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/ ) lists many RSS feeds.

Syntax Rules

%HEADLINES{"..."}%

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

Slashdot News

Write

%HEADLINES{ "http://slashdot.org/slashdot.rdf" 
  header="*[[$link][$title]]:* $description" 
  format="$t* [[$link][$title]]"
  limit="4"
}%

Business Opportunities Weblog

Write

%HEADLINES{ "http://www.business-opportunities.biz/feed" limit="2" }%

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

Business Opportunities Weblog

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:11:07 +0000

Opportunities, news, and links for small business entrepreneurs

Analyst Spins Yo-Yo Passion Into Million-Dollar-Plus Biz

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:11:07 +0000 Rich Whittle

According to Entrepreneur magazine, it all began back in 2005, when Pat Cuartero–a high school 2A yoyo champ turned Merrill Lynch analyst–discovered a higher purpose: getting more people in New York City to play with yo-yos. He funded startup costs with about $8,000 of credit card debt, and in his first five months, he netted $32,000. It was enough to persuade him to leave Wall Street and develop his target market.

Cuartero knows how to work the business side of yo-yos, too. He’s founder of YoyoNation, known for its extensive store, active online community and go-to industry blog. The company is on track to hit $1.6 million in sales by the end of the year. It opened a UK office in April and plans one in the Philippines in the next month or two.

“We sponsored all the contests because these were the people who would buy cases, strings and bearings,” Cuartero says. At the same time, he established an active online community. “Forums are much faster than newsletters as a way to reach people who care. We have a 90 percent conversion rate, so whenever we announced a new product, we’d sell out of it.”

YoyoNation stocks products for all skill levels and styles–from a three-buck plastic Duncan to the rare $549.99 handmade Oxy Ti titanium model–plus parts to pimp out the toy, clothing and gear (think Japanese skater boy). The site now gets 37,000 unique visitors a month and sells to fans in 79 countries.

It’s like watching a ninja on steroids. In one YouTube video, Pat Cuartero wows the crowd with the fluorescent-colored blurs of a move he calls Angel Wings, which involves spinning two yo-yos in opposite directions, over his head and behind his back.

Photo by silive.com.

The Organic Ice Cream Bike

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:00:20 +0000 Angela Shupe

There’s no engine running when Jackson Poole loads up his ice-cycle to start on his organic ice cream route. Instead it’s all muscle power since his ice cream truck is made up of a bicycle/cooler reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

Poole rides his custom-made bicycle cart (he originally wanted an ice cream truck but wasn’t old enough for a drivers license) through the streets of San Anselmo, selling organic ice cream treats made locally at Three Twins Ice Cream.

Poole settled on desserts after retiring from Japanese erasers sales, a business he’s had since second grade, and a product I had to Google to find out just what exactly it is (think erasers in the shapes of hamburgers, toothbrushes and everything in between).

Retired from eraser sales, he wanted to reinvest his earnings into a new venture, and dabbled with the idea of Hawaiian shaved ice until declaring it too expensive of a startup.

With the thought of wanting something, “more unique,”— and what’s more exceptional than a self-made 15-year-old pedaling icy organic treats through Marin –Poole went about finding a custom bike manufacturer, which he found in New York. “When the bike was shipped out and came off the palette I thought what the heck did I get myself into.”

He then had his graphic designer mom create a logo, succeeded in wading through the thick city permit process and found a restaurant to store his ice cream (storing the goods at home is against regulations he reminded me). With only a few weeks in business the teen has already accomplished sell-out days.

What’s he doing with his profits? Putting it back into the business and expanding, naturally.

Logo from Jackson’s Ice-Cycle

Plugin Settings

Plugin settings are stored as preferences variables. To reference a plugin setting write %<plugin>_<setting>%, for example, %HEADLINESPLUGIN_SHORTDESCRIPTION%. Note: Don't modify the settings here; copy and customize the settings in Main.TWikiPreferences. For example, to customize the USERAGENTNAME setting, create a HEADLINESPLUGIN_USERAGENTNAME setting in Main.TWikiPreferences.

• One line description, shown in the TextFormattingRules topic:
  • Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Show headline news in TWiki pages based on RSS and ATOM news feeds from external 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

• Name of user agent. Default: TWikiHeadlinesPlugin/2.21

      * Set USERAGENTNAME = TWikiHeadlinesPlugin/2.21

• 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>

• Values taken from configure: (only supported if CPAN:LWP is installed)
  • $TWiki::cfg{PROXY}{HOST} - proxy host, such as "proxy.example.com";
  • $TWiki::cfg{PROXY}{PORT} - proxy port, such as "8080";
  • $TWiki::cfg{PROXY}{SkipProxyForDomains} - domains excluded from proxy, such as "intra.example.com, bugs.example.com";

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)
    • headlinesText: 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.

  Name	Version	Description
  Digest::MD5	>=2.33	Required. Download from CPAN:Digest::MD5
  LWP::UserAgent	>=5.803	Optional. Download from CPAN:LWP::UserAgent

Plugin Info

-- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny - 29 Aug 2009