Adding a blog 'preview' to main website???

[joy_m_n]

I've been reading through the FAQ and other instructions, but I still can't seem to figure out if this is possible (and if possible, how to go about doing this?)

This is what I want to do:
I want to add a small 'preview' of our blog in the blank space on the lower left-hand corner of our main website: www.joyproject.org
If someone sees something interesting in the small version of our blog on the main site, I would like them to be able to click on it and have it bring them to the full view of the blog, which currently is located at www.joyproject.org/serendipity

Any advice?

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

How about creating a screenshot and linking the screenshot to your page?

I'm not really sure I understand what you want. Sadly HTML doesn't work like "add a small preview", because you cannot instruct the browser to show a full HTML page as a smaller version embedded somewhere else.

Best regards,
Garvin

[d_cee]

Hi

you could try snap previews http://www.snap.com/about/shots.php or maybe use the 'Show entries via JavaScript' event plugin.

HTH

Dave

[steven]

If you want a "graphic preview", use the above recommendations.

If you want a listing of current blog topics, you can use an RSS parser to put them on your website. Look here:

http://magpierss.sourceforge.net/

http://www.zend.com/zend/spotlight/code ... ew=1#notes
with final code at http://nextcode.org/scripts/php/xml/rss.phps

I am not a code developer (more of a code paste-er), but these work. Style them as you see fit.

Good luck

[joy_m_n]

To clarify, I'm looking more for a preview of articles TITLES, not so much a graphic image of what's on the full-size site.
But I don't want the entire blog to be embedded in my site, so I also want the full-size version to stand alone once the person clicks on one of the titles on the page the 'preview' is in.

I think it's more like what steve is saying.....although I'm a bit lost in figuring out how to make that work. RSS stuff is new to me.

[steven]

[quote="joy_m_n"I think it's more like what steve is saying.....although I'm a bit lost in figuring out how to make that work. RSS stuff is new to me.[/quote]

One of the parsers on this page should meet your needs:
http://allrss.com/rssparsers.html

Find the one that has explanations and help that make sense to you.

[joy_m_n]

Ok, it's *sort of* starting to make sense to me.
But I'm also realizing that I'm missing a few key pieces of knowledge. If anybody wants to take a few moments to educate my poorly-RSS-educated self, I would be very appreciative! (I catch on quickly, but I need more info in order to get un-lost)

Here are some basic questions that will help me alot at the moment:

1. If we're posting stories on our own blog, are we already using RSS?? Or is there something else we need to do to set that up?

2. Some of the RSS parser links that I looked at mentioned that they pull stories from many sites. If we ONLY want it to show stories that are a part of our own blog, then what?

3. Um.....anyone want to give me a good definition of the word 'parsing'??

4. If I download an RSS parser, will it automatically spit out some code that I can paste into our main page, or is it something where I would need to change the code in whatever I'm downloading and hope that it magically shows up in the right place? (Hmm.....after writing that, it seems like a somewhat dumb question.....)

Thanks again for anything you can offer!

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

Ah, you want to "preview" text. For that, what d_cee referred to is a good idea, to use the "Show entries via Javascript" event plugin. This plugin has a small notice on how to include a javascript to show entries.

Then, you can also do it with some PHP in your file, check out this:

http://www.s9y.org/78.html#A7

The "RSS-way" is also a way to go, much needs some more sophisticated knowledge with PHP to parse and display stuff using magie.

Everything you blog to serendipity is dynamically offered via RSS. SO you have that automatically, instantly.

HTH,
Garvin

[garvinhicking]

Hi Rob!

Because he needs to displaye the RSS feed outside the s9y blog; where he wants it, the s9y framework is not active