Headlines Plugin

Show headline news in TWiki pages based on RSS and ATOM news feeds from external sites

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{"..."}%

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
touch="..." Touch (edit/save) topics if the feed has updates. Specify a comma-space delimited list of TopicNames or Web.TopicNames, such as "%TOPIC%, NewsLetter". Useful to send out newsletter using MailerContrib, showing new feeds since last newsletter. To update feeds, visit topics with feeds in regular intervals (using cron with wget or the like). N/A
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

Slashdot News

Write

%HEADLINES{ "http://slashdot.org/slashdot.rdf" 
  header="*[[$link][$title]]:* $description" 
  format="$t* [[$link][$title]]"
  limit="4"
}%
to get the latest Slashdot news as a bullet list format:

Business Opportunities Weblog

Write

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

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

Fri, 02 Mar 2018 00:37:30 +0000
The original blog about business opportunities and business ideas for small business entrepreneurs
Fri, 02 Mar 2018 00:37:30 +0000 Bizop Team

Promotional Merchandise: A Remarkable Investment for Brand Marketing

When you invest in promotional merchandise, it can be a great boost to your business. While this is no secret, many have no idea how well these items can help. The main way promotional merchandise does this is by helping you create an amazing brand marketing strategy.

Do you have any idea where you can find good quality promotional merchandise in the UK? Well, many shops and agencies are ready to cater to your needs. They have a wide range of choices. These include promotional power banks, umbrellas, notebooks, mugs, pens, and much more. Depending on your budget, you will be able to find a full range of promotional products. Any of them will help you to create powerful brand marketing.

 

Why Consider Investing in Promotional Merchandise?

Are you one of those business owners who has no idea how beneficial promotional merchandise can be for you? If you are, then you need to reconsider. That’s because promotional products truly can benefit your business. They will help you to devise a fail-proof marketing strategy. Here are some of the benefits that your business will enjoy:

 

1. Retained for a Longer Time, Helps with Branding

Promotional products are usually things that people use every day. Therefore, they hold onto these items for a longer time. The longer your customers hold onto your promotional merchandise, the greater their awareness of your brand will be.

What’s more, your customers’ guests, colleagues, family members and friends will also see your thoughtful promotional products. Then they, too, might feel inclined to associate with your brand.

 

2. Improved Opinion About Your Brand

Free gifts are nearly always welcome. Your promotional merchandise will be perceived as free gifts. This will be especially true if you choose items that have been designed with care.

Present your clients with superior quality merchandise and their opinion about your brand's commitment to its customers is bound to improve. Clients who receive high-quality promotional products will use them again and again. Whenever they do, they will be reminded of your company and its thoughtful gesture.

 

RELATED ARTICLE: PROMOTIONAL ITEMS: A CLASSIC METHOD FOR INCREASING BRAND AWARENESS

 

3. Cost-Effective Form of Marketing

When you invest in promotional merchandise, you are bound to get a great return on your investment (ROI). Why is that? This is because, in time, customers easily forget about your other forms of marketing, such as ads and flyers.

Promotional merchandise, on the other hand, has the power to stay with your clients. It will continue to remind them about your brand.

What’s more, it can cost less to print your logo and name on a promotional product than it would to launch a traditional marketing campaign, or even a full-fledged digital one.

On top of that, your customers will sometimes pass your promotional items on to other potential customers. This can bring in even more business.

To take things a step further, when you hand out these promotional products, you do so to a targeted audience. This definitely improves your ROI.

 

4. A Larger Selection of Products

From pens and mugs to power banks and selfie sticks, you have numerous choices. In other words, you can find promotional products even if you are on a tight budget.

You can also choose products that are relevant to your brand. This allows you to market your brand more effectively. For example, if your company has a reputation for caring about the environment, choose recycled promotional products.

 

 

Is Promotional Merchandise an Intelligent Investment?

Many businesses have a notion that they should hand out promotional merchandise only during trade shows. However, there are many other effective ways to hand out these products.

For example, hold competitions over social media to bring in more prospective customers. Or send promotional gifts to your existing customers to prolong brand association.

Promotional merchandise is an especially cost-effective marketing technique. That’s because promotional products that have your logo and brand name on them have a compelling impact on your clients.

Promotional merchandise helps clients remember your brand, facilitating more sales and better ROI.

The post Promotional Merchandise: A Remarkable Investment for Brand Marketing appeared first on Business Opportunities.

Fri, 02 Mar 2018 00:31:29 +0000 Bizop Team

Why Would You Want to Attend Forex Trading Competitions?

Forex trading competitions, held both by brokers and the community of Forex traders, have a lot to offer.

For one thing, they’re an excellent way of bringing Forex traders together with other traders. Even if you have missed out on these trading competitions so far, give yourself the opportunity to attend one soon. It will give you a chance to share with other traders your wildest dreams of winning in the Forex market. What’s more, you just might win the competition’s grand prize by defeating all the traders in attendance.

 

RELATED ARTICLE: INVESTING MADE EASY: 4 THINGS SUCCESSFUL FOREX TRADERS DO

 

It's a Chance to Learn

Trading competitions offer one of the easiest ways to gain exposure to the professional traders’ community. As a currency trader you are your own boss. For the most part, you don’t find it necessary to interact with other Forex traders.

However, many successful professional traders also actively participate in trading competitions. For example, even if you already have access to the Introducing Broker platform, you might not be making a profit on a regular basis. In fact, many novice traders even don't know about the advanced features of their Introducing Broker platform.

However, knowledge is power. Knowledge is also the key to success in this industry.

When you’re trading, you’re doing battle against the smartest investors. You need to take every single step with an extreme level of care. Your Introducing Broker platform is your battlefield. You need to learn all the details of it. In addition, make sure that you have proper knowledge of money management. When you do, losing a few trades will not cost you heavily.

 

Competitions Teach You How to Trade

Trading competitions are a wonderful opportunity to increase your knowledge of Forex trading. Plus, you’ll come in contact with some of the greatest minds in the industry. Because the Forex market is a virtual one, you might be surprised to discover that a Forex legend actually lives near you. By watching some of these legendary traders in action at these competitions, you will learn some of their tricks. You can approach them in person and ask their advice on how to improve your trading skills. A trading competition, in short, can be an opportunity like no other.

 

 

Who Wouldn't Want to Win a Prize for Their Trading Skills?

When you trade in Forex, you win money for your successful trades. When you attend these competitions, however, you get a chance to double your profits.

Even if the cash amount of the prize isn’t great, it’s still more than you would have gotten otherwise. As a matter of fact, many traders attend these competitions just because of the prizes. They know that in the process of competing with other traders, they improve their own trading skills.

What’s more, when you follow the competition’s rules, you trade the market as a disciplined trader. Discipline is very important in the Forex market. A lot of people do not know how to trade in a disciplined way and they lose out as a consequence. You can learn these disciplines by attending trading competitions. If you do well, you could also win a prize.

 

Share Ideas with Other Traders

Interacting with other traders at competitions gives you opportunities to increase your knowledge and let go of false ideas. Moreover, sharing ideas with others can only help you to become a better Forex trader.

The post Why Would You Want to Attend Forex Trading Competitions? appeared first on Business Opportunities.

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.
    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: © 2002-2010, Peter Thoeny, Twiki, Inc.; 2005-2007, Michael Daum http://wikiring.de
License: GPL (GNU General Public License)
Plugin Version: v2.6 - 2010-05-16
Change History:  
2010-05-16: TWikibug:Item6433 - more doc improvements
2010-04-25: TWikibug:Item6433 - doc fix: Changing TWIKIWEB to SYSTEMWEB
2010-02-27: TWikibug:Item6313 - fixed bug in ATOM feed with <link ...></link> instead of <link ... /> -- Peter Thoeny
2009-09-30: fixed bug in lastBuildDate of feeds affecting touch parameter functionality -- Peter Thoeny
2009-08-29: added touch parameter -- Peter Thoeny
12 Feb 2009: {PROXY}{HOST} supports domain with and without protocol -- Peter Thoeny
06 Feb 2009: added {PROXY}{SkipProxyForDomains} configure setting, added USERAGENTNAME plugin setting -- Peter Thoeny
11 Dec 2008: added {PROXY}{HOST} and {PROXY}{PORT} configure settings -- Peter Thoeny
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: http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/HeadlinesPlugin
Feedback: http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/HeadlinesPluginDev
Appraisal: http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/HeadlinesPluginAppraisal

Related Topics: TWikiPlugins, AdminDocumentationCategory, TWikiPreferences

Topic revision: r3 - 2010-05-17 - 03:38:48 - TWikiContributor
 
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