Google aggregates news from over 4500 news sources, updated\ncontinously. The results can be retrieved as a number of \nRSS feeds, where you can create your own specific feed by\nspecifying one of more than 40 regions\/languages, and an\noptional topic ranging from Domestic to Most Popular to\nEntertainment. Currently there are nine topics, including,\nof course, All. In addition to this, any feed can be filtered \nthrough a search query so that only news items matching your \nquery will be shown. Note that not all combinations of \nregion\/language and topic has been enabled by Google but\nit should degrade gracefully.<\/p>\n\n
This plugin works both as a widget, as inline content\nreplacement and can be called from themes. Any number of \ninline replacements or theme calls allowed, but only one \nwidget instance is supported in this release.<\/p>\n\n
For widget use, simply use the widget as any other after\nselecting which feed it should display. For inline content\nreplacement, insert the one or more of the following strings in \nyour content and they will be replaced by the relevant news feed.\nFor theme use, add the do_action function call described below.<\/p>\n\n
<!--google-news--><\/code><\/strong> for the default feed<\/li>\n<!--google-news#feedname--><\/code><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\nShortcodes can be used if you have WordPress 2.5 or above,\nin which case these replacement methods are also available.<\/p>\n\n
\n[google-news]<\/code><\/strong> for the default feed<\/li>\n[google-news name=\"feedname\"]<\/code><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\nCalling the plugin from a theme is done with the WP do_action()\nsystem. This will degrade gracefully and not produce errors\nor output if plugin is disabled or removed.<\/p>\n\n
\n<?php do_action('google_news'); ?><\/code><\/strong> for the default feed<\/li>\n<?php do_action('google_news', 'feedname'); ?><\/code><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\nEnable plugin, go to the Google News page under \nDashboard->Settings and read the initial information. Then \ngo to the Google News page under Dashboard->Manage and \nconfigure one or more feeds. Then use a widget or insert\nrelevant strings in your content or theme.<\/p>\n\n
Additional information:<\/p>\n\n
The available options are as follows.<\/p>\n\n
Name:<\/strong> Optional feed name, that can be used in the \nwidget or the inline replacement string to reference\na specific feed. Any feed without a name is considered\n\"default\" and will be used if the replacement strings do\nnot reference a specific feed. If there are more than\none feed with the same name, a random of these is picked\nevery time it is used. This also applies to the default\nfeed(s).<\/p>\n\nTitle:<\/strong> Optional, which when set will be used in the\nwidget title or as a header above the news items when \ninline. If the title is empty, then a default title\nof \"Google News : <region> : <feed type>\" is used. Note\nthat as per Google Terms of Service it is a requirement\nto state that the news come from Google.<\/p>\n\nNews region:<\/strong> A dropdown list of 40 choices, determining\nthe region\/language of the feed.<\/p>\n\nNews type:<\/strong> Another dropdown list, determining what type of\nnews you are after. Sci\/Tech, Business, Health etc.<\/p>\n\nOutput type:<\/strong> Some Google feeds come with just text, \nsome pictures or pictures on nearly every news item. Chose\nwhich one you want here.<\/p>\n\nNews item length:<\/strong> Short or long. The short version is really just \nthe news item title as a one liner but probably the one most \nWP admins will use. The long version is a 3-4 line teaser that \nhas been severely stripped of useless markup that Google insists \non passing along, including tables, links, colour\/font\/style\nsettings etc. I've tried to clean it up so it won't mess up your \ntheme. For the short version, the long text without html tags is \navailable as a mouse rollover\/tooltip.<\/p>\n\nMax items to show:<\/strong> As the title says, if the feed has\nsufficient entries to fulfil the request.<\/p>\n\nOptional query filter:<\/strong> One of the most important parts of\nthe Google News RSS Feed is the ability to filter the news\nwith your very own search query. Get relevant, up to date\nnews on the exact topic you want. Note that if you add a\nsearch query, then the short item length will include an \n\"all N news articles\" link curtesy Google. If you choose\nto add a query, then you most likely want to set a title\nas well. To explain to the viewer what kind of news you have\nselected for them to see. The News Query isn't like a standard\nGoogle Query, so you can't use || between words to search\nfor one or the other. So IFF you start your query with\nthe word OR<\/strong> then the rest of the words will be or'ed\ntogether. I.e. a query string of 'OR this that' will look\nfor news containing either this or that. This is really \njust a test, so the actual query language used here may change in \nfuture versions.<\/p>\n\nCache time:<\/strong> The feeds are now fetched using WordPress \nbuiltin MagpieRSS system, which allows for caching of feeds\na specific number of seconds. Cached feeds are stored in\nthe backend database.<\/p>\n\nClicking on a news item will of course take you via Google to\nthe news site with the relevant article, as per Google Terms of Use.<\/p>\n\n
If you want to change the look&feel, the inline table is \nwrapped in a div with the id \"google-news-inline\" and the\nwidget is wrapped in an li with id \"google-news\". Let me \nknow if you need more to properly skin it.<\/p>\n\n