Tagged : rss digest

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Help Test RSS Digest 1.1 Beta

I’m close to being able to push out an update to RSS Digest, version 1.1, but I would like to hear from some beta testers before pushing it out to the world. If you use RSS Digest and are comfortable on the bleeding edge, I’d appreciate it if you tested the beta.

The main features are in the reliability and debugging department. In particular, I’ve made enhancements to the scheduling algorithm and have included several new debugging tools.

Sorry, if RSS Digest is working great for you, this release won’t offer much in terms of shiny new features. Rather, my goal for this version is to make it easier to help the occasional user who runs into trouble.

Here are the instructions for installing the beta version of the plugin. (Of course it is always a good idea to make a database backup before upgrading WP or any plugins!)

1. Deactivate the current plugin in WordPress Settings
2. Delete the existing rss-digest directory under wp-content/plugins, or move it if you’ve made changes, e.g. to css
3. Download the beta version of the plugin to your wp-content/plugins directory:

http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/rss-digest.1.1-beta_3.zip

4. Reactivate the plugin in WordPress

To check out the new debugging tools, go to the new Debug tab in the Settings > RSS Digest page. Check the “Turn on detailed logging” button. Enter your feed, schedule and option information on the main Settings tab. View the log after the scheduled time to see what happened.

Thanks for helping and please use the comments below to keep me posted! I’d like to hear from you whether all goes well or you run into trouble.

in projects

RSS Digest 1.01 Released

Looking for a way to post items from an RSS feed to your WordPress blog in a tidy daily digest? Look no further, because RSS Digest 1.01 is now live up on WordPress.org. Already an RSS Digest user, and looking for new features and greater stability? Run, don’t walk, to your blog’s Plugins page and upgrade to this new version!

New features include the ability to stage your digest posts by setting them to post as draft or pending items, the ability to apply custom tags to your digest post, and additional scheduling flexibility. Fixes include better timezone handling and an enhanced scheduling mechanism. Plus, this latest version is compatible with WordPress versions up through 3.0!

Details | WordPress.org Home | Support

Use RSS Digest to pull in a daily or weekly digest of items from the RSS feed of your choice. You can pull in your Delicious bookmarks, Twitter tweets, Facebook entries, news items, or any other articles, posts or data available via an RSS feed.

UPDATE: The current version on WP.org is now 1.02.

in projects

RSS Digest looking good under WordPress 3

I spent a some time this rainy afternoon playing around with WordPress 3.0 Beta and the latest version of RSS Digest. I put it through it’s paces and didn’t turn up anything unusual, so I’ll be noting 3.0 compatibility when I formally release 1.0 in a bit.

If I get a chance I’ll comment further on WordPress 3 at a later date, but for now I’ll note that the new default theme looks good. Kubrick was getting a bit long in the tool I’ll say.

in projects

Announcing RSS Digest 1.0 Beta 1

I’m excited to make available a significant update to RSS Digest, my WordPress plugin that fetches items from the RSS or Atom feed of your choice and posts them to your blog in a daily or weekly digest. This new release addresses a number of issues that some users have experienced, including 2.9.x compatibility, while introducing a host of new features. The feature additions include many of the most requested features including more scheduling granularity, additional control over post status, post author, and tags, as well as the format of individual items.

Here is the detailed changelog:

  • FIXED: Plugin now fully compatible with WordPress 2.9.2
  • FIXED: Better timezone handling; display server timezone on options page
  • FIXED: URL character handling bug
  • FIXED: Rewrote scheduling method, replacing homemade scheduler w/ wordpress cron. Should eliminate duplicate posts seen on some sites.
  • ADDED: Added additional debugging information for scheduling system
  • ADDED: Greater scheduling granularity (minutes vs quarter-hours)
  • ADDED: Display local time on settings page
  • ADDED: Choose post status (e.g. publish, draft, pending)
  • ADDED: Allow use of post authors without publish status. Note: WP seems to allow plugins to post as users who don’t otherwise have the ability to post.
  • ADDED: Use timestamps to choose feed items published since last digest
  • ADDED: Allow custom tags to be applied to each digest
  • ADDED: Clean up options on deactivate
  • ADDED: Allow user to specify minimum number of items per digest
  • ADDED: Allow user to suppress item descriptions
  • NOTE: Debug option is currently ON for beta bits, meaning additional debug information is printed to system error log

Installation:

  1. Download the plug-in here: rss-digest-1.0-beta-1
  2. UPGRADING? Zip up your existing rss-digest directory (e.g. wp-content/plugins/rss-digest) for safekeeping, then delete it
  3. Unzip the rss-digest beta to your plugin directory
  4. Visit Settings > RSS Digest to configure the plugin

Please provide any feedback in the comments and enjoy the plugin!