How to curate an imported feed

mgreis
(@mgreis)

10 years, 5 months ago

I am trying to “curate” a feed built with WP RSS Multi-Importer by selecting certain items from that feed which I can then make available (on a page or through redistribution). I want to do this from a display of the feed created by WP RSS Multi-importer without having to edit each item in the post editor.

An example may help (I hope). I create a feed drawing 5 items from 3 sources and display it on a page using one of the templates. Next to each item is a pull-down list of categories. By selecting the category, that item becomes a post. Over a period of time, I will build a set of curated items that I have selected from the original feed.

Alternately, I create the same feed but use “feed to post” so that I now have 15 new posts in my blog in a specified category. I display the list of posts on a page using one of the templates. Next to each item is either a check box that deletes that post (which creates a curated list of posts by subtraction) or a pull-down to assign it to a different category as above.

Is there any way to accomplish this?

http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-rss-multi-importer/

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

Plugin Author Allen
(@amweiss98)

10 years, 5 months ago

right now, all my plugin does is take the items and make them into blog posts (just like regular wordpress blog post) – at least that’s how it works with the feed to post option. The export rss feed, however, just takes the rss feeds directly and exports them. There is no way to change them. If you want to curate you’ll have to do that manually, using the feed to post to bring in the feed items, assign them to a wordpress category and then use wordpress’s category RSS feed as an output.

Thread Starter mgreis
(@mgreis)

10 years, 5 months ago

Allen,

Thanks for your reply. Since the selected items have to be turned into posts to be re-exported anyway (as you point out), I figured that was the method I’d have to use. What I’m wondering is whether I could insert code into one of the templates for each displayed item which when triggered could cause that item to be affected (e.g. change category or delete).

In a straight PHP/HTML environment, I could write a PHP script which retrieved a set of records from a SQL table, then iterated through the list, each time displaying a row of data at the end of which is a button tied to that record. When the button is clicked, the program does something with that record, then returns to the display.

Could something like that be done within your display templates? I’m of course not asking you to do it, but hoping to tap your expertise (and that of others in the forum) and your understanding of your code to get a sense of whether it could be done and, if so, any suggestions of how I might go about doing it.

I believe it’s possible to add value by aggregating a selection of feeds, then selecting the most relevant items for an audience and re-exporting only those.

Here’s an example of what I’m trying to do. The second group of entries is from the feeds of two firms, so imagine that for 5-10 firms. I can look at that information and quickly select entries that will be relevant for a specific audience. By making just those available, I’m providing readers coverage for an area of interest to them with much less work than they would have to do to get it themselves. But for me to do it cost and time effectively, I need to automate as much of the work as possible. Your terrific plug-in allows me to bring together the raw material easily; now I need to make it equally easy for me to select and deploy that material.

Thanks. By the way, although I just started experimenting with the plug-in, I made a point of rating it (highly). The FAQs are also well done, and I noted your comment about user ratings. Taking the time to rate a plug-in is indeed the least we who benefit from your work can do.

Plugin Author Allen
(@amweiss98)

10 years, 5 months ago

ok..I’ll respond to this in the morning and see if there is a way to do what you want.

Plugin Author Allen
(@amweiss98)

10 years, 5 months ago

maybe I’m not understanding this, but looking at the link you provided, it looks like your using a shortcode template – and if that is doing what you want, you could extend that to have any number of sources.

Now, if you want to edit them, as I said yesterday, what I suggest is import the items as blog posts (and you can set up each feed to go into a specific blog category – say assign Trillum Investments to its own plugin category and then assign that category to a wordpress category (like Trillum)…do the same with the other categories.

You can delete posts at this stage.

Then, using WordPress categories, construct a page (you might need a categories plugin for this) to show the posts from only certain categories on your page.

Thread Starter mgreis
(@mgreis)

10 years, 5 months ago

Thanks, Allen. I set up the feed to post mechanism so I could look at how that would work while you were thinking about it at your end.

This works as I anticipated and as you suggest. The only problem I was anticipating is the tedious process of reviewing/curating the posts through the dashboard. I have to edit each post to see what’s actually in it. Then I have to preview the post so that I can click on the link if the excerpt doesn’t give enough information to make a decision. If I’m not ready to make a decision, I have to back out of the edit and back to all posts, scroll through those to keep my place, etc.

What I was thinking of is a list as on the page you saw where I could quickly delete the ones I don’t want and finalize the ones that are OK as is (or change the category and finalize them). It seemed like a useful capability to have. It does seem very hard to implement, though.

Having done that initial test, I can certainly work with the process. Your plug-in does the most important part – getting the feeds.

There should be no problem displaying the posts; I can use Category List Posts.

I anticipate providing a higher volume of these posts, some verbatim and some with my own introduction or explanation. On the site and in any feed, they will be a clipping service using current technology. Those are distinct from posts that I author. I’ll have to figure out how to distinguish them on the site and in feeds. I could use different categories for the imported feed. That seems inefficient since they will cover the same topics I generally write about. so I’ll probably find another way to do that.

A couple of quick questions:

If I edit, publish (change status) or trash a post that was imported, the plug-in won’t re-import it?

But if I permanently delete an imported post, it may be re-imported if it still meets the importing criteria (number of posts)?

Thanks so much for your replies. Bottom line is that I’m still interested in how I might implement the “quick list” idea, but I’m going to do a more extensive pilot of the capability as is to see how efficiently I can work through imported posts using the dashboard.

And thanks again for the plug-in!

Plugin Author Allen
(@amweiss98)

10 years, 5 months ago

Right..only when you permanently delete an imported post does it get imported again.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

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