RSS data source - update frequency

(Anthony) #1

I've been looking at the RSS Data Source as a way to pull in some dynamic content we want to show on our site. I've got it working fine, and I see a few shadow assets underneath it. I plan to setup an asset listing that formats those appropriately and then nest that into some of my pages.

 

But I cannot see anything in the documentation that tells me how often Squiz will go and regenerate those shadow assets. I was expecting to find a "refresh interval" or similar option on one of the configuration screens.

 

Does anyone have an idea how its meant to work? I wouldn't want it pulling the data with every page visit as it would probably slow down page load times way too much, but at least once every few hours would be nice.

 

Squiz version 4.4.2 if that makes any difference (but upgrading soon I hope!)

(Joel Porgand) #2

I've been looking at the RSS Data Source as a way to pull in some dynamic content we want to show on our site. I've got it working fine, and I see a few shadow assets underneath it. I plan to setup an asset listing that formats those appropriately and then nest that into some of my pages.

 

But I cannot see anything in the documentation that tells me how often Squiz will go and regenerate those shadow assets. I was expecting to find a "refresh interval" or similar option on one of the configuration screens.

 

Does anyone have an idea how its meant to work? I wouldn't want it pulling the data with every page visit as it would probably slow down page load times way too much, but at least once every few hours would be nice.

 

 

I think it'll pull every time the matrix cache for the asset is refreshed. Either set up some custom cache settings for the asset in the 'root node specific' part of the cache manager so its cache expires more often, or use the cache manager to set up a refresh cache job to run every few hours.

 

If your end users are going to be visiting multiple times in a day & you want them to see the fresh content then you'll need to make sure to set the "browser cache expiry" to something fairly low as well or else they'll probably just end up with the same page they saw earlier (depending on their own cache settings).

(Luke Wright) #3

Hi there,

 

 

I think it'll pull every time the matrix cache for the asset is refreshed. Either set up some custom cache settings for the asset in the 'root node specific' part of the cache manager so its cache expires more often, or use the cache manager to set up a refresh cache job to run every few hours.

 

This is correct, indeed this is a generic feature of our various Data Source assets - we use the Matrix Cache Manager to store Data Source results once they are initially loaded, so it doesn't hit the underlying source every single time the asset's accessed. However, to get the benefit of this, the Cache Manager has to be enabled first.

 

Once enabled, normally Data Source assets will expire in the default expiry time on the Cache Manager's details screen (default: 86400 seconds, or 1 day), but as said above, you can change this with a root node or type code-specific setting inside Cache Manager. Naturally, with most RSS feeds having usage policies expecting you to pull no more often than once-an-hour, I wouldn't recommend going below an expiry time of 3600 on RSS Data Source assets, but you can tune it to your needs otherwise.

 

Hope this helps.

(Anthony) #4

Thanks guys, thats really helpful.

 

If anyone who edits the manuals is reading this it could I suggest adding a couple of sentences to explain the link to the cache timing as I'm sure I studied very carefully and didnt see it anywhere.

Cheers

Anthony