Headlines Plugin

Description

This plugin displays RSS and ATOM feeds from news sites. Use it to build news portals that show headline news.

Note: Syndic8.com ( http://www.syndic8.com/ ) is a good site listing many RSS feeds.

Syntax Rules

%HEADLINES{"..."}%

Parameter Explanation Default
"..." source of RSS feed; this can be an url (starting with http) or a web.topic location for internal feeds None; is required
href="..." (Alternative to above) N/A
refresh="60" Refresh rate in minutes for caching feed; "0" for no caching Global REFRESH setting
limit="12" Maximum number of items shown Global LIMIT setting
header Header. Can include these variables: - $channeltitle, $title: title of channel (channel.title)
- $channellink, $link: link of channel (channel.link)
- $channeldescription, $description: description (channel.description)
- $channeldate, $date: publication date of the channel (channel.pubDate)
- $rights: copyrights of the channel (channel.copyright)
- $imagetitle: title text for site (image.title)
- $imagelink: link for site (image.link)
- $imageurl: URL of image (image.url)
- $imagedescription: description of image (image.description)
Global HEADER setting
format Format of one item. Can include these variables:
- $title: news item title (item.title)
- $link: news item link (item.link)
- $description: news item description (item.description)
- $date: the publication date (item.pubDate, item.date)
- $category: the article category (item.category)
Global FORMAT setting

The header and format parameters might also use variables rendering the dc, image and content namespace information. Note, that only bits of interest have been implemented so far and those namespaces might not be implemented fully yet.

Rendering the dc namespace

The following variables are extracting the dc namespace info, that could be used in header and format. Nnote, that some of the variables are already used above. This is done by purpose to use different feeds with the same formating parameters. If there's a conflict the non-dc tags have higher precedence, i.e. a <title> content </title> is prefered over <dc:title> content </dc:title> .
  • $title: channel/article title (dc:title)
  • $creator: channel creator (dc:creator)
  • $subject: subject text; this will also add an image according to the subject hash list, see above (dc:subject)
  • $description: ... (dc:description)
  • $publisher: the channel/article publisher (dc:publisher)
  • $contributor: ... (dc:contributor)
  • $date: ... (dc:date)
  • $type: ... (dc:type)
  • $format: ... (dc:format)
  • $identifier: ... (dc:identifier)
  • $source: ... (dc:source)
  • $language: ... (dc:language)
  • $relation: ... (dc:relation)
  • $coverage: ... (dc: coverage)
  • $rights: ... (dc: rights)

Rendering the image namespace

An image:item is converted into an <img> tag using the following mappings:
  • src: image url (rdf:about attribute of the image.item tag)
  • alt: image title (title)
  • width: image width (image:width)
  • height: image height image:height)

Rendering the content namespace

The variable $content is refering to the <content:encoding> content </content:encoding>.

Examples

Write

%HEADLINES{"http://slashdot.org/slashdot.rdf" 
  header="*[[$link][$title]]:* $description" 
  format="$t* [[$link][$title]]"
}%
to get the latest Slashdot news as a bullet list format:

Write

%HEADLINES{"http://www.business-opportunities.biz/feed" limit="3"}%

to get the latest postings on the "Business Opportunities" weblog:

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:10:09 +0000
Opportunities, news, and links for small business entrepreneurs
Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:10:09 +0000 Rich Whittle
Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:00:27 +0000 Angela Shupe

12 years ago you might have recognized the name Bill Bartmann. He was on the richest lists with thanks to his debt collection company, Commercial Financial Services. After a serious scandal hit him and his business that is when everything began to go under reports Inc..

We started CFS in 1985. It was phenomenally successful and was a four-time Inc. 500 company. We also had a lot of fun. I once leased 27 Boeing 747 jets to fly our 3,900 employees and their guests to Disney World for a weekend. Another time, I dressed up like Caesar and was carried on a throne into a Las Vegas casino, where I then wrestled Hulk Hogan in front of 6,000 people. In 1997, I was called the 25th richest person in the U.S. Then I lost it all.

CFS ceased to operate after an associate of mine was convicted of a crime. Everything came to light after someone sent an anonymous letter to the credit rating agencies. When I confronted my associate about it, he didn’t deny it. He eventually went to prison for five years, but our reputation was ruined.

It got worse when the federal government decided to indict me on 58 felony counts. That’s a world-class problem. That’s not like having a bad-hair day or losing a deal with a customer. When the government indicts you, it’s calamity time.

Fortunately, Kathy and I mustered the courage and strength to deal with the adversity. I was innocent of the charges and refused to take the misdemeanor deal they were offering. I challenged them and went through a full-scale trial. Eventually, I was acquitted. I even received an apology from the government for prosecuting me, which rarely happens.

But I was bankrupt, and I wondered why all this bad stuff was happening to me. But what could I do? Blame someone else? Cry in my beer? It wasn’t the first time I had lost everything. I needed to find a way to crawl out from the hole I was in, to come back one more time.

I decided what I should be doing is teaching my story so that when other people suffer their own calamities, my experiences might encourage them. So, I wrote a book and started traveling on a speakers’ tour with people like Steve Forbes and Colin Powell. It was called the Get Motivated! tour. And so I stood onstage in front of 50,000 people and told my story.

Photo by Andrew Magill


Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:10:25 +0000 Rich Whittle

According to Website Magazine, e-commerce merchants who are still unsure of what consumers want this holiday season can direct their efforts toward providing user reviews, security verification and fair pricing. In a word, 2010 holiday shoppers are looking for online retailers they can trust.

That was the fundamental message from ChannelAdvisor's 2010 Consumer Shopping Habits Survey, the e-commerce solutions provider's third annual report to help merchants prepare for the holiday season.

An eye-opening 92-percent of the participating consumers said that they read product reviews, and nearly half admitted that reviews influence their purchasing decisions one way or the other.

Shoppers also listed the top three most influential promotions that drive purchases as best price, free shipping and trusted seller status, and the top three indicators of trust were security verification, user reviews and website design aesthetics.

Photo by ElvisFan76.


Plugin Settings

Plugin settings are stored as preferences variables. To reference a plugin setting write %<plugin>_<setting>%, for example, %HEADLINES_SHORTDESCRIPTION%

  • One line description, shown in the TextFormattingRules topic:
    • Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Build news portals that show headline news based on RSS news feeds from news sites.

  • Refresh rate in minutes for cached feeds. Disable caching: 0, default: 60
    • Set REFRESH = 60

  • Maximum number of items shown. Default: 100
    • Set LIMIT = 100

  • Use LWP::UserAgent, or fallback to TWiki's internal getUrl() method, Default: yes
    • Set USELWPUSERAGENT = yes
  • Timeout fetching a feed using the LWP::UserAgent, Default: 20
    • Set USERAGENTTIMEOUT = 20

  • Default header: (variables are explained in the syntax rules)
      * Set HEADER = <div class="headlinesChannel"><div class="headlinesLogo"><img src="$imageurl" alt="$imagetitle" border="0" />%BR%</div><div class="headlinesTitle">$n---+!! <a href="$link">$title</a></div><div class="headlinesDate">$date</div><div class="headlinesDescription">$description</div><div class="headlinesRight">$rights</div></div>
  • Default format of one item: (variables are explained in the syntax rules)
      * Set FORMAT = <div class="headlinesArticle"><div class="headlinesTitle"><a href="$link">$title</a></div>$n<span class="headlinesDate">$date</span> <span class="headlinesCreator"> $creator</span> <span class="headlinesSubject"> $subject </span>$n<div class="headlinesText"> $description</div></div>

Style sheets

The default HEADER and FORMAT settings use the following styles. See the style.css file defining the default CSS properties (indentation illustrates enclosure).

  • headlinesRss: output of the HeadlinesPlugin (div)
    • headlinesChannel: channel header (div)
      • headlinesLogo: channel logo (div)
      • headlinesTitle: channel title (div)
      • headlinesDate: channel date (div)
      • headlinesDescription: channel description (div)
      • headlinesRight: channel copyright (div)
    • headlinesArticle: one news item (div)
      • headlinesTitle: article title (div)
      • headlinesDate: article date (span)
      • headlinesCreator: author of article (span)
      • headlinesSubject: subect category of the article (span)
      • headlineText: article text (div)

Plugin Installation Instructions

  • Download the ZIP file
  • Unzip it in your twiki installation directory. Content:
    File: Description:
    data/TWiki/HeadlinesPlugin.txt plugin topic
    pub/TWiki/HeadlinesPlugin/style.css default css
    lib/TWiki/HeadlinesPlugin.pm plugin perl module
    lib/TWiki/HeadlinesPlugin/Core.pm plugin core
    Check if above examples show a news feed instead of variable.
  • Optionally, run HeadlinesPlugin_installer.pl to automatically check and install other TWiki modules that this module depends on. You can also do this step manually.
  • Alternatively, manually make sure the dependencies listed in the table below are resolved.
    NameVersionDescription
    Digest::MD5>=2.33Required. Download from CPAN:Digest::MD5
    LWP::UserAgent>=5.803Optional. Download from CPAN:LWP::UserAgent

Plugin Info

Plugin Author: TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny, TWiki:Main.MichaelDaum
Copyright ©: 2002-2006, Peter Thoeny; 2005-2007, Michael Daum http://wikiring.de
License: GPL (GNU General Public License)
Plugin Version: v2.12
Change History:  
13 Sep 2007: fixed parsing of content:encoded
23 Jul 2006: improved atom parser; if a posting has no title default to 'Untitled'
26 Apr 2006: added lazy compilation
10 Feb 2006: packaged using the TWiki:Plugins/BuildContrib; minor fixes
03 Feb 2006: off-by-one: limit="n" returned n+1 articles; make FORMAT and HEADER format strings more robust
23 Jan 2006: released v2.00
05 Dec 2005: internal feed urls must be absolute
02 Dec 2005: added web.topic shorthand for internal feeds
29 Nov 2005: fixed CDATA handling
21 Nov 2005: added ATOM support; extended RSS support; added dublin core support; added content support; optionally using LWP to fetch feeds to follow redirections; corrected CPAN dependencies ; recoding special chars from html integer to entity encoding to increase browser compatibility; added css support; use getWorkArea() if available
11 May 2005: TWiki:Main.WillNorris: added DevelopBranch compatability
31 Oct 2004: Fixed taint issue by TWiki:Main.AdrianWeiler; small performance improvement
29 Oct 2004: Fixed issue of external caching if mod_perl or SpeedyCGI is used
02 Aug 2002: Implemented caching of feeds, thanks to TWiki:Main/RobDuarte
11 Jun 2002: Initial version (V1.000)
Perl Version: 5.8
TWiki:Plugins/Benchmark: GoodStyle 100%, FormattedSearch 99.5%, HeadlinesPlugin 94%
Plugin Home: TWiki:Plugins/HeadlinesPlugin
Feedback: TWiki:Plugins/HeadlinesPluginDev
Appraisal: TWiki:Plugins/HeadlinesPluginAppraisal

-- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny - 11 May 2005
-- TWiki:Main.MichaelDaum - 13 Sep 2007

Topic revision: r0 - 27 May 2006 - 07:56:43 - TWikiContributor
 
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