RSS Feed of Search Results

Hi,

There is only one thing that is preventing me from purchasing vBadvanced Gallery - I'd like to be able to stream an RSS feed of vBulletin (because I'm assuming vBadvanced Gallery works similarly) search results to dynamically-generated pages from an external database (e.g. an external database about cars -> search it for "Toyota" -> returns result set from the external database plus a stream of 5 photo thumbnails + links to vBadvanced Gallery, instead of returning the result set + a hyperlink that says "Click here to search our image gallery for Toyota".

Essentially, RSS image feeds like I mention above are possible right now with Flickr, but the images are posted on their servers and are hence unavailable to me for other applications.

I've posted my main query on vBulletin.org but I thought to also mirror it here in case there is interest or someone from here can address my question there.

Kind thanks.

*bump*

Sorry, but I am lost in the parentheticals. I think there is a parse error with an open parenthesis (, and my brain is caught in a loop.

Maybe a specific example would be helpful. I don't know why you are returning XML containing thumbnails to the Gallery, where presumably they originated?

Regards,

Matt

I'll be happy to clarify - and you're right about the extra open parenthetical.

Essentially, my large-scale problem is this: I'm responsible for several data repositories, each with its own interface (web site). The data sets are mildly related, but cannot be stored in one database. These data sets include vB and potentially vBadvanced Gallery.

However, I would like to have an umbrella site that can query and pull data from the disparate databases including vBadvanced Gallery. As an example, if I search for "Toyota" on "toyotamegasearch.com", my results page might yield:

5 recent discussions on "Toyota" in the "Letstalkabouttoyota.com" message boards:

1. toyotas are cool (link to thread)
2. ... 5.

5 recent images about "Toyota" in the "Letstalkabouttoyota.com" image galleries:

1. toyota corolla (link to thread) + a thumbnail of the post
2. ... 5.

15 results from "toyotasecretwarrantydb.org":

1. replace muffler on toyota tercel (link to search result)
2. ... 15.

and so on...

+++

Result sets 1 and 2 would theoretically be pulling info from vB and vB gallery from the "hoped-for" search results as XML feed, while the third result is from a standalone database. With what comes out of the box, the above generally looks like the following:

+++

Click here to search the "Letstalkabouttoyota.com" message boards" for "Toyota"

Click here to search the "Letstalkabouttoyota.com" image galleries for "Toyota"

15 results from "toyotasecretwarrantydb.org":

1. replace muffler on toyota tercel (link to search result)
2. ... 15.

+++

To me, getting the search results as an XML feed means they become portable - with an effective XML parse and cache system, I can pull them into a suite of other applications and web sites.

Let me give a smaller-scale example / application:

Say I visit your vBadvanced Gallery and I'm only interested in images on a certain topic - perhaps you run a Harry Potter fan site where people can post their art, and I'm only interested in hippogriff drawings. Conventionally, I have to visit your site every so often and search for hippogriff to see if anything's new. What I'm hoping for is an XML feed of the search results, so I can search for hippogriff once, get the resultant XML feed, put it in my RSS reader and know at a glance every day when I check with RSS Reader for updates whether any new images have been added that day (and a small thumbnail to see if it is my favourite line art drawing or my least favourite watercolour).

I hope that clarifies. I'm not necessarily looking for the functionality to be added as part of the vBadvanced Gallery package, though it'd be nice, but rather for tips / pointers / being-told-I'm-silly-to-suggest-it as I request on vb.org.