smhn/README.md

# README

This is an RSS aggregator designed to work as a cron job, and output an HTML file for display and an XML file for its own RSS feed. 

It is written in Perl and licensed under GPLv3.0.

# Requirements

The following CPAN modules need to be installed on your server:

* LWP::Simple
* LWP::Protocol::https
* XML::RSS
* HTML::Entities

# Configuration

The file has three main areas of configuration. 

## The Feed

This area is for general information on the site and feed. 

* Title
* Webmaster email
* Description 
* home URL
* feed URL
* copyright 

There are three files you have to save, update these with the path of the folders on your server where they will be saved. 

* Feed - the RSS feed generated for the site, should be an xml file
* HTML - the site itself, should be an html file
* Error Log - this lists URLs that did not work - should be a txt file 

Example paths are given for CPanel type servers:

* Feed - /home/USER_NAME/public_html/feed.xml 
* HTML - /home/USER_NAME/public_html/index.html
* Error Log - /home/USER_NAME/public_html/feed.log 

You can change the length of time the feed retains by altering this variable to the time you’d like in weeks:

```
my $num_weeks = 2;
```

## The Site

This section is the HTML that will be saved as the file. You can use variables from the feed section to keep things simple and consistent. 

The variable $rssHTML is the output of the RSS aggregation. 

The variable $listHTML is a UL list of the URLs that were used to make the page. 

A sample is given in the file with a basic structure. 

Note: You _must_ include HTML_END at the end of the HTML section, and it _must_ be on its own line _without_ indention. 

Note: Any instance of @, % or $ will need to be escaped in this area if it is not intended to be a Perl variable. 

i.e. \@media in your CSS

## The Data

At the bottom of the file, under \_\_DATA\_\_, add your list of RSS feeds, one URL per line.  URL should be to the direct XML feed, not the website in general.

# Showcase

This was written to power the [Sunday Morning Horror News](http://sundaymorninghorrornews.com) site.