Skip to content
English
Submit a Request
Server Status
  • There are no suggestions because the search field is empty.

News Feed Module Overview

The News Feed module in Freedom allows you to pull in external RSS or XML-based news content and display it on your website, as well as publish your own RSS feeds for others to subscribe to. This module is intended for technical users or site administrators, as configuration requires familiarity with RSS/XML feeds and field mapping.

Accessing the News Feed Module

To access the News Feed module, navigate to Website in the top navigation bar, then select News Feed from the left-hand sidebar. The module is organized into four tabs:

  • News Feed: View and manage the news feeds you have configured to display on your site.
  • Publish RSS: Create and manage RSS feeds that your site publishes for external subscribers.
  • Activity: Review a log of recent feed retrieval activity and any errors encountered during data pulls.
  • Setup: Configure the external sources (URLs) that power your news feeds, including field mapping and display templates.

News Feed Tab

The News Feed tab displays a list of all feeds currently configured on your site. Each entry shows a description and the source it pulls from. To add a new news feed:

  1. Click the + News Feed button.
  2. Enter a Description to identify the feed internally.
  3. Select a Source from the dropdown. Sources are configured in the Setup tab (see below).
  4. Optionally, enter a Page Title to control how the feed is labeled on the front end.
  5. Click Save.

Publish RSS Tab

The Publish RSS tab lets you create RSS feeds from your own site content, making it available for visitors or other platforms to subscribe to. To add a new RSS feed:

  1. Click the + RSS Feed button.
  2. Enter a Name and Description to identify the feed internally.
  3. Select a Source Module to define which module's content the feed will draw from (for example, Events).

The form is divided into three additional sections:

  • Header Information: Enter a Title, Link (defaults to your site URL), Description, and Copyright for the feed. These fields populate the RSS feed's metadata that subscribers see in their readers.
  • Optional Header Image: Attach an image to the feed by providing an Image Title, Image Link, and selecting an image using the Select button. This is optional and not required for the feed to function.
  • Settings: Configure feed behavior with the following options:
    • Character Encoding: Sets the text encoding for the feed (default: Windows-1252).
    • Strip HTML Tags: Controls whether HTML is removed from feed content.
    • Maximum Items: Limits the number of items included in the feed (default: 10).
    • Word Limit per Item: Truncates each item's content to a set word count. A value of -1 means no limit.
    • Active: Set to Yes to make the feed publicly available.

Click Save when finished.

Activity Tab

The Activity tab provides a log of all data retrieval events for your configured sources. Use this tab to verify that feeds are pulling in correctly and to diagnose any issues, such as failed retrievals or connection errors.

Setup Tab: Configuring Sources

The Setup tab is where you define the external data sources that your news feeds pull from. Each source points to an external RSS or XML URL and includes settings for how often data is retrieved and how it is displayed.

To add a new source:

  1. Click the + Source button.
  2. Enter a Name to identify the source internally.
  3. Enter the URL of the external RSS or XML feed.
  4. Set the Refresh (minutes) value to control how often Freedom checks the source for new content. The default is 60 minutes.
  5. Optionally, set a Repeating Limit to cap the number of items pulled from the feed.
  6. Click Retrieve Newsfeed Data to fetch the raw XML from the source. The data will appear in the read-only Raw XML Data field below.
  7. Use the Field Setup table to map the XML fields from the source to your display. For each field, you can designate it as a Selected Item or Repeating Item and set a Max Length.

Lister HTML Templates

Within the source setup form, the Lister HTML section controls how the feed content is rendered on your website. There are three template areas:

  • Body: The outer wrapper HTML that surrounds the entire feed output.
  • Repeat: The HTML template that wraps each group of repeating items within the feed.
  • Item: The HTML template for each individual news item. Use the Insert Predefined Tag dropdown in each section to inject dynamic field values (such as title, link, or description) pulled from the source XML.

Once your templates are configured, click Preview to review the output before saving, then click Save to apply your changes.