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Can a person easily create a text widget which will randomly show the title of an archived post within one's own blog? It would be cool. It's not important to my blog to show the blog's pic. (I use Misty Look.0
Or do I have to manually insert my choice URL title of an archived blog post each time?
The blog I need help with is thirdwavecyclingblog.wordpress.com.
<a href="http:// yourblog.wordpress.com/?random">read a random post</a>
and obviously without the space between the http part and your blog name, can be put in a text widget in your sidebar, but the same functionality appears in the Admin Bar, under "blog info". When someone who is a WordPress.com user visits your site, they can use that as well.
Create a text link with this as the href
http://www.thirdwavecyclingblog.wordpress.com/?random
If you don't know CSS, create the link in a draft post, switch to the HTML editor, copy the content and paste it into a text widget.
~~~ @tsp!
You're just too fast today Jennifer. I must need another cuppa.
By the way, this will REALLY increase retention of readers on your site. Some of them clicked around on my site for HOURS with that thing, and when I took it off they complained after years of silence. I should really put mine back.
I just put one up on my site here (which I pretty much ignore except when feeling snarky). I'll have to see what it does to my hit rate.
I'll have to look into the same thing on my main blog (which I also am not paying enough attention to).
Interesting. I'm of 2 minds here:
Random post is kind of fun, curiosity thing ...if the reader is paying attention vs. the photos. :) Gosh, I wish my Misty Look template would allow the matching lst photo with random URL blog post.
Or
There's a handful of archived posts which I know are popular hits (very interesting.. actually) which I would want to highlight by manually putting in URL. This would be for new readers passing by. And strangely these popular posts are always viewed several times per week. Amazing. Human beings DO have some core basic instincts that cross all boundaries which makes them gravitate towards certain topics or images.
And thanks all!
This is awesome! :D
I guess I was hoping for the random post title of its blog article would appear inside the text widget which it doesn't. A person has to click to see random post and its title.
(It's not on third wave cycling blog yet. I'm trying it on a trial blog elsewhere.)
Any suggestions for additional coding in the aref html coding would be appreciated.
Including the Post title, as you mention, would have to be somehow dynamically generated, so I very much doubt that would work here. Would be glad to be proven wrong.
On the other hand, I used an RSS widget and specially tagged some of my favorite posts to display under "Posts I like" using the Random setting and set it to show only 5 of them at a time. Again, not quite what you are looking for...
Actually jennifer that might be a good solution by using an RSS widget! I would be willing to try..
Please provide instructions. :)
Not my day for accuracy, because it seems you can't set the RSS widget to display post titles randomly, though it would be nice if it could. (sigh)
If you're still interested:
That's it.
You could use Yahoo Pipes to randomise the output times. Here's one I found that might be useful: check it out. Just paste your feed URL into the box, run the pipe and then select the "get an RSS" below. Paste the new URL into your RSS widget here on wordpress and voila, posts displayed randomly. You can even use the feeds for specific tags or caregories as mentioned above if you want. Perhaps some sort of "showcase" tag to display links to the posts you most want to show off which would re-shuffle themselves when you add new posts.
Ok, so far I've tried jhenifer's rss category feed idea.
Doesn't work yet. http://cyclewriteblog.wordpress.com (see lst widget)
My question is that:
Can I only pull in posts from the home blog or from other blogs where I'm logged in as the editor or administrator? (So far, it seems like only home blog, cyclewrite.)
Would "bike art" in category command feed, be:
bike art
bikeart
bike-art (for a link to list of archived posts in another blog that I'm administrator this is what it does when I create a TEXT widget for clickable URL.)
bike_art
http://yourusername.wordpress.com/category/bike art/feed/ As an example that didn't work for me --yet. But I tried all phrase variations.
Sounds picky, but will be useful for several blogs if I get this right.
You can only set up categories that already exist on the blog, but there's nothing stopping you from pulling in content from other blogs you have. Here's an example:
http://cyclewriteblog.wordpress.com/category/olympic-city-living/feed/
http://thirdwavecyclingblog.wordpress.com/category/bike-art/feed/
is the correct feed for that category, and if you have several blogs and want to feature posts from one to another, the RSS widget is a great way to do it. You can also simply use your other blog's general feed http://thirdwavecyclingblog.wordpress.com/feed/
But we were originally discussing highlighting posts from the same blog to that blog's sidebar. The principle is the same, the only "missing" part is the step where you create a special category or tag for those posts you want to highlight on that blog.
And here I'm going to have to say goodnight before I get myself into more hot water. :)
Super. I used Halluke's sample command. I've added my specialized category RSS feed on bike art which pulls from another blog of mine which I have administrative rights. http://cyclewriteblog.wordpress.com
Guess my problem is my post titles are wordy. Typical me. :D
Jennifer maybe you were trying something else. I still am trying it for a blog where I am 1 author out of 5 other authors. Not yet working.... Not sure if I can isolate articles that I am sole author from other people who are blog authors.
For now, it's good enough! I'm happy.
Yes, you can isolate only your own posts: every author has their own feed. It's the URL of your Author page, with /feed on the end.
Just to connect 2 related posts..here's the other related link how to pull out a RSS feed for just 1 author (that blogger is a guest blogger AND has editorial, log-in wordpress rights):
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