UBB.threads PHP Forum Software Community Forums UBB.threads Version 7/8 Support Paragraph breaks in RSS?

I have set up the RSS feed on my board to build a large file with all the text of each post. But it appears the RSS feed builder removes all the line breaks, so all the text runs together.

Is there any way to get them back?

Here's the way one of the posts appears on the board:
And here is what the RSS feed gives:

I had to edit the RSS feed quote above to make it look the same as on my board.

The odd thing is that within the RSS .xml file, the blank lines betwee paragraphs are there, but the browser removes them. So is this just a browser issue?

My primary user who especially likes RSS pointed out that on another board he uses, the paragraph separators work ok.

Intresting as this is somthing i wanted to expand on in the near future.

is it one of googles scripts ?

I wonder if is a css issue <p> tag ??

Not sure what you are asking. If I view the .xml file source in my IE browser, I see these links:

<rss version="2.0" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:cf="http://www.microsoft.com/schemas/rss/core/2005">
<channel xmlns:cfi="http://www.microsoft.com/schemas/rss/core/2005/internal

What "parser" are you using to read in rss feeds? The UBB doesn't come with one so I don't see how it's really a ubb related issue...

What parser? ...ummm... I dunno. I am a newbie with RSS. I was hoping what I posted above had something to do with it.

I just used IE7 defaults to access the feed. Where do I specify a parser?

ok, how are you displaying the rss feed? That program is a parser; you have to use a parser to get the data from the feed to whatever medium you're wanting it to display on...

Looking at the first post again, it looks like a copy from IE RSS FEEDS.

I don't think there is a parser involved at the mo.
Like you gizmo i thought it was being displayed with in a web page
in a different location?

Threads Outputs a RSS -- >>
IE and Others can read RSS

What your noticing is how IE understands the RSS Feed.

Now if you had a Parser program (google Search)
you can take that data in the xml,
and out put it the way you want to out put it and also
where you want to out put in say on a external web page.

I have one set up, but i cant manipulate the Text in the body of the message, or if a quote or url link is used.
Just dont have the time at the mo.

Anyway, to do what you want its kinda tricky sometimes.
But it can be done.

Man, RSS is a COW! (Can Of Worms)

I went searching for an RSS reader for Windows, and I downloaded a trial version of FeedDemon from www.newsgator.com. I tried out their RSS reader on my board, and got the same results.

So I posted a query there (Breaks between paragraphs?) asking about paragraph breaks on their message board. Then I clicked the RSS button on that board, amazingly the paragraphs show up with breaks! Then I used my IE7 browser's view source, and I believe I can see what is going on. On THAT board, they include HTML tags for paragraph breaks using &lt; and &gt; to enclose the HTML <br> end-of-line tags. And the IE browser interprets those correctly, so I get a nicely formatted view of my message.

So.... is it premature to ask that Threads include some sort of option to produce a similar XML output?

Threads does support valid output, only instead of shoving in un-needed HTML we use the cdata tag and output actual breaks as they're inserted in the posting. Any decent feed reader should be more than capable of parsing the data.

If you view the actual source of the page where the RSS feeds display, you can see that the text *IS* breaking at the line where needed, however the cdata with some "browser readers" parse the text together because the "additional coding" (like some feeds produce) isn't there...

I do say that RSS feeds need some work (such as providing the author's name of the post in the feed) but I don't really classify the shortcomings of a feed reader as a cause of updating the coding...

But wait... I see that Threads uses html tags to bold the "Posted by" heading, and adds an html <br> after the author. But then it completely forgets to break at the author's line breaks.

So it IS adding some html already, but not in the message body.

Do you know of a reader that would handle the end-of-line characters as if they were html <br> tags?

unfortunately my server is acting wonky so i can't build an example; but i'm sure that LastRSS would be more than capable of doing this

Unfortunately, I am not a unix or php programmer. LastRSS if for sharp folks like you, who build websites and want to include a Feed window (island).

And looking at the LastRSS site, what do they mean with the feature:
    "Strips HTML from description (both hard-coded and entity-coded"

If it strips HTML out, does it interpret the HTML, or just remove the tags and print the rest? And what about UBB tags?

What I am asking for (and this is beginning to sound futile) is a description section that includes enough HTML so that a simple browser will display the post similarly to the way it is displayed in Threads.

ubbtags are plain text, they aren't html (unless parsed).

Removing HTML is just as it says, it nukes html...

As for browser display, i don't believe that recoding how our rss feeds work for IE to display it in a logical manner is really a decent fix... If they parsed the cdata as shown (vs trying to render non-existant html) it'd read it with breaks

I'm the one that asked Steve to look into this. After taking the time to look at the "source" for the different feeds that I'm recieving, it looks like the feeds that are using all HTML code are showing up with the correct formatting (I'm using NewsGator Inbox for Outlook), but the feeds from the UBB board is mixing HTML and UBB code, resulting in a mess like this:

Posted by Audiograce:
[quot*=toddc]I can not believe how this discussion keeps coming up. 1. Has the ridiculous amount of people hiking this trail actually caused people to contemplate temporarily changing their body chemistry for fear of a small little baggie. What's next, a really long extension cord to trail camp so we can use a communal hair dryer the morning we summit so our photos on top are sans tent hair? 2. I carried a wag bag out from Trail Camp. BFD. It's a bag. Look around at the scenery and don't freaking worry about the little bag. 3. Have a kid! Your entire poopophobia will disappear. 4. As far as Immodium, and everybody's body is different, I used it once before for illness and didn't go for about a week. That was even worse. Never again. 5. Be aware of your diet and you can be surprisingly tidy. [/quot*] I have to agree w/ Todd ... (not just because of the cool name.) NOBODY like carrying poop ... but if we can pick up after our dogs, why wouldn't we do the same for ourselves? [colo*:#FF0000][u][b]EXTRA ZIP_LOCKS and triple bag it!!![/*][/colo*][/*] It's gross, but not as gross as stumbling across someone else's. Peace, ...Todd Grace...

(I butchered the UBB code so that it doesn't display on this board.)

So the question now becomes: Is there an add-in for Outlook that would read the UBB code and format it correctly? (Ideal solution.) Or is there a way to have the feed to be all HTML, instead of a mix of HTML and UBB code? (Additional work for Steve to do to please me.)

Since NewsGator is a 3rd party module (not to mention that i've not so much as even heard of until 5 minutes ago) I believe that any inqueries/requests on it would be better responded to on their forums (clicky).

i'm sure there have been posts on their forums somewhere on bbcode support, i mean, they do run a forum, I'm sure they've used it before .

Threads is already doctoring the cdata content with html. It contains html to bold the "Posted by", and adds a <br> after the author. How would any RSS parser know when to stop using the html, and begin parsing the rest?

Here's a sample cdata section:
<description>
<![CDATA[<b>Posted by</b> Gary R:<br />
A paragraph here....

Second paragraph here...

Third paragraph here...]]>
</description>