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RSS widget

By dpyper, 9 years ago. Last reply by Andrew Misplon, 9 years ago.

Hi guys

I wonder if you could help me with using the RSS widget in the Vantage theme. I’m using RSS to pull in news headlines/announcements in specific areas on different pages. I’ve tried a range of readers but the widget that comes with the theme (at least, I think it came with it…) appears to be the most useful, in that:

(a) when I use the visual editor I can see the feeds in there – suggesting I can edit the feed results;
(b) feed items appear in search results (which isn’t the case with some of the other readers I’ve tried).

However, I’ve got a couple of issues with it and would be grateful for your advice on these.

First (and most importantly) the feed items appear in the visual editor, but my changes to the feed don’t seem to save. That is to say, I can go into the visual editor, and type whatever I like between the feed items, but when I update the page my edits disappear. For the purposes of my site I need to be able to edit RSS feed items to delete occasional irrelevant items/add items that the feed sometimes misses.

Second, the widget provides an option to display item author if available. Is there a way to override this with a name for the source that I choose? I’d also like the source/author and date to be on different lines with a smaller font, the date to be preceded by Published on and the source/author to be preceded by Source:. For example, an RSS feed I have for a newspaper currently shows a headline as:

New Year’s Eve revellers warned to behave, 29th December 2014 Julia Langdon

Whereas I’d like it to say:

New Year’s Eve revellers warned to behave
Source: The Guardian
Published on: 29th December 2014

Last, the feed seems to be limited to 20 items. Is there a way to change this so that it can archive more items, and make them appear on different pages (e.g. 20 items per page, with ‘older’ and ‘newer’ links at the bottom)?

Sorry for all the questions! I’m not sure whether any of the above is possible with the RSS widget, and I’ve yet to find a plugin that can do it. As ever, I’d be very grateful for your advice.

Best

D

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  1. 9 years, 7 months ago dpyper

    Hi

    Not to worry about the above, I’ve think I’ve answered my question and am now using WP RSS Aggregator.

    That said, I still haven’t found a way of searching the RSS feed items. I contacted the developers of RSS Aggregator and they said the reason the search isn’t working is:

    It’s probable that your Vantage theme’s searchbox is constructing a WP_Query that has a post_type argument in it that’s an array with values of only pages and posts. Adding wprss_feed_item to this array should include the feed items in the search results. Since we don’t have the theme itself this isn’t something we can test out right now, so let us know if it works for you.

  2. 9 years, 7 months ago Andrew Misplon
    Hi, I Work Here

    Hi D

    Thanks for taking the time to update this thread. We appreciate your feedback.

    When you say you don’t have the theme itself, can you perhaps let me know what you mean? Do you need a ZIP copy sent through?

    The search form in the Vantage menu looks as follows:

    <form method="get" class="searchform" action="<?php echo esc_url( home_url( '/' ) ); ?>" role="search">
	<input type="text" class="field" name="s" value="<?php echo esc_attr( get_search_query() ); ?>" />
</form>
  3. 9 years, 7 months ago dpyper

    Hi Andrew

    Sorry for the confusion: I have the (premium) theme; the RSS Aggregator developers who responded to my enquiry don’t (I should perhaps have put quotation marks around their response). The last para of my post was a quotation of their reply to me.

    Their response went slightly over my head. Anyway, all I want to know is whether it’s possible to use the search box in Vantage to search for RSS feed items in RSS Aggregator…

    Thanks again for your help!

    Best

    Doug

  4. 9 years, 7 months ago Andrew Misplon
    Hi, I Work Here

    Thanks Doug. Please can you head to Appearance > Themes, hover over Vantage, click Theme Details and let me know which version number you are running. Please also confirm, are you using the normal masthead layout?

    I’ll try whip up a child theme for you, unless you’re already using one?

  5. 9 years, 7 months ago dpyper

    Hi Andrew

    Wow, that would be incredibly helpful – thanks a lot!

    I’m using version 2.3.1. I’m not using a child theme at the moment, although am using a lot of custom CSS on the site (including on the masthead), so it’s quite different from the default version. I’m not sure whether or not that affects things…. if you need to have a look I can email you log in details if that would be helpful.

    Again – thanks for all your help – really impressed with this theme/you guys.

  6. 9 years, 7 months ago Andrew Misplon
    Hi, I Work Here

    No problem. Not sure it’ll help though, just a quick try. Here is a child theme:

    https://siteorigin.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/vantage-child-search-all.zip

    Install the ZIP via Appearance > Themes > Add New: Upload Theme. Activating a child theme will cause all menu and Customizer settings to reset so test it out before redoing those.

    The child theme assumes you’re using the regular masthead and not the Logo in Menu layout.

    Let us know how it goes.

  7. 9 years, 7 months ago dpyper

    OK, cool – thanks a lot. Will save all my settings and give it a go.

    Cheers

  8. 9 years, 7 months ago Andrew Misplon
    Hi, I Work Here

    For sure, let us know how it does.

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