Make automatic cuts in feeds

[mecurtin]

Title:
Make automatic cuts in feeds

Area:
Feeds

Summary:
Make it possible to force cuts in feeds (or other entries, but feeds in particular)

Description:
I've been consolidating my feeds on DW, and while some of them (e.g. http://alistapart-feed.dreamwidth.org/ ) use excerpts for their feeds, others (e.g. http://smashing-feed.dreamwidth.org/) do not. I know that the difference is in the way they've set up their feeds, but I'd like to be able to force cut tags for certain journals, or for a class of journals such as feeds.

Poll #3305 Make automatic cuts in feeds

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 45

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
19 (42.2%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
10 (22.2%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
6 (13.3%)

(I have no opinion)
8 (17.8%)

(Other: please comment)
2 (4.4%)

Comments

[feathertail]

Maybe just have feeds automatically cut off after a few hundred to a thousand words? In case of really, really long essays or something. That way it wouldn't require any user intervention.

(Are people allowed to do anything with feeds besides name them and create them, right now?)

[kyrielle]

I don't want this done across-the-board. I want it done, if it is done, by adding a class to it so that it can be styled via css. Because I like reading the full content of my feeds, and actually drop less-important feeds that only use summaries or teasers. I do not want to have to follow a link!

[zvi]

Feeds already have a class, both all feeds as a class and each feed individually.

However, crafting a 'show only so many ems of text' solution via CSS is actually not that easy, because it involves positioning.

Also, a cut affects what is actually loaded to the page, while CSS does not.

[mecurtin]

crafting a 'show only so many ems of text' solution via CSS is actually not that easy, because it involves positioning.

The easy way to do it would be by specifying a height for "page-read .journal-type-Y", and also overflow:hidden. That should roll them right up.

I shall test!

[zvi]

I confess, I have pretty much zero understanding of the overflow property, so possibly that would clear up all of the overlapping problems I've previously seen.

I do know that picking a really good minimum can be hard, because there are several different parts of an entry as displayed on a reading page. I wouldn't pick .journal-type-y as my class, without specifying that it's the entry text portion that I wanted to hide. I would want the entry links to remain visible, and probably to keep the title from taking up any of the restricted space.

[kyrielle]

My main objection to a cut is that a cut is applied to the data...and I don't want this feature. Option is a bad word but css isn't, so I was hoping css could answer this. I really don't want this feature for myself, in fact, it would be a drawback for me.

[feathertail]

This is a good point! One question I was trying to raise, though, is who'd do the CSS styling or whatnot? As far as I know, we don't really get to customize anything about feeds we create (although if that's not the case I wouldn't mind knowing about it!).

[zvi]

feeds already have classes, both a class of all feeds and a class per individual feed. Everyone has the ability to add CSS to their style to affect a feed.

It is quite true that individual styling is difficult; I haven't mastered it myself.

[mecurtin]

It is quite true that individual styling is difficult

?? I don't know, it seems wonderfully straightforward to me. Are you having problems with anything in particular?

I hadn't thought about using CSS to style feed display ... hmm. I'll give this a think.

[kyrielle]

I was assuming it would be applied to the css on the reading page of the person reading it. If you apply it to the feed, you are again imposing the choice on everyone who reads the feed...and I really REALLY don't want it. If it's just on people's reading pages via styling somehow, then those of us who want the full uncut text on our reading page will be able to get it (at least for those feeds courteous enough to supply it).

[holyschist]

I used to think I wanted to read the full content, until I subscribed to the Smashing magazine feed, which posts LONG, very image-heavy articles in their entirety.

So I'd at least like an option.

[kyrielle]

I have found with feeds that don't give the full content, I might as well unlist most of them. Following the link, especially if I'm reading on my phone but even if I am reading on my computer, is almost never worth it to me and I just don't bother. I loathe feeds that give only partial data and prefer full, uncut text - I will happily scroll past it but I do not want to have to open a new page.

A feed that had humongous articles would either (if I were largely interested) be fine by me, or (if I weren't) be off my list. But a feed that had humongous articles that gave only a teaser and had an off-site link would be off my list unless the data was so critical to me that I couldn't bear to take it off my list. The bar for that is very very high for things other than journals maintained by personal friends.

[holyschist]

That's why I would want it to be an option rather than forced on everyone across the board.

[zvi]

You can pretty easily stop displaying the images, by adding

.journal-example_feed img { display: none; }

to your layout at http://www.dreamwidth.org/customize/options?group=customcss

[holyschist]

Hmmm. That might help, although the articles themselves are still very long.

[holyschist]

Yeah, that helps (thanks!), but that's still 10 page-downs to get past the latest article without images, which is still pretty annoying.

[zvi]

Ah, no, I'm with kyrielle, I don't want my feeds cut off. I'm fine with someone else having the option to auto-cut, but I don't want it imposed. If I didn't want the whole entry, I would have unsubscribed the feed already.

[ratcreature]

+1

[jumpuphigh]

+1

[matgb]

Agreed. There are many ways to get feed truncated before they syndicate, if someone really wants it they can go to Pipes or Feedburner and do it themselves, I like my feeds full these days (used to be other way around, but I'm used to hitting spacebar now)

[zvi]

This is great if it's a per-user, per-feed option. It's terrible if it's applied across the board.

[cesy]

+1

[pseudomonas]

yup.

[the_shoshanna]

+1

[turlough]

+1

[draigwen]

+1

[poulpette]

+1

[livrelibre]

I would love having this option for myself. Right now I have a script installed that will let me collapse or delete them entirely but usually I just want to shorten it so it's not taking up my entire page.

[holyschist]

I don't know enough about the technical aspects to vote, but I have actually been considering dropping the Smashing feed because it is GINORMOUS and if I don't want to read right away, that's a lot of scrolling. So I'd like something.

[mecurtin]

Yup, that's the one that pushed me over the edge. And they're supposed to be *pros*.

[holyschist]

I know myself and I'm just too lazy to use an additional feed-reader besides DW.

Plus I'm trying to push myself more to comment on the non-DW/LJ blogs I read, so personally I wouldn't mind forcing myself to click through on everything.

[denise]

Just FYI for those who might be checking in on this: it's marked rejected because I think that this suggestion is a better way to handle it, since it's not just limited to feeds.