Blogroll Posts

Description

Blogroll Posts checks links in your blogroll categories you select for RSS feeds to display the latest post(s) in your blogroll rather than just a list of websites. Feed data is cached and automatically updated in the background to avoid slowing down your site.

Stop showing the same old boring blogroll links and start showing off the latest content with Blogroll Posts.

Features

• Auto-discovers RSS feeds if not specified in link details
• Caches discovered feeds
• Caches latest posts using WordPress built-in cache
• Auto-updating on timed schedule using WordPress cron, avoiding lag on page load
• Customize output with template
• Fallback to standard blogroll display (with template)

Installation

1. Upload `blogroll-posts` to the `/wp-content/plugins/` directory
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
3. Configure the plugin in the Settings > Blogroll Posts menu screen
4. Include get_blogrollPosts() in your theme to output posts

Requirements

• Blogroll Posts has been tested on WordPress 2.9+. Earlier versions may work, but are unsupported.
• CURL library installed and accessible via PHP
• PHP 5 running on your server

Usage

• get_blogrollPosts( $options, $output )
• options (array) – override control panel settings
• output (boolean) – echo output if true, return if false [default:true]

option	type	default	description
errors	boolean	false	Output errors for debugging purposes.
categories	string	n/a	Limit to these link categories. Accepts comma separated list. Note: all categories requested manually MUST be included in the settings admin page or their posts will not be cached.
max_output	integer	2	The total number of posts you’d like to output.
type	set	newest	random|newest|split What kind of posts are you looking for? A random sampling, the newest posts, or an even split between the two?
max_each	integer	1	Maximum number of posts per blog in results.
sort_order	set	newest	random|newest|oldest How you’d like to order the posts in your result set.
before_list	string	<ul>	HTML to print before the list.
html_template	string	**	HTML to print for each blog post.
fallback_template	string	**	HTML to print in event no posts could be found (failsafe mode).
after_list	string	</ul>	HTML to print after the list.
group_by	set	none	none|author|date|linkurl If you’d like to group posts together, specify a field to group based on, or ‘none’ to disable grouping. If ‘date’ is specified as the grouping, please note it only takes in to account the date, the time is ignored.
group_sort	set	newest	newest|oldest|random|ascending|descending Sort groups, posts inside group will sort by sort_order.
group_sort_field	set	linkname	any field If group_sort is ascending or descending, this is the field to sort on.
max_groups	integer	0	Limit output to a specified number of groups, use max_each to control the number of posts per group.
before_group	string	<li><ul>	HTML to print before the group.
before_list	string	</ul></li>	HTML to print after the group.

Download

Blogroll Posts Plugin 1.1.3
Last updated: 2010-04-10

Version History

• = 1.1.3 = April 9, 2010
  • Check for redirected RSS feeds when caching RSS URL and when fetching posts fails
  • Option to reset RSS feed link cache and re-discover links
• = 1.1.2 = March 31, 2010
  • Updates to conform to WordPress Coding Standards
• = 1.1.1 = March 30, 2010
  • Can now use template fields in before_list and after_list
  • Added ‘published’ as recognized date field in RSS feed
• = 1.1.0 = March 29, 2010
  • Ability to group posts together
  • Sort groups by specific field
  • Alpha-sort
• = 1.0.0 = March 28, 2010
  • Initial release.