NewsPlugin

Introduction

The News plugin implements a simple "Headlines" view, or summary, of a list of news or a weblog. Add a %NEWS% variable in a news topic named Xxx to generate a headline topic named XxxHeadlines.

Syntax Rules

One enters news as items of a bulleted list in a single source topic, most recent first. If somewhere in the topic, the keyword %NEWS% appears, then a new topic is created with the first line of the most recent news. Ending punctuation is removed from the headlines for a sleeker look.

Recommended usage is to %INCLUDE% the generated topic in some panel in a front page, and put a "More..." link in it to the source topic. The %NEWS% variable can be set in an HTML comment to hide it in the source topic:

<!-- %NEWS% -->

To change the default, use the syntax %NEWS{parameter="value" ...}% syntax with the following available parameters:

Examples

Example: Set the prefix, presep, and suffix to produce an HTML unordered (bullet) list: %NEWS{presep="<li>" prefix="<ul>" suffix="</ul>"}%

Example: If the topic MyCompanyNews contains:

%NEWS%
 * NewsPlugin released - 18 Feb 2003.
   The great news plugin has been debugged
 * NewsPlugin devel started - 02 Jan 2003.
   I think this is really needed, 
   I will try to keep it simple

 * NewsPlugin released - 18 Feb 2003
 * NewsPlugin devel started - 02 Jan 2003

Example: This is the same example above, except the news headlines are specified as level-2 headings:

%NEWS{pattern="---\+\+(!!)?"}%
---++ NewsPlugin released - 18 Feb 2003.
The great news plugin has been debugged
---++ NewsPlugin devel started - 02 Jan 2003.
I think this is really needed, 
I will try to keep it simple

 * NewsPlugin released - 18 Feb 2003
 * NewsPlugin devel started - 02 Jan 2003

Plugin Settings

Plugin settings are stored as preferences variables. To reference a plugin setting write %<plugin>_<setting>%, i.e. %INTERWIKIPLUGIN_SHORTDESCRIPTION%

• One line description, is shown in the TextFormattingRules topic:
  • Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Generate a short headlines topic from a list of news

• Debug plugin: (See output in data/debug.txt)
  • Set DEBUG = 0

Plugin Installation Instructions

Note: You do not need to install anything on the browser to use this plugin. The following instructions are for the administrator who installs the plugin on the server where TWiki is running.

• Download the ZIP file from the Plugin web (see below)
• Unzip NewsPlugin.zip in your twiki installation directory. Content:

  File:	Description:
  data/TWiki/NewsPlugin.txt	Plugin topic
  lib/TWiki/Plugins/NewsPlugin.pm	Plugin Perl module
  data/Sandbox/NewsPluginExample.txt	Example news source topic
  data/Sandbox/NewsPluginExampleHeadlines.txt	Example generated news headlines topic
  data/Sandbox/NewsPluginExampleInclusion.txt	Example =%INCLUDE% usage of a generated headlines topic

• Test if the installation was successful:
  • see NewsPluginExample

Plugin Info

Plugin Author:	TWiki:Main.ColasNahaboo
Copyright:	© 2003-2006 TWiki:Main.ColasNahaboo © 2006-2010 TWiki:TWiki.TWikiContributor
Plugin Version:	2010-12-11 (V1.6)
Change History:
2010-12-11:	1.6 TWikibug:Item6530: Doc improvements, changing TWIKIWEB to SYSTEMWEB -- TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
07 Feb 2006	1.5 Add "pattern" parameter.
20 Feb 2003	1.4 trim option for removing ending punctuation: . , : ;
19 Feb 2003	1.3 small bugfix
17 Feb 2003	1.2 Initial version
TWiki Dependency:	$TWiki::Plugins::VERSION 1.1
CPAN Dependencies:	none
Other Dependencies:	none
Perl Version:	5.005
License:	GPL (GNU General Public License)
Benchmarks:	GoodStyle 100%, FormattedSearch 99%, NewsPlugin 100%
Plugin Home:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/NewsPlugin
Feedback:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/NewsPluginDev
Appraisal:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/NewsPluginAppraisal

Related Topics: TWikiPreferences, TWikiPlugins