet per venue, there may be 20+ venues). There MAY be a better/more viable solution, i really am all ears at this point. Copy/pasting into BT Control Panel customhtml then formatting etc, doesnt seem like a good way long term...

Hi @trouty, I'm getting the picture. In fact, I think your excel solution is working, but it may not be the easiest way. I am using the RSS plugin in my BT app to test your feed. I just drop the link to your current feed in and job done (not sure how to show it using cut & paste as you describe). Also, I think you always need to have a link in an RSS feed. On the rss entries without a link, I am seeing 'Data for this screen has not been downloaded. Please check your internet connection'. As to how to generate the feed, have you considered using hosted solutions such as Joomla or Wordpress to manage the content instead of Excel?. You could use either of these to generate the content for the web pages and also create the rss feeds directly from that. It would take effort to set up, but probably easier to maintain in the long run.

Have you considered creating a free Google blog for your information? A feed can be generated from the blog site. http://support.google.com/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=97933 Might be worth testing out.

How about using WordPress or Joomla in your hosting. Both have automatic feed creation for any category of articles you want built in. I you just need to create an article for each event or maybe even each venue if you like. It'll be piece of cake!

You can also create a form to enter values into the db on your hosting, then output the json and get rid of the rss. True JSON to the rescue!

Hey Darren. I might have a solution. Would you mind sending me a copy of your spreadsheet? Pets411 at me dot com

email sent :o)

webneeves - quite probably beyond my experience!

Let me know approximately how many items you'll be having, and if you need to keep them for later reference, or not. Is it in the 10s, 100s, 1000s, or way out of the ballpark?! If it's not too many I propose a ready made php script to just write out a text file for you. It'll be set up once and then you can just fill out the form for each event, say like 2-10 text boxes for each item. It can create a text file populated with your data, which can be in JSON format. Then you'll just need a normal simple menu screen and you can activate the images and all for them, very easy from there. If you're going to develop lots of events and update frequently and want to keep it archived, then a simple wordpress or joomla installation would be perfect. Lot's of youtube videos on how to get it installed. Then you'll need to publish your events as articles and use the rss plugin to retreive them. This will open up a world to you! If you can keep it simple, I suggest the first approach. I can give you a head start if you choose. You can also check out Sir David Book's videos. I remember he had a tutorial on how to write a json with a php file by storing and retrieving the data items to a db. Good Luck!

ok, currently, 12 locations with say 50-60 events per location, so thats what, 720 give or take. Then a margin for expansion into EU. so say at least that again, 1500 events. Events get announced early each year, usually confirmed late february/early march. So updated annually, around March. This is data that i have to scrabble around for so can take me a bit of time to collate.

Hope I didn't lose you Friday. I sent you a couple of emails to your work address. Hope that was OK.

Cool, I won't see them till Monday tho :-)

I changed the formatting of your spreadsheet a little bit. And with the updated plugin (waiting for review) I made the rows taller to include 3 lines of text. Is this closer to what you need? https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16323370/photo1.PNG

When the plugin update is released you can also do ....... https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16323370/photo2.PNG

oh god i just got a hard-on! yes! the first pic is what i envisaged... the second pic is way better than my own envisagement!

LOL. I submitted the update Thursday morning, so hopefully it will be out soon. The trick to the spreadsheetis to get multiple lines of text in one cell. Do this by typing in thefirstline of text and then do a ALT+ENTER and type the next line of code like: General Testing ALT+ENTER Car Test Day Also format the "date" cells as text.

Cool... so i've gone through my Anglesey spreadsheet and did the Alt Enter thang, and also ensured there are links to each event now. Looking forward to pluigin update :o)

Looks like the update is now available :-)