Walking around Drupal 7 Views RSS Feeds channel image restrictions

I have been playing with Views RSS module (7.x). I found this is really robust and versatile to create a RSS feed easily from Drupal contents. I never worked with RSS before and it is good to pick up the W3 specifications and all.

One of the kinks (well, it is not really) I had was to follow the channel image specification: https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html#ltimagegtSubelementOfLtchannelgt

In there, it only allows:

• Maximum value for width is 144, default value is 88.
• Maximum value for height is 400, default value is 31.

However, I had to increase the image size for some reason. The Views RSS module conveniently has some hooks. By this, I could easily extend and custormize RSS feeds.

Hooks for defining new namespaces, <channel> and <item> elements, and date sources:

• hook_views_rss_namespaces()
• hook_views_rss_channel_elements()
• hook_views_rss_item_elements()
• hook_views_rss_date_sources()

Hooks for altering definitions provide:

• hook_views_rss_namespaces_alter(&$namespaces)
• hook_views_rss_channel_elements_alter(&$elements)
• hook_views_rss_item_elements_alter(&$elements)
• hook_views_rss_date_sources_alter(&$date_sources)

Hooks for processing admin configuration form:

• hook_views_rss_options_form_validate($form, &$form_state);
• hook_views_rss_options_form_submit($form, &$form_state);

In my case, it only takes two hook functions. In the modules:

/**
* Implements hook_views_rss_channel_elements().
*
* Add a new RSS Channel field for adding a new image
*/
function MODULE_views_rss_channel_elements() {
  $elements['custom_image'] = array(
'title' => t('My Custom Image'),
'description' => t('It replaces the above Core Image for the feed.
Please leave the Core Image field empty when inserting and updating.'),
);
  return $elements;
}

/**
* Implements hook_views_rss_options_form_validate().
*
* Walk around the RSS Channel image restriction (144 X 400)
*/
function MODULE_rss_options_form_validate($form, &$form_state) {
  if (!empty($form_state['values']['style_options']['channel']['core']['my_custom']['custom_image'])) {
  $form_state['values']['style_options']['channel']['core']['views_rss_core']['image'] =
  $form_state['values']['style_options']['channel']['core']['my_custom']['custom_image'];
  }
}