rss-bridge

rss-bridge is a PHP project capable of generating ATOM feeds for websites which don't have one.

Supported sites/pages (main)

• FlickrExplore : Latest interesting images from Flickr
• GoogleSearch : Most recent results from Google Search
• Twitter : Return keyword/hashtag search or user timeline
• Identi.ca : Identica user timeline (Should be compatible with other Pump.io instances)
• YouTube : YouTube user channel, playlist or search
• Cryptome : Returns the most recent documents from Cryptome.org
• DansTonChat: Most recent quotes from danstonchat.com
• DuckDuckGo: Most recent results from DuckDuckGo.com
• Instagram: Most recent photos from an Instagram user
• OpenClassrooms: Lastest tutorials from fr.openclassrooms.com
• Pinterest: Most recent photos from user or search
• ScmbBridge: Newest stories from secouchermoinsbete.fr
• WikipediaENLatest: highlighted articles from Wikipedia in English
• WikipediaFRLatest: highlighted articles from Wikipedia in French
• WikipediaEOLatest: highlighted articles from Wikipedia in Esperanto
• Bandcamp : Returns last release from bandcamp for a tag

Plus many other bridges to enable, thanks to the community

Output format

Output format can take several forms:

• Atom : ATOM Feed, for use in RSS/Feed readers
• Json : Json, for consumption by other applications.
• Html : Simple html page.
• Plaintext : raw text (php object, as returned by print_r)

Screenshot

Welcome screen:

Minecraft hashtag (#Minecraft) search on Twitter, in ATOM format (as displayed by Firefox):

Requirements

• PHP 5.3
• openssl extension enabled in PHP config (php.ini)

Enabling/Disabling bridges

By default, the script creates whitelist.txt and adds the main bridges (see above). whitelist.txt is ignored by git, you can edit it:

• to enable extra bridges (one bridge per line)
• to disable main bridges (remove the line)

New bridges are disabled by default, so make sure to check regularly what's new and whitelist what you want !

Author

I'm sebsauvage, webmaster of sebsauvage.net, author of Shaarli and ZeroBin.

Patch/contributors :

• Yves ASTIER (Draeli) : PHP optimizations, fixes, dynamic brigde/format list with all stuff behind and extend cache system. Mail : contact@yves-astier.com
• Mitsukarenai : Initial inspiration, collaborator
• ArthurHoaro
• BoboTiG
• Astalaseven
• qwertygc
• Djuuu
• Anadrark

License

Code is Public Domain.

Including PHP Simple HTML DOM Parser under the MIT License

Technical notes

• There is a cache so that source services won't ban you even if you hammer the rss-bridge with requests. Each bridge has a different duration for the cache. The cache subdirectory will be automatically created. You can purge it whenever you want.
• To implement a new rss-bridge, create a new class in bridges subdirectory. Look at existing bridges for examples and the guidelines below. For items you generate in $this->items, only uri and title are mandatory in each item. timestamp and content are optional but recommended. Any additional key will be ignored by ATOM feed (but outputed to json).

Bridge guidelines

• metatags: @name {Name of service}, @homepage {URL to homepage}, @description, @update {YYYY-MM-DD}, @maintainer {Github username or nickname}
• scripts (eg. Javascript) must be stripped out. Make good use of strip_tags() and preg_replace()
• bridge must present data within 8 seconds (adjust iterators accordingly)
• cache timeout must be fine-tuned so that each refresh can provide 1 or 2 new elements on busy periods
• <audio> and <video> must not autoplay. Seriously.
• do everything you can to extract valid timestamps. Translate formats, use API, exploit sitemap, whatever. Free the data!
• don't create duplicates. If the website runs on WordPress, use the generic WordPress bridge if possible.
• maintain efficient and well-commented code 😉

Rant

Dear so-called "social" websites.

Your catchword is "share", but you don't want us to share. You want to keep us within your walled gardens. That's why you've been removing RSS links from webpages, hiding them deep on your website, or removed RSS entirely, replacing it with crippled or demented proprietary API. FUCK YOU.

You're not social when you hamper sharing by removing RSS. You're happy to have customers creating content for your ecosystem, but you don't want this content out - a content you do not even own. Google Takeout is just a gimmick. We want our data to flow, we want RSS.

We want to share with friends, using open protocols: RSS, XMPP, whatever. Because no one wants to have your service with your applications using your API force-feeding them. Friends must be free to choose whatever software and service they want.

We are rebuilding bridges you have wilfully destroyed.

Get your shit together: Put RSS back in.