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[request] Postmaster/CleanFeed adaptation Request
GOAL:
Create a proprietary aggregator site for an organization whose members have their own blogs. So that the organization’s constituency can keep up with goings on in a customized way.
SPECIFIC NEEDS:
Some users of this site will have a know how of all things RSS, though most will not, and will only have a handle on emailing. Thus the need for email subscription per feed is necessary.
FOR PAY
This is a for pay project. I would like to talk budget with anyone who’s interested privately until terms can be discussed.
SITE STRUCTURE:
I foresee the site being set up as follows:
- HOME (default)
- Team One (section)
- Team One member one (article)
- Most recent post
- Link to live blog
- Link to email Sign up page
- Feed specific to this team member
- Team One member two
- Team One member three
- Team One member four
- Team One member five
- Team One member one (article)
- Team two (section)
- Team two member one
- Team two member two
- Team two member three
- Team two member four
- Team two member five
- Public Login (or password protected public page – YTBD)
- Subscription management page (admin or public – YTBD)
- Team One (section)
note All team members would have the same setup as team member one on Team one.
FEED REQUIREMENTS: We would need a feed for all of the following:- HOME
- section
- article
I think this can be accomplished with ajw_clean_feed, though I’m not sure how this would interface with something like postmaster.
I imagine a feed template for the article form that might look like this:
<a href="<txp:site_url />section/article-title?feedmagic.xml">Feed to this article</a>
and a feed template for the section that might look like this:
<a href="<txp:site_url />section?feedmagic.xml">Feed to this section</a>
EMAIL SUBSCRIPTION REQUIREMENTS
We will need a public or admin side subscription management area where a user can increase or decrease the number of feeds they are subscribed to. I imagine a hierarchical structure that acts like an automatic menu. Starting with home and then sections and then articles assigned to those sections, all handled by checkboxes within collapsing <ul>'s by section.
LAST NOTES
I am not sure if there are feed blending sites out there with API’s that can be tied into for something like this, or if its easy enough to manage as a TXP proprietary project?
- I am Squared Eye and I
am launchinghave launched Pattern Tap
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Re: [request] Postmaster/CleanFeed adaptation Request
Of all the projects on SimplePie’s ideas page, I really like moonmoon for an aggregate site.
Worth checking out as a basis, less work involved.
We Love TXP . TXP Themes . TXP Tags . TXP Planet . TXP Make
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Re: [request] Postmaster/CleanFeed adaptation Request
ma_smith,
I haven’t gone back through what I’ve done to re-test it, but each part seems to be working now.
- I’ve added an option for the subscription form called “aggregator” which collects separate form fields into a single subscriber custom field.
- I’ve added an enclosing tag that checks “if x is in custom field y”
If my thinking is correct — I haven’t tested it all the way through, as I said, and each part hasn’t really been tested except to know it works — you can then set up a form like this:
<txp:bab_new_checktag custom_field="10" check_for="author1_name"><txp:ajw_clean_feed url="author1_url" /><txp:bab_new_tag_that_checks_if_x_is_in_custom_field_y></txp:bab_new_checktag>
Some divider text or HTML to make it clear what follows is a new author:
<txp:bab_new_checktag custom_field="10" check_for="author2_name"><txp:ajw_clean_feed url="author2_url" /><txp:bab_new_checktag></txp:bab_new_checktag>
Etc.
Does that make sense?
So you’ll set up a series of checkboxes that people can select which authors / teams they want to get the feed of, then all of those options are gathered into a single custom field, then the checktag checks each possibility.
There are some major downsides:
- You have to check each option for each mail [this could all be done with a better tag] — that might affect performance if you had either a lot of options or a lot of subscribers
- You have to build all of this very carefully — it seems like a big rickety setup [one wrong letter and the whole thing blows up]
- Checkboxes are weird so I had to do a little hacking to make it work.
I’ll post more as I go through this. I think even if you’re all set and don’t need to go this route the aggregator / check_for combination will still be useful.
- Ben
PS. I have no idea how ajw_clean_feed works, I’m just assuming in my example above.
Last edited by benbruce (2007-03-31 02:57:34)
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Re: [request] Postmaster/CleanFeed adaptation Request
Ben,
We are set at the moment, however, I’m quite keen on helping with this, as I think its a very interesting set up.
Matthew
- I am Squared Eye and I
am launchinghave launched Pattern Tap
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