Ever search the web for a tool that performs a specific function only to find all manner of things that just fall short? As you’re most likely aware I’m in the middle of “moving in” and am customizing WordPress as a result. Like anyone else, I wanted to put up a blogroll but found that WordPress didn’t do quite what I needed it to. Sure, it allowed me to import an OPML file with my feeds, but that meant that if I updated my aggregator (Bloglines) with a new feed I’d need to manually add its link to my WP link list as well. Not fun and definitely not efficient. I just wanted my WP blogroll to reflect what was in my aggregator. The other problem was that WP didn’t allow me to delete more than one link at a time. I found this out a couple of days into playing with WP and after I imported my OPML. I wasn’t pleased with the import and had to manually delete upwards of 100 links. Not fun.
Bloglines has a “share” feature whereby it shares your feed list—or a part of it—via a bit of JavaScript. But I wanted my links to be part of my markup and semantically correct—unfortunately the list that the Bloglines’ JS spits out is a series of divs.
So I searched the web for a plugin that would allow me to sync my aggregator’s feeds with WP. I found all kinds of gadgets that would randomly display a few links, or require you to keep a copy of your OPML locally until I came across BloglinesReader v0.1 by Coda Hale. This little gem does exactly what I need it to. It just goes and grabs my feed list and incorporates it wherever I want—in this case my links page. It even caches the list locally so I don’t kill my bandwidth quota or hit Bloglines every time someone hits my links page.
If you’ve got WordPress and use Bloglines for your feed reading, I strongly recommend BloglinesReader for your blogroll.
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