Configuring RSS Feeds

When you enable the RSS Feed feature on your Site Settings page, an RSS Feed icon will appear at the bottom of all sermon views and the sermon cover page. Clicking the icon takes the user to a page where they can subscribe to a feed of the most recent sermons you have added to your archive. A variety of one-click subscription methods are provided for iTunes and other podcasters that support one the following protocols:

* Universal Subscription Mechanism (USM)
* podcast://
* pcast://
* .pcast

An RSS 2.0-compatible feed is also provided for manual subscription.

By default, the feed includes all the sermons preached over the past five dates. If multiple sermons are preached on the same date, all are included in the feed for that date.  Example:  your church publishes two services per week. Your feed will contain 10 sermons (2 services each over the past 5 weeks.)

The number of dates can be customized by adding the following parameter to the feed URL:

-> @@&sermonsite_pagesize=[number_of_dates]@@

Where @@[number_of_dates]@@ is the number of publication-dates to include in the feed.  For example, if you publish sermons once a week and you set this number to @@10@@, your feed will include all the sermons published over the last 10 weeks.

The feed is populated with the information you have entered on your Site Settings page and the Sermon Publisher. The following fields are used:

* Site Settings fields:
** Church Name
** Church Sermon Page URL
** Technical Point-of-Contact
** RSS Multimedia file format'^1^'
** RSS Feed Image (see tutorial, below)
* Sermon fields:
** Title
** Preacher
** Date and Service Time
** Description
** Series/Topic
** Scriptures
** Sermon Multimedia file

'^1^' ''We recommend you select MP3 Audio for maximum compatibility. If there are multiple files with the same format for a sermon, the one with the highest bandwidth is used.''

!!!Replacing the Sermons Online "Open Book" Icon with Your Own Image

Be default, the image displayed with RSS feeds is the Sermons Online "open book" icon, 144 pixels square (see above, in the Sermons Online bar at the top of this page). You can substitute an image of your own choosing for this one. 

#Go to the EDIT SITE SETTINGS page of your account

#Scroll down to the SERVICE CONFIGURATION section of the page

#In the RSS FEED area, type or cut/paste the url address of the image you wish to use.
-->NOTE: Only JPG, GIF, and PNG image types are allowed.

#OPTIONAL: customize the size at which you wish the image to display by entering pixle numbers in the image Height and Width fields.
-->NOTE: For iTunes, the height and width settings are ignored. The image MUST be 1400 pixels square, and iTunes will scale it as required.

#Click SAVE

That's all there is to it. The image will now appear on your sermon page.

%frame bgcolor="lightblue"%If you need help with any of these steps, just [[https://www.sermonsonline.com/admin.htm|sign in]] to the Site Manager and open a '''Support Ticket'''

The feed contains all the sermons preached on the most recent day. For example, if you most recently published a Morning and an Evening service, the feed will contain two sermons.

!!!Specifications

You must pick a multimedia file format to include in the feed; we recommend you select MP3 Audio for maximum compatibility. If there are multiple files with the same format for a sermon, the one with the highest bandwidth is used.

Subscribers to your feed can link from a podcast to your sermon site. The Church Sermon Page URL in your Site Settings page is used as the link target. If this URL is not defined, then the subscriber will be shown a generic page of your sermons with the Sermons Online logo.

(1) Go to the EDIT SITE SETTINGS page of your account

(2) Scroll down to the SERVICE CONFIGURATION section of the page

(3) In the RSS FEED area, type or cut/paste the url address of the image you wish to use.
    NOTE: Only JPG, GIF, and PNG image types are allowed.

(4) OPTIONAL: customize the size at which you wish the image to display by entering pixle numbers in the image Height and Width fields.
   NOTE: For iTunes, the height and width settings are ignored. The image MUST be 1400 pixels square, and iTunes will scale it as required.

(5) Click SAVE

!!!Replacing the Sermons Online "Open Book" Icon with your own Image

REPLACING THE SERMONS ONLINE "OPEN BOOK" ICON WITH YOUR OWN IMAGE