Read Some Stuff

• Custom Website Design and Development
• Logo Creation and Branding
• No Page Reloads
• Drag and Drop Outlets
• Site Traffic Analytics
• SimplePie RSS Feed Manipulation
• Advanced Customization Options
• Google Adwords

The Need

Read Some Stuff was initially conceived to replace a basic RSS (real simple syndication) system that had been build by Pacific Custom Webs to pull news that was being used in a variety of other sites that we run.  After working with these various other tools it was decided to expand these into a website that would be available to the public and function as a customizable RSS reader.  The goal was to be able to serve the technical people who were quite familiar with RSS feeds and were looking for a reader which would allow them some advanced options, while at the same time having tools that could allow non-technical people to find news and information without a knowledge of RSS feeds at all.  All this was to be done allowing the user to have flexibility in the layout of their news, and great control over exactly what was important to them.

The Solution

Pacific Custom Webs implemented a structure using jquery, which allowed us to create outlets that could be dragged and dropped into any location on the screen by the users.  This also allowed for the system to function completely without page reloads.  This saves the user time and provides a very smooth and clean interface.  The user is given options regarding the colors used on the site, number of columns, width of screen, as well as, complete control over the news they see.

A third party open source tool called SimplePie was used to help read RSS feeds in a variety of formats and allow for further data manipulation by our system.  Users are given options to enter urls directly, choose from existing feeds setup by other users of the system, or pull feeds automatically from a collection of predefined websites.  In addition, the user has control over the time period they wish to see news for, the ability to limit based on keywords in the news, and the total number of items they wish to see from a particular RSS feed source.

Speed of loading this amount of information from a variety of sites was a concern, so again using some advanced techniques, the page is loaded in such a way that the slowest item on the page will not effect the fastest item from loading.