Use WordPress Rss Feeds to Show a Featured Content Gallery In Lightspeed Webstore Landing Page

WordPress+Simplepie+Lightspeed, awesome. In my last post I showed you how to make a featured content gallery with the_post_thumbnail. And in this post I talked about how to use Simplepie to show a WordPress feed on your Webstore.

I’m not going to lie, it requires extra work to use WordPress to enhance your Webstore. But it’s worth it. Because, lets face it, Webstores out of the box need a bit of pizazz.

In my last post I linked to a demo of a featured content gallery in a WordPress site. Snore, everybody has them on their WordPress sites, big deal, right? Well the only reason I built it was to learn how to build the exact same thing for a Webstore custom page using RSS feeds. And thanks to my friend David Auerbach over at dijitalfix.com I know how to code it into custom_page.tpl.php and have it show only on the landing page.

So enough chitter chatter, here’s the plain custom_page.tpl.php
[php]
<div style="padding: 15px 25px; line-height: 1.5em;"><?php echo $this->content; ?></div>
<?php if(isset($this->pnlSlider)): ?>
<br style="clear:both"/>
<?php $this->pnlSlider->Render(); ?>
<br style="clear:both"/>
<?php endif; ?>[/php]

Here’s my code:
[php]
<?php if($_GET[‘cpage’] && $_GET[‘cpage’]==’intro’):?>

<div id="product-specials">
<div id="slider">
<div id="sliderContent">
<?php foreach ($feed->get_items(0, 12) as $item): ?>
<div class="sliderImage"><?php print $item->get_description(); ?>
<span class="right"><a href="<?php echo $item->get_permalink(); ?>"><?php echo $item->get_title(); ?> </a></span></div>
<?php endforeach; ?>
<div class="clear sliderImage"></div>
</div><!–slidercontent–>
</div><!–slider–>
</div> <!–product specials–>
<?php endif; ?>
<?php echo $this->content; ?>

<?php if(isset($this->pnlSlider)): ?>

<?php $this->pnlSlider->Name = ”; ?>

<?php $this->pnlSlider->Render(); ?>

<?php endif; ?>
[/php]

This line makes sure the gallery only shows on the “Welcome to my Store” custom page:

[php]<?php if($_GET[‘cpage’] && $_GET[‘cpage’]==’intro’):?> [/php]

If you have re named the Page Key from intro to something else Please make sure to make the changes,OK?

I’ve coded it to show 12 feed items in the gallery. For more or less items, modify this line:

[php]<?php foreach ($feed->get_items(0, 12) as $item): ?> [/php]

A commenter said that they changed this line:
[php]<?php print $item->get_description(); ?>[/php]
To:
[php]<?php print $item->get_content(); ?>[/php]
and was happier with the results. Try both out.

This line
[php]<?php $this->pnlSlider->Name = ”; ?>[/php]
takes off the title of the Webstore product slider.
If you want it put back in just comment it out or cut it.

Ok, so before you run off and start modifying your custom page templates…
I hope it goes without saying you have to have WordPress installed on your server.
You also have to have Simplepie installed on your server.
Download Simplepie
Just make a folder called inc in your directory root and upload simplepie.inc to it.
Then make another folder called cache. That’s it, Simplepie is now installed.

Insert this code at the top of your index.tpl.php:
[php]
<?php
include_once $_SERVER[‘DOCUMENT_ROOT’] . ‘/store/inc/simplepie.inc’;
//full link to your wordpress, either just the site:
$feed = new SimplePie(‘http://www.mysite.com/wordpress/feed/’);
$feed2 = new SimplePie(‘http://www.mysite.com/wordpress/category/feed/’);
function image_from_description($data) {
preg_match_all(‘/<img src="([^"]*)"([^>]*)>/i’, $data, $matches);
}?>
[/php]
I’ve included 2 kinds of feed links there. One links to posts and one links to categories. If you have a Specific category add it in after /category and before /feed/.

There must not be blank space before the < ?php or you'll get that error message "Cannot modify header information,etc" and your store will go down. So make sure there is no blank space, ok? Also if you want to link to a specific category feed and you have a category base name make sure to include that name before the ending /feed/ like this: http://www.mysite.com/wordpress/my-category-base-name/feed/. I'm also assuming you have permalinks turned on. If you don't you should turn them on. If you want to show your whole blog in the featured content gallery slider doo dad--all the posts, no matter what category they are from, just use the link to the feed. Here are the kinds of rss feeds available. (Not sure about using the RSS .92 feed link)

Without Permalinks!

“RSS 2.0″ http://www.your_domain.com/?feed=rss2”
“RSS .92″ href=”http://www.your_domain.com/?feed=rss”
“Atom 0.3″ href=”http://www.your_domain.com/?feed=atom”

With Permalinks!

“RSS 2.0″ href=”http://domain.com/feed/”
“RSS .92″ href=”http://domain.com/feed/rss/”
“Atom 0.3″ href=”http://domain.com/feed/atom/”

Extra Stuff
Because the RSS feed grabs the link to the post if you don’t take a few extra steps your content gallery feed items will end up linking to back to the blog , not the products in the featured content gallery which, depending on how you want to use the gallery, might defeat your purposes.

Oh what to do? Use a plugin that redirects using Custom Fields!
I pasted this into function.php of my WordPress theme to redirect each post link to a specific product link using a custom field:
[php]
//set the options
$key = ‘redirect’;
$status = 301;

//Hook the link rewrite function into the page_link filter
//This part replaces the page URL, wherever it is outputted, with our custom URL
add_filter(‘page_link’,’custom_field_page_link’,10,2);
function custom_field_page_link($link,$id) {
//globalize vars
global $key;

$custom_page_url = get_post_meta($id, $key, true);
if(!empty($custom_page_url)) $link = $custom_page_url;
return $link;
}

//Hook the redirect function into the template_redirect action
//This part actually does the redirect, if necessary
add_action(‘template_redirect’,’custom_field_redirect’);
function custom_field_redirect() {
//globalize vars
global $wp_query, $key, $status;

$redirect = get_post_meta($wp_query->post->ID, $key, true);
if(!empty($redirect) && is_singular()) {
//And do the redirect.
wp_redirect($redirect, $status);
}
}
[/php]

Thanks to Nathan Rice for this!

How to use it
Each time you want to create a post that is going to be featured in the content gallery make sure to add “redirect”, without quotes, into the custom field Name. The Value area is where you paste the product URL. This will make sure that when the title of the post of the RSS feed item in the gallery is clicked on it will lead customers to the product details page, not the WordPress post.

For information on gallery slider and the javascript files you will need to get it running, go here http://www.serie3.info/s3slider/

3 New Ecommerce Designs

About a month ago we relaunched Chillyo.com with a new design – while I was working on it Nsha Club approached me about a new design for their site. I have to admit it I love designing Ecommerce websites. And I really love it when I am allowed to use my 2 favorite tools: WordPress and WordPress E-Commerce. Because I know how to use both tools pretty well by now, I am able to say to a client “I can do that, I can make that happen”.

I also designed a new site for an online Indian grocery using Lightspeed Webstore which went very well (and fast!) only 8 days from start day 1 to finish day which was today.
The client, India Stop Shop loved everything I did and if you’re in the same racket as me you’ll know that doesn’t happen all that often.

Using the New Post Image Function in WP 2.9 to Build a Featured Content Gallery

Now that WordPress lets you upload an image and crop it and set it as the post thumbnail you can do a lot of cool things with it.
All you have to do is add support for the function into your functions.php file and then use the set thumbnail option in the Post editor to have post thumbnails. I set it up today and then used the new function to build a featured content gallery. I went looking to find the code & I read a lot of tutorials but didn’t find any about using post thumbnails and the Loop to build content galleries, so I made my own.

View a Demo

This is the code to add that adds theme support for the new post thumbnail template tag -paste it into functions.php Template Name: Theme Functions
[php]
if (function_exists(‘add_theme_support’)) {
add_theme_support(‘post-thumbnails’);
set_post_thumbnail_size(500, 300, true);
}
[/php]

500 px by 300px in set_post_thumbnail_size is not exactly a thumbnail sized image, but it’s what I needed for the content gallery. Because they look good if the images are that size.You can make it 150 by 150 or any other dimensions you want. You don’t have to set an image size in functions.php but if you do you can override these settings per template by adding this code to your Loop:
[php]
<?php the_post_thumbnail(array( 260,200 ), array( ‘class’ => ‘center’ )); ?>
[/php]

That adds a thumbnail image to the post with class “center”. You can name the class anything you want: class=”floopdedoo” if that’s your thing.

You have to add the template tag to every file you want a post thumbnail to show.

It’s not retroactive, adding the tag tonight won’t automatically add post_thumbs to posts you added last week. I could explain it more but that is not the fun part.
For more examples on how to use this new tag, go to this site.

The fun part, building a featured content gallery:

[php]
<div id="gallery">
<div id="slider">
<div id="sliderContent">
<?php
query_posts(‘cat=12’);
if (have_posts()) : ?>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<div class="sliderImage"><?php the_post_thumbnail();?><span class="right"><h2 class="post_title"><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2><br/><?php the_excerpt();?></span></div>
<?php endwhile; ?>
<div class="clear sliderImage"></div>

<?php else : ?>
Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn’t here.
<?php endif; ?>
</div>
</div>
</div>
[/php]
So if you’re familiar with WordPress you can see that that is a Loop up there. So you’ll probably say hey wait all my theme files already have a loop in them! So you’ll have to figure out for yourself where you can use this. There’s a lot of documentation on modifying the WordPress Loop and in order to keep this post short I’ll just send you to go look for it:

Yes, I know the markup is a ugly. Not be the best idea to wrap a heading tag with a span tag. You need to clean it up if you have to be 100% standards compliant. For my fast and dirty needs it worked but I’ll clean it up before we go to production. See where it says cat=12? That’s because I wanted to make a featured content gallery out of the posts in category 12.

Here’s code for a content gallery for a Loop with no category designated:

[php]
<div id="gallery">
<div id="slider">
<div id="sliderContent">
<?php
if (have_posts()) : ?>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<div class="sliderImage"><?php the_post_thumbnail();?><span class="right"><h2 class="post_title"><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2><br/><?php the_excerpt();?></span></div>
<?php endwhile; ?>
<div class="clear sliderImage"></div>

<?php else : ?>
Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn’t here.
<?php endif; ?>
</div>
</div>
</div>
[/php]

Next thing you want to do is download the gallery code from here:

http://www.serie3.info/s3slider/
You should look at the demos and view the page source. They explain how to implement the slider and stuff. If you have trouble with it there are many tips over there.
You get the CSS to style the content gallery from that site,too.

I put the javascript in the footer.php of my theme like this:

[html]<script type="text/javascript" src="/wp-content/js/jquery-1.3.1.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/wp-content/js/s3Slider.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function() {
$(‘#slider’).s3Slider({
timeOut: 5000

});
});
</script>
[/html]

Download both templates: [download id=”8″]