The WP-RSS-Import plugin lets you include an RSS feed into the text of one of your posts or pages.  The plugin is highly configurable, and you can use it in your sidebar as well. RSS-Import provides an easy to use shortcode interface that accepts parameters to control how your feed is displayed.

The following parameters are available:

1. display – How many items, Default is 5
2. feedurl – Feed-Adress, Default is http://bueltge.de/feed/
3. before_desc – string before description, Default is empty
4. displaydescriptions – (bool) true or false for display description of the item, Default is false
5. after_desc – string after description, Default is empty; you can use the follow strings for custom html %title% for title of entry and %href% for link of entry
6. html – (bool) display description include HTML-tags, Default is false
7. truncatedescchar – truncate description, number of chars, Default is 200, set the value to empty '' for non truncate
8. truncatedescstring – string after truncate description, Default is ...
9. truncatetitlechar – (int) truncate title, number of chars, Default is empty, set a integer 50 to the value for truncate
10. truncatetitlestring – string after truncate title, Default is ' ... '
11. before_date – string before date, Default is <small>
12. date – (bool) return the date of the item, Default is false
13. after_date – string after the date, Default is </small>
14. date_format– your format for the date, leave empty for use format of your WordPress installation, alternativ give the php date string, Example: F j, Y; see also doku in Codex
15. before_creator – string before creator of the item, Default is <small>
16. creator – (bool) return the creator of th item, Default is false
17. after_creator – string after creator of the item, Default is </small>
18. start_items – string before all items, Default is <ul>
19. end_items – string after all items, Default is </ul>
20. start_item – string before the item, Default is <li>
21. end_item – string after the items, Default is </li>
22. target – string with the target-attribut, Default is empty; use blank, self, parent, top
23. rel – string with the rel-attribut, Default is empty, use string, nofollow, follow
24. desc4title – Use description for the title-attribut on the title-link, Default is false
25. charsetscan – Scan for charset-type, load slowly; use this for problems with strings on the return content, Default is false
26. debug – activate debug-mode, echo the array of Magpie-Object; Default is false, Use only for debug purpose
27. before_noitems – HTML or string before message, when the feed is empty, Default is <p>
28. noitems– Message, when the feed is empty, Default is No items, feed is empty.
29. after_noitems – HTML or string before message, when the feed is empty, Default is </p>
30. before_error – HTML or string before message, when the feed have an error, Default is <p>
31. error – Errormessage, Default is Error: Feed has a error or is not valid
32. after_error – HTML or string before message, when the feed have an error, Default is </p>
33. paging – Pagination on, set TRUE, Default is FALSE
34. prev_paging_link – Linkname for previous page, Default is « Previous
35. next_paging_link – Linkname for next page, Default is Next »
36. prev_paging_title – Title for the link of previous page, Default is more items
37. next_paging_title – Title for the link of next page, Default is more items
38. use_simplepie– Use the class SimplePie for parse the feed; SimplePie is include with WordPress 2.8 and can parse RSS and ATOM-Feeds, Default is false
39. view – echo or return the content of the function RSSImport, Default is true; Shortcode Default is false

You don’t need to worry about all this, but it is available.  Simple use cases only require a couple parameters.  See the image on the right for a simple shortcode implementation.  In this one I want to see at most 10 posts, I want to see some of their content (900 characters), and the output will be html.  This is probably sufficient for most uses, but there are many other configurations possible.