Quick-Start Guide

Requirements

You will need:

• Python 2.5 or later
• Universal Feed Parser - Included in the extlib directory, so you don't need to do anything unless you want a different version from http://www.feedparser.org
• ConfigObj - Included in the extlib directory, so you don't need to do anything unless you want a different version from http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/configobj.html

In other words, you just need Python.

Optional

To use XMPP support, you need xmpppy. On Debian-based distros this is packaged as python-xmpp.

Installation

Download and unpack the latest version from the Downloads page.

Basic setup

First create a copy of the sample configuration file, sample.config. Then edit the file and change the settings as required. There is a lot of help in the file itself, and also more detail on the ConfigFiles page.

With your new config file (e.g. my.config) set up, you can run feed2omb like this:

python feed2omb.py --update --test my.config

This won't actually post anything, but it will tell you what would happen. If it all looks ok, you can run the same command again without the --test:

python feed2omb.py --update my.config

If you don't want to post all the older entries from the feed when you first set it up, you can use the --eat option to get rid of some.

Scheduling

Once everything is set up correctly, you can set up a cron job to run the above command at an appropriate interval.