That's a really cool idea Jason! I highly encourage you to write it up
for the Code4Lib Journal, sounds like a great (possibly short) article
for the journal.
Do you do anything with dates, so 'old' alerts/notices aren't shown
anymore? Sounds like no, you just display the last 3, in case people
want to look back at history too?
Would love to see some screenshots or webcasts or examples of it in
action -- or write a code4lib journal article to share with everyone!
On 11/7/2012 11:31 AM, Jason Griffey wrote:
We aren't right now...all posts just go where they go. But it's
trivial to break out a category-specific RSS feed in Wordpress, so
that would be easily done.
We typically update the notice instead of taking it down. Good blog
form, and all that. For most "alert" items (Database down, etc) the
display just shows the last 3-5 items, and so stuff rolls off quickly.
If not, the update generally takes care of it.
Jason
On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 9:37 AM, Michael Schofield <[email protected]> wrote:
Hey Jason,
Are you watching for different categories--closings, emergencies, weather -
etc.--and, also, how are you determining when to take down the notice (if at
all)?
Sent from my iPhone
On Nov 7, 2012, at 10:26 AM, Jason Griffey <[email protected]> wrote:
We run a Wordpress multisite setup here at MPOW, and have two
different blogs that we use for this type of purpose: an "Alerts" blog
for in-house alert needs, and a "News" blog for public-facing
announcements. We just use the RSS feed to push the alerts where
needed, and there's certainly no shortage of RSS collection/parsing
libraries. I'm partial to Magpie (http://magpierss.sourceforge.net/)
but only because I've had years of using it.
We even recently moved to using Growl for Windows with an RSS plugin
to do "heads up" alerts on staff/faculty PCs, so that when something
is posted to the Alerts blog, all staff machines get an
impossible-to-ignore alert overlay on their screens. We will likely be
doing a similar thing for "Emergency" use and the public machines.
Jason
On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 9:12 AM, Michael Schofield <[email protected]> wrote:
Hey everyone,
I've been toying with the idea making something because I can't seem to find
a free alternative, but I thought I'd do my due diligence and pick your
brains. I'm open for any alternatives to the following, but I'm specifically
looking for a free option with an API.
Scenario: our main website lives on the university's server, which turns out
to be a very dull playground: HTML/CSS/JS only. This means there's about 150
static files that I'm now presently rolling into a WP Network living on our
own boxes-and our own domain-(we've been waiting for the last year for a
university-wide CMS, but we just don't want to hold our breaths any longer
J) but the main site, the landing page, will always be static. This means
that whenever there's an early closure, a hurricane watch, or some other
announcement someone has to submit a ticket and then I have to make a
change. My goal is to cut me-the middleman-out of the process.
My potential project: So what I was thinking was jury-rigging a Wordpress
theme into an "alerts" dashboard for managers, directors, and so on. I want
to empower the Circulation manager to login, make an announcement, and be
done with it. For all the departmental and other sites that live on the WP
Network, I'd write and install a corresponding "alerts" plugin that watches
the JSON API for an alert and-if true-display it. For our static sites, I'd
toss in a jquery plugin that did the same.
My question: this seems like something that's been done before! Has it? If
not, anyone want to collaborate on github?
All the best,
Michael Schofield(@nova.edu) | Web Services Librarian | (954) 262-4536
Alvin Sherman Library, Research, and Information Technology Center
Hi! Hit me up any time, but I'd really appreciate it if you report broken
links, bugs, your meeting minutes, or request an awesome web app over on the
Library Web Services <http://staff.library.nova.edu/pm> site.
