RSS Feeds for DeviantART Notifications
I thought it would be handy if I could get the various DA notifications (deviantWATCH, new comments on your deviations, etc) as a RSS feed, so I created a PHP script that can log into a DA account and generate the feed. It creates three feeds -
- New deviations from your deviantWATCH (with thumbnails!).
- Messages (e.g. journal entries, comments on your deviations, etc).
- All of the above.
This way you can add the feed(s) to a feed reader and be notified automatically when there’s something new in your DeviantART account. It also saves time, as you don’t need to log in just to check for new messages.
You can download the script and set it up on your own site (you will need a server that has PHP 5 and cURL). See “readme.txt” included in the archive for detailed installation instructions.
If you don’t have a site and don’t feel like investing $6 (or so) in some shared hosting, take a look at DAFeed.w-shadow.com. This is where I’ve set up a modified version of the script that can handle multiple users. You can create a feed for your DeviantART account just by filling two text fields and clicking a button.
The downside is there’s no warranty it won’t go down randomly and without prior notice 
June 25th, 2008 at 11:44 am
i’ve got this error:
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘&’, expecting T_VARIABLE or ‘$’ in the_dir/includes/dauser.php on line 140
June 25th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
You probably have an old version of PHP. The script requires PHP 5.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Yep, you’re right. It’s 4.4.7..
June 25th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Now I am with PHP5 and it’s working.
Thanks.
June 25th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
I’m glad you got it sorted out.
June 25th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Yep, this is much needed! DA is one of the slowest websites, they stay in the stone age and never change with the times.
June 25th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
I wouldn’t really expect websites to become faster “with the times”. The trend seems to be towards more embedded media (large files), which obviously slows down browsing.
Personally, I wrote the script because with my crappy connection loading the image-heavy DA takes forever. This way I can put the script on my server (which has an uplink that’s an order of magnitude faster) and only download the few kilobytes of the RSS feed once in a while.
July 8th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Are there any free host’s I could set this up on?
July 8th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
There probably are. Google “free php hosting” and see what comes up.
August 9th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Thank you for this! I’ve been looking for a DA RSS feed solution for a while. Also, I was looking at your PHP, and your comments are really nice and thorough!
August 9th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Thanks