More for my personal Wordpress Wiki, but I can’t believe I didn’t share this before.
I’m sure you’ve seen the front page of donburnside.com or even the Motoringfile News Room. I built both of them using features built into Wordpress and nothing else. How did I do it?
Start by checking out this page at the Codex.
Retrieves an RSS feed and parses it. Uses the MagpieRSS and RSSCache functions for parsing and automatic caching and the Snoopy HTTP client for the actual retrieval.
If you scroll down the page a little bit there is an example of what you need to get things working. In my testing, I started with that as a base and modified it for how I needed it to look and work. Once you get it working the way you want, what do you do with it?
I built custom page templates within the Wordpress theme that included the code to pull the RSS feeds I wanted. Then, I created a page with a title and used that custom template for the page. If you are familiar with modifying WP template files or creating custom template files, then it should be easy for you too.
This coming weekend I will be heading north to Los Angeles for MTTS. I’m really looking forward to it.
We’ll be recording audio, I will, again, attempt video. Plus I’ll be posting a bunch of photos to my Flickr. And, if I can, I will be posting to Twitter.
Posts here from Thursday to Monday might will be lighter than usual.
On another note, later this week I will be giving the pressd section it’s very own Wordpress install right here at w(t)f. New feed and everything. I will post when that happens.
Cameras will be with me all week too. Hopefully I will get some stuff posted before MTTS.
As I sit here on a Sunday morning with my coffee and Pandora playing a station based on World in My Eyes by Depeche Mode, I’m struggling for something to write.
New Toys
I’ve had a $50 Amazon.com gift certificate burning a hole in my account for the last month, so I thought I would use that to get a new toy or two, plus a book for the lad.
First up, a replacement clip for my Gorilla Pod. I lost the original one somewhere and Amazon sells them for $5, so that’s done.
The other thing I’ve been wanting to get is a mono pod to use with the The Flip. You might have seen the test I posted the other day. So far, I think it’s pretty awesome. I can’t wait to try it with the other cameras in the house either.
It’s an Opteka. Collapsed it’s only about 18″ long. Fully extended it’s 6′. Lightweight, nice handle with a wrist strap and it even has a spike on the bottom if I’m in grass or dirt. Pretty snazzy. Oh yea, and cheap! This only cost $12.95. Not too shabby.
You will see this device in use at MTTS LA for sure. Just look for the dork carrying the black walking stick, that will be me.
More from the dept. of I have the time or how to make Wordpress into a tumble log on the same install as your normal blog.
I wasn’t terribly pleased with the way my “Press This” posts were blending in with the normal posts here. They were, really, out of place I’m sure you would agree.
I know our good friend Josh does, since he moved all of his link-type posts out to a whole other site.
I tried that with tumblr if you recall, but the lack of comments and layout control really bothered me.
So, I built my own. Ha.
It’s not fancy. No plug-ins are used or anything. It’s just this page, completely stripped of everything and some layout changes made. You will notice those posts are now gone from the front page even. Sure I’m going to tell you how I did it (after a jump), but before I do, lemme tell you how to find it.
http://www.windthefrog.net/archive/wtf/category/pressd/.
Ok, so it’s not terribly elegant and that’s only because of my ridiculous spam-bot-squashing ninja-like rewrite rules. It’s ok, the link is also at the bottom of all of the pages. What’s even cooler than that is when you get there, you will see a very large feed icon. See? Who watches out for you, huh? That’s right and don’t you forget it!
Update. I have also modified the main w(t)f feed to exclude those posts. If you want to keep them separate, unsubscribe to the old one and resubscribe to the new one. Or, don’t change anything, it’s entirely up to you. But, if you subscribed to the pressd posts and the original wtf feed, you will see posts twice. No good that.
Now, on to the how. Jump! (Read on…)
Quick updates on a few things I have mentioned here at w(t)f over the last week or so.
Mail.app
Been using this for a solid week now with Gmail POP3. It’s been pretty good I must say but there are a few things I think could be a little better.
- Setting up rules and mailboxes could be more streamlined or at least have a keyboard shortcut
- Flagging a message needs an easier keyboard short cut, or someone at Apple needs to stop with those rediculous symbols that I don’t understand.
- Restoring the window from the dock needs to be more elegant/easier to figure out, but this is a problem I have with most Mac apps. cmd-n works, but then I have to close the new message window.
- Better keyboard navigation in general would be keen. Arrow and tab keys are my friend
Next will be getting my address book and iCal current. I’m really excited to see how well they integrate.
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