Backstage RSS Ticker

Last Update - 17th February 2006 - Version 1.1 (bugfix)

The BBC Backstage RSS Ticker is a platform independent RSS ticker which sits on your desktop. The ticker offers the user complete customisation including colors, feeds, typing modes and more. This project was developed as I could not find any RSS ticker which simply rotated news on the desktop in a small window. The inspiration came from the BBC's original ticker application however this uses dated text based feeds, is limited to BBC content and is not platform independent.

The Backstage RSS Ticker is available as a Java application (JAR) for Windows, Linux and Mac. Whilst the application works with the Java Virtual Machine 1.4+ it is recommeded that the JRE v1.5 is used due to the advancements found within the latest release which include better mouse management, ability to specify the application stay above all others and more.

I can be contacted at ticker (at) webcoding.co.uk. If you would like to see more things added then please get in touch and I will attempt to add requests into new releases along with credit attached for the idea you make

For more BBC inspired products take a look at http://backstage.bbc.co.uk

Application details

The application is very small in size (12KB) and was produced in Java. It utilises the org.w3c DOM object handler for reading in both local and remote XML streams. This project is held in CVS and code was developed in Eclipse 3.1. All code is available under the GNU General Public License and more information on the license can be found at http://www.gnu.org

This application has been tested and found to work on Windows XP and 2000, Ubuntu Linux and Mac (Tiger) with the latest version of the Java JRE installed (1.5)

Downloads

Note: Whilst this program does work using JRE 1.4.2 or below you should have 1.5+ installed as 1.5 offers significant improvements. (http://www.java.com)

• v1.1 - BugFix - Version 1.1 Release - Bug Fix
  • Download v1.1 BugFix (ZIP)
  • Thanks to John Robinson for pointing out some problems here
  • • Fixed setLayout bug which occurs in newer java versions
    • Added in non fatal error if expected xml information is missing

• v1.0rc-4 - Fourth release Candidate for BBC Backstage -
  • Download v1.0rc-4 application (ZIP) or (RAR)- NEW Version (30/10/2005)
  • I'd like to add thanks to Martin and James Lay for their input / bug highlighting in this release.
  • Download v1.0rc-4 source - Unavailable yet - formatting, documentation and tidying (coming soon)
    • New: Includes starting x,y coordinates for specific placement on startup
    • New: Now parses description nodes which contain HTML
    • New: Type-writer mode now controls breaking news alerts too
    • New: Font size, color and face are now configurable for all elements of ticker
      
• Update - JAR Update Only If you are a new user, grab release below.
  • Download 1.0RC-2 JAR REPLACEMENT
  • Martin Sonntag noticed a reasonably good feature which was missing. Having the ability to specify the starting top left position is quite important. I've added this to the JAR and you should grab this if you want to use this feature. I will add a new build with everything incorperated shortly. You need to add the following to your XML file under the <preferences> node.
    • <startx>0</startx>
    • <starty>0</starty>
  • Martin also noted that for those of you trying this from behind a firewall the proxy settings dont tend to work through the main JVM config. The solution is to do the following (replace various areas of this with local system info):
  /usr/java/jre1.5.0_01/bin/java -Dhttp.proxyHost=yourproxy.com -Dhttp.proxyPort=0000 -jar /tmp/backstage-v1.0RC-2.jar

• v1.0rc-2 - Third release Candidate for BBC Backstage -
  • Download v1.0rc-2 application - Legacy Version
  • Download v1.0rc-2 source - Unavailable yet - formatting, documentation and tidying (coming soon)
    • New: Goto next and previous feeds (suggestion: Paul Veltman @ BS List)
    • New: Taskbar icon added (suggestion: Paul Veltman)
    • New: Preferences now allows for limiting RSS items displayed by specific keywords
    • New: Font color of RSS item can be altered (Suggestion: Paul Veltman)
    • New: Preferences allows for only showing RSS titles, not descriptions
    • New: Taskbar now always contains latest title (may need to remove time)

• v1.0rc-1 - Second release Candidate for BBC Backstage -
  • Download v1.0rc-1 application - Legacy version
  • Download v1.0rc-1 source - Unavailable yet - formatting, documentation and tidying (coming soon)
    • New: Minimise and Close now available as changeable image icons (suggestion: Paul Veltman @ BS List)
    • New: Bug fix for published time not closing brackets correctly (spotted: Paul Veltman @ BS List)
    • New: Now includes version checker
    • New: When minimised RSS story titles appear in the task bar (as much text as possible)
    • New: Dragging mechanism should be improved now

• v1.0rc - First release Candidate for BBC Backstage
  • Download v1.0rc application - Legacy
  • Download v1.0rc source - Latest version (appologies if some of the code lacks adequate documentation). If you develop your own based on this source please let me know and I'll add a link on from here.
    • New: Breaking news alerts from BBC now available
    • New: Typewriter mode
    • New: Specify item and feed delays
    • New: Specify color settings and font details
    • New: Added support for Linux URL calling (inc. Netscape and Firefox)

• v0.3 - Multi feed support. Enhanced configuration options (incl. typewriter mode for article output)
• v0.2 - Improved GUI design. Attached preferences file
• v0.1 - Initial Release
  

v1.0+ - Next release: Intended changes and enhancements

• Preferences should be editable by interface
• Allow for user to specify "show on new" option where only new stories are shown.
• Allow for natural resizing of application without having to set up preferences each time
• Allow users to specify a method for calling a URL. Allows for total platform flexibility and browser choice.