Modules to do ____

An RSS parser that posts the items as posts/blog posts/something similar.

Leech module or similar. Been a while since I did this, maybe leech is dead or better module has taken its place. Maybe there is a Simplepie based module that could do this also.

Wordpress-like url rewriting. (Category/article name or category/id-article_name).

Pathauto module.

Some way to make the main page show an article, in full, rather than just a snippet. Right now I'm using "default front page" but it only shows a snippet and links to the article. I'd rather it show the entire article without the link and without forwarding to the article.

Views module.

Show latest (blog) posts in a block?

Blog module has a block that does this out of the box(?), else use Views.

You might try http://drupalmodules.com, it's the same modules as listed here but the search interface is a bit more user friendly.

In any case, here's some info:

An RSS parser that posts the items as posts/blog posts/something similar.

There's some built in rss capability at admin/content/rss-publishing. For more control of rss feeds you can use the views and contemplate modules.

EDIT: i just realized after reading the other reply that i read this wrong. See the feedapi module.

Wordpress-like url rewriting. (Category/article name or category/id-article_name)

Built-in to core-- simply enable the "path" optional core module. If you'd like to automate the creation of the aliases based on tokens, use the pathauto module.

Some way to make the main page show an article, in full, rather than just a snippet. Right now I'm using "default front page" but it only shows a snippet and links to the article. I'd rather it show the entire article without the link and without forwarding to the article.

What exactly have you entered at "default front page"? When i specify a node there (ie node/1) i get the entire node including comments.

Show latest (blog) posts in a block?

I can't remember if there's one that's part of core, if you don't see anything you want at
admin/build/block, you can create blocks of all kinds of node listings with the views module.

===
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Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." -- Lao Tzu
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Thanks.
One more question... I'm new to Drupal, but is there a way to automatically generate links for all items in a category, inside of a node (Say a page, for instance), or a module to do so?

Edit: Just tried to set 'default front page' in 'site information' again, and it keeps reseting back to 'node'. I'm trying to make it 'node/4'