=== RSS Just Better === Contributors: stefsoton Donate link: http://www.stefaniamarchisio.com/donations/ Tags: RSS, Atom, feed, XML, syndication, syndicate, syndicating, news, widget, shortcode Author URI: http://www.stefaniamarchisio.com Plugin URI: http://www.stefaniamarchisio.com/rss-just-better-plugin-for-wordpress/ Requires at least: 2.8 Tested up to: 3.4.1 Stable tag: 0.8 A customizable list of RSS or Atom feed's items given the URL's feed and optionally no. of items, keyword(s) & cache refresh frequency. [RM] == Description == It displays a list of feed items from a given feed URL. You can select cache recreation frequency, the number of displayable news and whether you want publication date, time, an excerpt and reference to the author displayed or not. You can also choose to have a ordered (numbered) or unordered (bullet-point) list and to open a new windows or not, when clicking on the linked items. == Installation == 1. The easiest way is: from Plugins of your wordpress administration, select "Add new", search for "RSS just better" into the search text-box then click on 'Install' (on the right) when prompted with this plugin OR you can download this plugin from [wordpress repository](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/RSS-just-better/), unzip it (a directory with 2 files will be extracted) and upload it to the '/wp-content/plugins/' directory of your wordpress 3. Activate the plugin through the Plugins->Installed Plugins menu in your WordPress administration 4. Use it! (see Usage in Other Notes) == Frequently Asked Questions == = Why the heck would I need/want it? = It provides the latest items of any rss or atom feed on the Internet: can you imagine what boost of traffic it can bring to your blog? Let's pretend you write about volleyball, knitting or lactose-intolerance. You just need to enter the relevant feed in the feed URL and wait for it to display the latest items on your subject. = Hey, I cannot find any configuration page in 'Settings'! How do I use it? = As a widget, you drag & drop the widget to any widget-ready area of your theme; open and complete the widget form and click on the 'Save' button. Close the widget if you want. Check your wp site now. As a shortcode, choose the post or page you want your feed items to be displayed into, selecte HTML mode (IMPORTANT!) - and enter your shortcode as explained in Usage (in Other Notes). == Screenshots == 1. Widget Form with initial values 2. Shortcode with all default attributes == Changelog == = 0.8 = * New Feature: Being able to truncate/limit the title to entered n chars * New Feature: Being able to choose the date format * New Feature: Being able to choose the time format * New Feature: Being able to sort the feed items by title (instead of the default date/time) * Change: "Link to author" in widget form becomes "Link to the Plugin Homepage" * Change: the window showing on mouseover is limited to 400 char * Change: optimised function to retrieve feed and format list * Bug Fix: fixed the plugin homepage URI in readme.txt file = 0.7 = * Bug Fix: The [...] in the excerpt linked to the description and not to the URL of the linked item/article [Thx ] * Bug Fix: "Num. of News" in widget form becomes "No. of Items" * Bug Fix: Fixed the shortcode example in readme.txt as contained syntax errors [Thx Wayne] * Bug Fix: The strings for titles and excerpts were not properly formatted for display on screen [Thanks Mary Ann] * Change: Improved documentation for page Other Notes = 0.6 = * New feature: the user is able to set the cache refresh time both in the widget form and the shortcode * Change: Replaced old email address (mywizardwebs@) with new (stefonthenet@) * Change: Added the plugin version number in the "Powered from" line at the botton * Change: Author URI, Plugin URI added to readme.txt file * Change: Improved description of sample shortcode * Fixed bug: Boolean variables were not properly tested and caused some inconsistent views when the plugin was used as a shortcode = 0.5 = * Added attribute "filter" to include or exclude given words * Changed footer's author link to the plugin homepage * Set attribute Charex default value to 150 so that if excerpt is true, an excerpt is automatically displayed (for 150 chars). * Changed attribute num default value to 5 * Enclosed shortcode in a class (it seems attribute feed collided with wordpress since 3.2) = 0.4 = * Made Date & Time formats (when selected) as those defined in wordpress settings page * Made linkable title opening in new/same window according to widget selection * Added attributed "title" and "link" to shortcodes too * Made link for title as an image to an RSS cube * Used fetch_feed as feed farser function (the other was not compatible with all the PHP server installations) * Made code DHTML compatible (hopefully) = 0.3 = * Made it fully compatible with Atom 1.0 * Added proper error messages for: empty, non-existing URLs and invalid/misformatted feeds content * Added defaults for target and list (widget fields) * Added instruction to hide Warnings from the xmlsimple_load_file function * Fixed a bug which prevented proper display of description/summary with tags = 0.2 = * Fixed a bug which prevented the shortcode to show feeds from URLs containing & and = * Made it fully compatible with RSS version 0.92, 2.0, 2.0.1 where link and title might be omitted * Made the widget title linkable to the feed URL * Used the native PHP class simpleXML instead of the Wordpress feed parser (Magpie) = 0.1 = * First release. Originating from google-news-widget plugin == Upgrade Notice == = 0.5 = * Added attributed "filter" to include or exclude the given words = 0.4 = * Made Date & Time formats (when selected) as those defined in wordpress settings page * Made linkable title opening in new/same window according to widget selection * Added attributed "title" and "link" to shortcodes too * Made link for title as an image to an RSS cube * Used fetch_feed as feed farser function (the other was not compatible with all the PHP server installations) * Made code DHTML compatible (hopefully) = 0.3 = * Made it fully compatible with Atom 1.0 * Added proper error messages for: empty, non-existing URLs and invalid/misformatted feeds content = 0.2 = * Fixed a bug which prevented the shortcode to show feeds from URLs containing & and = * Made it fully compatible with RSS version 0.92, 2.0, 2.0.1 where link and title might be omitted * Made the widget title linkable to the feed URL = 0.1 = * First release. Originating from google-news-widget plugin == Usage == = Usage As a widget = * in Appearance - > Widgets of your wp administration, drag & drop the RSS Just Better widget to any widget-ready area of your wp; * Now, complete the widget form: enter a title to be given to your items list; ** Enter the rss or atom feed (the URL) of the items you wish to display; ** Enter enter any keyword which needs to be present or excluded in the titles of the choosen feed's items. (*) ** Choose whether you want the widget title linkable to the feed (URL) or not; ** Choose whether you want a publication date/time, excerpt (and for how many char) or not; ** Select whether you want a dotted list (default) or a numbered/ordered list; ** Select whether you want the linked items to open up in a new page (default) or in the same page; ** Choose whether you allow this plugin's author footer to be displayed or not (please, say yes); ** Click on 'Save' (and 'Close' the widget form, if you want). = Usage as a Shortcode = * In Posts/Pages->Add New or Edit of your wp adminstration, select the HTML tab in the entry form; * enter the following: [RSSjb feed="replace-with-the-rss-or-atom-feed's-URL-you-wish-to-display"] That's the sole mandatory attribute. Optional attributes are: * filter: enter any keyword which needs to be present or avoided in the titles of the choosen feed's items. (*) * num: number of items to be displayed (default: 3) (**); * list: either "ul" or "ol" to get unordered or ordered lists (default: "ul"); * target: either "_blank" or "_self" to get links opened in a new or the same window (default: "_blank"); * pubdate: either true or false to display the publication date/not (default: false); * pubtime: either true or false to display the publication time/not (default: false); * dformat: customized date format (default: none. None displays the wp standard date format); * tformat: customized time format (default: none. None displays the wp standard time format); * pubauthor: true/false whether you allow this plugin's author footer to be displayed or not (please, say yes) (default: "_blank"); * excerpt: either true or false to display the excerpt/not (default: false); * charex: limit the number of the ecerpt chars to be displayed (default: 150); * chartle: limit the number of the title chars to be displayed (default: none); * title: items list title (default: none); * link: either true if the title is linked to the XML feed or false (default: false); * sort: either true to display the list in alphabetic order (title) or false to display in reverse date/time order (default: false); * cachefeed: cache refresh for the feed (in seconds) (default: 3600 => 1h); (*) Notes on 'filter' attribute: 1. You can enter one of more words to be able to select your feed's items by keyword. So if you write "foo bar" you will INCLUDE ONLY those titles where ANY of the two word(s) is present and if you write "-foo -bar" you will EXCLUDE ALL those titles where any of the two words is present instead. 2. You can also mix inclusive and exclusive terms as in "foo -bar" of course (it will include only titles with "foo" and without "bar".) 3. Search is case insensitive and searches for keywords in the titles only. 4. Wildshars, quotes and boolean are not enabled for this search. (**) Note on 'num' attribute: The maximum number of displayable articles/items depends on the number of articles stored into the XML page (RSS/Atom feed page) of the website you want to syndicate (i.e. if you wish to display the latest 15 items and the XML page contains 10 items only, then only 10 items will be displayed). Example of shortcode with all attributes and default values: [RSSjb feed="http://feeds.feedburner.com/StefaniasBlog" filter="" num="5" list="ul" target="_blank" pubdate="false" pubtime="false" dformat="" tformat="" pubauthor="true" excerpt="false" charex="150" title="" link="false" sort="false" cachefeed="3600"] == The Future == * images view * search for description too (new attribute) * integration with google news(?) == Interaction == * Would you like to see a new feature in this plugin? Please write me here: stefonthenet@gmail.com; * Would you like to see a broken/orphan plugin working again? Write me anyhow, I might (hey, MIGHT) find the time to give it a look.