Today I put out an incremental release, FeedWordPress v. 2011.1019, which is now available for download.

This release was intended mainly to provide a quick fix for a problem that some users encountered after installing yesterday’s release, 2011.1018. Users whose web hosting environments have the curl module for PHP installed got an important new feature — the ability to set usernames and passwords on feeds to use with HTTP Basic or HTTP Digest authentication. Users who didn’t have the curl module unfortunately got a bug, which caused error messages like “WP HTTP Error: There are no HTTP transports available which can complete the requested request.” to pop up. If you’ve been seeing an error message like that, this release should hopefully fix your problem.

While I had my hands in the code, I went ahead and did some general work to improve the interface and better generalize the HTTP authentication feature for users who do not have the curl module installed. (Most web hosts install it, but not all.) You should hopefully now find the process of adding an authenticated feed much more natural: just put the URL into the Subscribe box and tell FeedWordPress to check it out; when FWP detects that the feed requests login credentials, it will come back and suggest that you enter a username and password before subscribing. When you enter the credentials and re-check the feed, FeedWordPress will allow you to subscribe and immediately set up those credentials for future feed updates. I hope it should all be fairly straightforward, but if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

Here’s the official changelog for this release:

• BUGFIX: “THERE ARE NO HTTP TRANSPORTS AVAILABLE” ERROR FIXED: The initial
  support for HTTP Basic and Digest authentication in version 2011.1018
  contained a bug that could cause HTTP requests for feeds or for other
  WordPress resources to break down if you do not have the PHP curl module
  installed. This bug has been fixed, and these errors should no longer
  appear.

• IMPROVED HTTP AUTHENTICATION SUPPORT: In addition, the HTTP Authentication
  support in FeedWordPress has been extended, to ensure that Basic
  authentication is available in many web host configurations, and to allow
  you to add a username and password for a feed immediately when you
  subscribe to it.

As always, if you notice any problems, have any questions, need any help, or just want to say “Hi,” don’t hesitate to drop me a line via e-mail or through the comment form.

Please remember that your ongoing gifts to the project tip jar, besides being immensely kind, and very much appreciated, are also what make it possible for me to take out the time for ongoing development, timely fixes, and support for the FeedWordPress project.

Now get on out there and check out the new release.

FeedWordPress is an open-source Atom/RSS aggregator for the WordPress blog publishing platform. You set up feeds that you choose, and FeedWordPress syndicates posts from those sources into your WordPress posts table, where they can be displayed by your WordPress templates like any other post — but with additional meta-data, so that your templates can properly attribute the post to the source it came from.

FeedWordPress was originally developed because I needed a more flexible replacement for Planet to use at Feminist Blogs. You can use FeedWordPress to create aggregator (Planet) sites that bring together posts from many different sources, using the WordPress templating engine to display posts from all around the web. Or you can use it to bring together all your online activity from your blog, Twitter, Flickr, or other online services, into a Lifestream with all your online activity in one place.

FeedWordPress is designed with flexibility, ease of use, and ease of configuration in mind. You’ll need a working installation of WordPress or WordPress MU (version 3.0 or later), and also FTP or SFTP access to your web host. You don’t need to tweak any plain-text configuration files and you don’t need access to shell or crontab on your web host to make it work. (Although, I should mention, web hosts that don’t offer shell access and cron jobs are bad web hosts.)