Sunday, January 27, 2013

Graddit Aggregator: related posts from multiple blogs

Graddit presents new widget called Aggregator. It allows you to display related posts grabbed from multiple blogs. Demonstration is avaliable here - it shows 20 posts labeled "graddit,blogger,widget,seo" from 3 blogs. Aggregator will be useful if you want to cross-link your own similar blogs. Besides, it can be used commercially to show links from sponsoring blogs.

How to setup widget:
  • open aggregator page;
  • read rules and limitations. There's paid and free versions. In short, free allows you to use 2 blogs and display widget not more than 500 times a day. First 1000 displays will work as in paid versions, so that you could experiment;
  • on the top press Get code link to open widget parameters tab;
  • provide blogs URLs;
  • configure other parameters. What can be configured:
    • what to display: related posts or random posts;
    • number of links;
    • links target attribute;
    • style. There are 4 predefined styles or you can choose none and make your own layout; styles samples:
      Light Gray
      Graddit aggregator, light style Graddit aggregator, gray style
      Blue Dark
      Graddit aggregator, blue style Graddit aggregator, dark style
    • whether or not use inline styles. Choose no if you're making your own styles;
    • display thumbnails or just text;
    • default thumbnail.
  • on the right hand side select a platform to get properly generated code;
  • copy code and paste it to a desired place in your template.
Currently only Blogspot platform support is implemented. There's also experimantal support of Atom feeds. If you'd like to try atom you'll have to change few lines in generated code manually: add atom feed and set atom platform like this: (shown code aggregates posts from both blogger and atom feed):
var sites = {
 'http://fruitfulbookmarks-en.blogspot.com' : 'blogger',
 'http://ruletka.omg-linux.ru/atom.xml' : 'atom',
};

Other platforms and feed types will be added later.

Few words about paid version. You can automatically subscribe to paid version using Paypal. On the aggregator page you need to specify your blog address and set number of related blogs, then press Subscribe with Paypal. Aggregator will check your current subscription and if everything is fine you'll be able to move to payment page. Subscription can be cancelled at any time. Limitations of the paid version: up to 100,000 displays daily, up to 10 linked sites. If you think for your needs it's not enougth please email to sales@graddit.com.
Graddit Aggregator: related posts from multiple blogs, 4.04 out of 5 based on 23 ratings
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Friday, January 25, 2013

Blogspot template with Graddit widgets: mlnpics

Download template

From time to time I'm going to modify and publish free Blogspot templates witn Graddit widgets included. First example mlnpics is based on Queen template from DZignine.
Main page:

Post:

Key features:
  • used widgets: ratings, tops, aggregator;
  • default "Prev" and "Next" links are replaced with posts titles;
  • menu contains links to static pages, those pages display top posts (each page has it's own category). Order of the posts is controlled by graddit widgets and based on average rating. This kind of things are not provided by Blogspot platform by default — something that your visitors may find interesting;
  • users can navigate using Ctrl + left and Ctrl + right arrows, easier navigation = better user experience.

Live demo: http://mlnpics.blogspot.com.
Template source code is not yet published, please write your comments here if you think something should/might be changed. Download links will appear here later.

Important: template does not contain Graddit copyright, but it contains a copyright of the authors of the original template, that should stay untouched, you can not remove it.

Download template
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