Simple but powerful way to create interaction on your network.

Greetings,

I run a site called http://hhoinformation.com it is for hydrogen research. I had an issue where sometimes people would post a discussion but it would go unanswered. So I decided I needed to give members a way to preview content without having to click anything. It took me a while to put the pieces together but I realized our forums have an rss feed that works great and we have an rss viewer that works great so why not use them together. This was so simple I was suprised I had not seen this done allready so here goes.

Click your forum link
Where it says View: categories in the drop down select View: discussions.
You will now see that you have another drop down with more options default titled Sort by: Latest activity. Select Sort by: Newest discussions.
The page will refresh and if you scroll to the bottom you will see a RSS symbol. Click the RSS symbol it will look like this.
It will take you to a rss preview page copy the URL from that page
Go to your control panel in your network
Click features layout
Drag an rss box to your main page where ever you want to put it. click save at bottom.
Go to your home page.
Click edit on the rss box.
Title it to your liking I titled mine " Latest discussion preview"
Paste in your rss address that you coppied in step 5 into the URL; part of the RSS box.
In the display: section of your RSS box select Detail View.
In the Show section of your RSS box select 1
hit save

Now your site will automatically display a preview of the most recent discussion on your home page. It takes a few minutes for the rss feed to catch up so give it a bit to propigate the data out but it will work fairly fast and provide members who are hitting your site with a quick and engaging way of driving interaction.

Hope that helps!

Replies

Arnold Burian December 10, 2011 at 6:23am

That's a great idea. Leveraging all the RSS feeds available can really give your site a nice boost.
- gabet123 > Arnold Burian December 12, 2011 at 8:15am
  
  Thanks, I agree. I think since I run a private network and google only indexes what it can see which would be the front page it also might allow all the sites content to be indexed as it is loaded without having to unlock the network. I'm not an SEO so I'm not sure but I think it might work.
Patrick Chappelle December 10, 2011 at 12:17pm

You could grab the RSS feed from the RSS icon in your browser, it would save you time having to navigate. No?
- gabet123 > Patrick Chappelle December 12, 2011 at 8:08am
  
  Yes I guess you could if you have that option in your browser. I don't see it in IE unless you click on properties and grab it there. What browser are you using? Thanks!
NC for Hire

⚡JFarrow⌁ December 11, 2011 at 11:40am

Thunder is right, simply right click on the RSS icon and select "Copy link address" or "Copy Link Location" and then paste that link into the module as directed to save time
- gabet123 > ⚡JFarrow⌁ December 12, 2011 at 8:11am
  
  Or just take this link and add your domain name to it.
  
  http://YOURDOMAINAME.com/forum/topic/list?feed=yes&xn_auth=no
Arlan December 11, 2011 at 8:01pm

I used this and it works great. Thanks for the idea!
- gabet123 > Arlan December 12, 2011 at 8:12am
  
  Glad to here it! Can you post a link to your network so we can see it working?
gabet123 December 12, 2011 at 8:17am

Everytime I try and bring in other systems I find it slows the system down somewhat do you find this to be true with your network?
gabet123 December 16, 2011 at 4:22pm

If anyone is using this post a link to your network so we can see it in action. Thanks!