Write up of what my site does and how to do it...

[theDaveB]

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Hi,

Thought I would do a bit of a write up of things I do with my site and how to go about doing it. Now some things am probably doing the wrong or slower way but thought this might help some newbies out.

I will briefly explain the sort of things I have setup, then I will try and explain each one in detail (this is in no order, just random things I can think of).

1. Tumblr blog, post to twitter and facebook automatically
2. Create a Facebook fan page
3. Read in the Voucher Code API from buy.at and affiliate window and display it in wordpress
4. Import the medifusion game feed and turn it into posts in wordpress (including uploading and attaching the right image to the post)
5. Import the Amazon Top 10 (Consoles in my case) and turn it into posts in wordpress
6. Auto posting from wordpress to my facebook fan page
7. Change a ECU into a nice looking auto scrolling unit

Some of the above are via a plug-in and some I have written the PHP code for. If it's PHP then I use ShortCode Exec to display it in WordPress, hence why there is no opening and closing tags for the PHP.

Will expand on each one but if there are any you would like me to do first, please say.

Dave

[barneyboy]

Hi Dave,

Would definitely be keen to see no 5. if it's simple php.

Cheers

[theDaveB]

Hi,

Number 5. is a plug-in.

http://feedwordpress.radgeek.com/

Then for the feed, you just find what you want on the Amazon website and make a change to the URL to turn it into a RSS feed instead of a webpage.

For instance -

This is the top ten XBOX consoles on Amazon (I have left my tag on, so you know where to put it).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/bestsellers/videogames/676520011?tag=caniplay-21 

Change the gp to rss -

http://www.amazon.co.uk/rss/bestsellers/videogames/676520011?tag=caniplay-21 

EDIT: Not all Amazon URL's are formatted like above but the ones that are, then this works.

You can then use this new RSS url in the plugin and it will take each product and post it in WP. The beauty of the plug-in is each time it runs it updates posts if they already exists and creates posts for new products.

Dave

[D4N]

Thanks for that little write up, was explains and gives me more insight

[Dazza30]

Dave threads like this have become few and far between on this forum. I look forward to giving it a read once you've added more information

[theDaveB]

1. Tumblr

I use tumblr for posting bargains and anything interesting related to my website.

Tumblr is so easy and quick to use, I love it for posting quick one liners with a link to my site. If I spot a bargain on another website, I goto the game on my site then share the link via Tumblr.

Inside Tumblr you can link your FaceBook and Twitter accounts, so anything you post automatically goes to them as well.

Not a lot of tutorial as such, as it's built into the Tumblr interface. I did knock up a bit of ASP code to read the Tumblr API and post it into a blog page on a clients site.

This is the header part of the file. When Tumblr first came out, it was down more than it was up, so I wrote the code to save the XML to a blog.xml file locally, if the call fails it reads the local one etc...

<%@ Page Language="VB" Debug="true" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="System" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="System.Xml" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="System.Xml.Linq" %>

<script runat="server">


    Dim Posts As XElement

    Sub Page_Load(sender As Object, e As EventArgs)

    Try
        'Read Tumblr Feed and save it locally
        'Put this in a try/catch as if it fails I want the page to carry on and use the local copy
        Dim xmlMasterUpdateDoc As New XmlDocument()
        xmlMasterUpdateDoc.Load("http://liverpoolstudiohire.tumblr.com/api/read")
        xmlMasterUpdateDoc.Save("YOURHOSTINGSPACE\blog.xml")

    Catch xmlEx As XmlException
        'Catch any XML error and display it.
        Response.Write("XML Exception Thrown -> " + xmlEx.Message)

    Catch eX As Exception
        'Catch the error and display it.
        Response.Write("Exception Thrown -> " + eX.Message)
    Finally
        'Do the final cleanup such as closing the Database connection

    End Try

        If Cache("tumblrXE") is Nothing then

            'There is no tumblrXE item in the Cache, so load it from the local file
            Dim tumblrResponse As XElement = XElement.Load("YOURHOSTINGSPACE\blog.xml")

            Add it to the Cache and make it dependant on the local file (so it if changes the cache will)
            Cache.Insert("tumblrXE", tumblrResponse, New CacheDependency("YOURHOSTINGSPACE\blog.xml"))
        End If
        Posts = Cache("tumblrXE").Element("posts")
    End Sub
</script> 

This is the part of the file where you want to write the items to screen

<%
If Posts.Attribute("total").Value <> "0" Then
    For Each itemElement As XElement In Posts.Elements("post")
%>
          <!-- post START here -->
        <div class="post">
<%
    If itemElement.Attribute("type") = "link" Then
%>
          <h3><%=itemElement.Elements("link-text").Value%></h3>
          <div class="meta">
            <span class="category">Link</span>
            <span class="date"><%=itemElement.Attribute("date").Value%></span>
          </div>
          <p><a href="<%=itemElement.Elements("link-url").Value%>" Title="<%=itemElement.Elements("link-text").Value%>"><%=itemElement.Elements("link-text").Value%></a></p>
<%
    End If
%>

<%
    If itemElement.Attribute("type") = "photo" Then
%>
          <div class="meta">
            <span class="category">Photo</span>
            <span class="date"><%=itemElement.Attribute("date").Value%></span>
          </div>
          <a href="<%=itemElement.Elements("photo-link-url").Value%>" class="img-load">
          <img src="<%=itemElement.Elements("photo-url").Value%>" alt="Photograph" width="150px" height="150px" />
          </a>
          <%=itemElement.Elements("photo-caption").Value%>

<%
            If Len(itemElement.Elements("photo-caption").Value) < 200 Then
%>
                <p>
<%
                For i = 1 to (200 - Len(itemElement.Elements("photo-caption").Value))
                    Response.Write("&nbsp;")
                Next
%>
                </p>
<%
            End If
    End If
%>

<%
    If itemElement.Attribute("type") = "regular" Then
%>
          <h3><%=itemElement.Elements("regular-title").Value%></h3>
          <div class="meta">
            <span class="category">Regular</span>
            <span class="date"><%=itemElement.Attribute("date").Value%></span>
          </div>
          <%=itemElement.Elements("regular-body").Value%>
<%
    End If
%>
        </div>
        <!-- post END here -->
<%
    Next
End If
%> 

Ignore the fact is says PHP code, it's actually VB. This is possible in PHP but not bothered yet, if anyone wants in PHP I can re-write it.

Forgot to mention, you can see the page in action here -

http://www.liverpoolstudiohire.com/blog.aspx

And the Tumblr blog is here -

http://liverpoolstudiohire.tumblr.com/

Dave

[theDaveB]

4. Import the medifusion game feed and turn it into posts in wordpress (including uploading and attaching the right image to the post)

I use this to add games that haven't been released yet into my WP site.

For the PHP to run inside WP I use Shortcode Exec PHP plug-in.

I created a shotcode called custom_post and put the code below into it (you can get rid of most of the echo commands, they are just so I know it's running). Then I have created a hidden page on my site and put this -

[custom_post url="http://game.find-services.co.uk/gameSearch.asp?site=YOURMEDIFUSIONTAG&platform=PC&releasefrom=01/08/2011&releaseto=31/08/2011&order=&page=1&pagesize=60&mode=heavy"]

The XML that returns is all the game being released for the PC between the dates given.

I then preview the page from the dashboard and that runs the code. I haven't worked out a way yet of getting the post into the right category, hence I write the category into the description. I then go through the posts, and put the game in the right category by looking what was written in the description.

extract(shortcode_atts(array('url' => 'default'), $atts));
require_once('wp-admin/includes/media.php');
require_once('wp-admin/includes/file.php');
require_once('wp-admin/includes/image.php');
echo "Arg=" . $url . PHP_EOL;
$xml = simplexml_load_file(html_entity_decode($url));

foreach ($xml->children() as $item)
{


// Create post object
$my_post = array(
    'post_title' => $item->groupTitle . ' on ' . $item->platformName,
    'post_content' => $item->description . 'Category: ' . $item->category . '[get_details ASIN="' . $item->id . '"]',
    'post_status' => 'draft',
    'post_author' => 1
);

// Insert the post and image into the database
$new_post = wp_insert_post( $my_post );

if(!empty($item->imageURL))
{
    $file_url = media_sideload_image($item->imageURL,$new_post);
    echo $new_post . ' ' . $item->imageURL . ' ' . $file_url;
}
else
{
    echo $new_post;
}

echo '<br />';

} 

I have have another shortcode called [get_details] that is actually used in each post to show the price comparison for each ASIN, hence why it shows in the code above. If anyone wants the code for that, let me know.

Think that's about it. I wrote this as it was taking me ages to add games to the site and thought there must be a quicker and easier way. I use to have a ASP site that was fully automated and run live from the XML but couldn't get it ranking in Google, changed to WP and it ranks much better.

Old site was Can i Play ? - for all your gaming needs | Xbox 360 | PS3 | Wii | PSP | DS | DSi | PC | Bargains | Articles if your interested.

Dave

[theDaveB]

No 3. Read in voucher code feeds from both buy.at and affiliate window.

These routines read the feed in from your account for merchants that have accepted you. I have removed stuff from the URL that is specific to my accounts.

This is for Affiliate Window and uses CSV format.

$file_handle = fopen("http://www.affiliatewindow.com/affiliates/discount_vouchers.php?user=?????&password=BIGLONGPASSWORDHERE&export=csv&voucherSearch=1&rel=1", "r");
echo '<table>';
echo '<tr>
        <th scope="col">Retailer</th>
            <th scope="col">Description</th>
            <th scope="col">Voucher Code</th>
            <th scope="col">Start Date</th>
            <th scope="col">End Date</th>
            <th scope="col">Link</th>
        </tr>';

while (!feof($file_handle) ) {

    $line_of_text = fgetcsv($file_handle);

    echo '<tr><td>' . $line_of_text[0] . "</td>";
    echo '<td>' . $line_of_text[3] . "</td>";
    echo '<td>' . $line_of_text[2] . "</td>";
    echo '<td>' . $line_of_text[5] . "</td>";
    echo '<td>' . $line_of_text[6] . "</td>";
    echo '<td><a href="' . $line_of_text[4] . '" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" title="Visit website to use voucher code">Use Code</a></td></tr>';

}

fclose($file_handle);
echo '</table>'; 

Buy.at XML feed (this is a bit redundant, since everything is moving to AW).

$xml = simplexml_load_file("https://users.buy.at/ma/index.php/affiliateVoucherCodes/list?handle=0&filter_status=y&include_pending=1&include_active=1&include_expired=0&prog_id=0&vertical_id=0&orderby=date_added&dir=desc&format=xml&email=YOUREMAILADDRESS&password=BIGLONGPASSWORDHERE");

echo '<table>';

echo '<tr>
            <th scope="col">Retailer</th>
            <th scope="col">Description</th>
            <th scope="col">Voucher Code</th>
            <th scope="col">Start Date</th>
            <th scope="col">End Date</th>
            <th scope="col">Link</th>
        </tr>';

foreach($xml->body->children() as $child)
{
        if($child->status=='Active')
        {
            echo '<tr>';
            echo '<td>' . $child->programme . "</td>";
            echo '<td>' . $child->description . "</td>";
            echo '<td>' . $child->offer_code . "</td>";
            echo '<td>' . $child->start . "</td>";
            echo '<td>' . $child->end . "</td>";
            echo '<td><a href="' . $child->url . '" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" title="Visit website to use voucher code">Use Code</a></td>';
            echo '</tr>';
        }
}

echo '</table>'; 

The AW php routine needs work, as pound signs don't display properly and could do with skipping the first and last record in the file.

Dave