Chris Reich

Introduction
As well as integrating newsgroups and web forums, MPNews provides access for common blogging tools as well.

RSS and Atom feeds for your newsgroups
MPNews provides RSS 2.0 and Atom 1.0 format feeds for each of your newsgroups. The feeds include the full message text, along with references to any attachments they might contain.

The web templates supplied with MPNews provide links to these feeds by default. The URLs for each feed are:

 RSS feed
 /rss/newsgroup name
 Atom feed
 /atom/newsgroup name
The feeds use the ETag header where available to only send any new messages to each client to save on bandwidth.

Posting via blogging APIs
You can post new messages to your newsgroups using blogging tools that support any of the following methods:

 a.. Comment API
 b.. Blogger API
 c.. MetaWeblog API
 d.. Atom API
If you read the messages in your newsgroups using an RSS feed, that feed includes all the information required to post replies easily using the Comment API, and you shouldn't need to enter any special configuration information to get it to work.

To post messages using the Blogger, MetaWeblog or Atom APIs, you will need to enter a few details to tell your blogging tool where to post the messages to. You will need to enter the "end point" as "/blogger.api/newsgroup name" for the Blogger API, "metaweblog.api/newsgroup name" for the MetaWeblog API, "/atom0.3.api/newsgroup name" for the Atom 0.3 API and "/atom1.0.api/newsgroup name" for the Atom 1.0 API.

Downloading blog messages into your newsgroups
MPNews supports downloading messages from an RSS or Atom feed of another blog directly into your newsgroups. You can use this feature along with the normal news feeds options to aggregate messages from any number of sources.

To download the messages from another blog, log in to the main MPNews adminstration site and select the "Blogging" option. Click on "Feed List" then "Add New Feed" to create a new feed.

Enter a name for the feed, and select which newsgroup the messages should be placed in once downloaded. If required, enter a username and password that will be used when downloading the messages.

In the "Pull Feed" area, enter the URL that the RSS or Atom feed can be accessed at and click the "Auto Configure" button to allow MPNews to detect the rest of the settings. Check that it has correctly selected the format the feed is in. Currently, RSS 1, RSS 2, Atom 0.3 and Atom 1.0 format feeds are supported.

After clicking on OK, MPNews will check the feed every 30 minutes for new messages. Any messages it finds will be stored in the newsgroup you selected.

Posting newsgroup messages to your blog
As well as downloading messages from a blog to your newsgroups, MPNews also supports automatically posting any new messages you write in your newsgroups back to your blog.

If you have not already done so, create a new blog feed to download messages from your blog following the instructions above. Go to the "Push Feed" area to enter the details of how MPNews should post new messages to your blog.

In the Push Feed area, select the method which MPNews should use to post messages to your blog. Currently, MPNews supports using the Blogger API and Atom API to post messages.

Set the URL to the "end point" supplied by your blog host. Typically this is something like https://www.blogger.com/atom.

Set the "Blog ID" option to the name of the blog MPNews should post the messages to, and enter the username and password MPNews should use when posting the messages.

When you click on Save, any new messages you post to the newsgroup selected in the "Feed Details" area will also be posted to your blog. If you have entered the address of your RSS or Atom feed in the "Pull Feed" area, any new messages posted to your blog will also be downloaded to your newsgroup, keeping the two in sync.