README

The FeedUpdater is a simple daemon for handling the automatic updating of
FeedTools feed objects.

 USAGE: feed_updater <subcommand>
 
 Subcommands:
   start
   stop
   restart
   install

The FeedUpdater daemon is very easy to use, especially if you're using it
with a Rails application.  If you're going to be using it with a Rails app,
simply install the feedupdater gem, navigate to your Rails app, and run
the 'feed_updater install' command.  This will install FeedUpdater.  Then
edit the feed_updater.yml config file as necessary.  You will probably need
to define a custom updater class, which should probably go in your lib
directory.  It's recommended that you use the example/custom_updater.rb file
as a starting point.  You should using the updater events to copy any
required fields to feed subscription tables or item tables as necessary so
that a full feed parse isn't required every time the feed is displayed.

The config file also has a start delay option.  This should almost always be
set to true.  You should only turn it off when you are debugging a custom
updater class, and it should probably never be turned off in production.
Keeping it on prevents FeedUpdater from hitting the CPU too hard immediately
after a server reboot, and also prevents hundreds of update processes from
kicking off simultaneously on a shared server.

If you chose to use FeedUpdater outside a Rails application, you should try
to use a similar directory structure to what would be found in a Rails
setup.  FeedUpdater will usually look in the current directory if it cannot
find a file its looking for though, so if FeedUpdater can't find a file it 
needs, changing directories will probably fix the problem.