[HacktionLab] Wordpress aggregator site testing

m3shrom m3shrom at riseup.net
Fri Dec 31 11:12:18 GMT 2010


On 30/12/2010 16:22, Adelayde Skidmore wrote:
>  On 29/12/2010 12:09, m3shrom wrote:
>> http://blogs.clearerchannel.org/
>>
>> There’s a new test site to test out the new aggregator theme for
>> wordpress. It’s installed here
>> http://blogs.clearerchannel.org/aggregator/
>>
> nice one mick.  I'd like to get one of these going for oxford stuff, as
> the IMC site just doesn't cut the mustard for pulling in all that rich
> media content.

You might be better off with a drupal site if you can get someone to
build it for you.

I did one for Manchester Indymedia
http://mindymedia.clearerchannel.org -

And this process is happening for a UK wide aggregation site. I guess
it's worth pointing out the limitations of the wordpress aggregation
theme too.

* Wordpress aggregator theme currently youtube feeds don't show images
* Ical feeds don't work
* You can't click and play on the page for any media - which is probably
ok as people normally like you to link through

There are some work arounds -

An Ical -> RSS converter would be useful if anyone knows of one. If not
we could ask for it as a feature for the aggromedia drupal code. Maybe
yahoo pipes could do this? There is a very interesting article on
working with ical feeds in yahoo pipes here -
http://blog.ouseful.info/2008/12/06/merging-several-calendar-ical-feeds-with-yahoo-pipes/

Yahoo pipes is a good solution for people who don't have the time or
skills to set up a drupal aggregator site.
In fact it's worth thinking for drupal aggregator sites as a kind of
Drupal Pipes - for getting info in and out and being able to manipulate
that data to swap between different formats.

like if you pull in feeds from another aggregator - say the one at
http://aggromedia.org

http://aggromedia.org/tags/dayx
http://aggromedia.org/feed/tags/1363


I would say that if you could find someone to help you do a drupal site
- or even if you had a fair chunk of time were to work with others in
the uk who were up for helping then it's worth the effort to create a
drupal site, as this is definately an area where more hands are needed -
especially in the 'theming' and User interface areas of Drupal.

If you don't have any time or drupal friends however then this Wordpress
approach does seem good.





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