 |
 |
We run a Wordpress multisite setup here at MPOW, and have two different blogs that we use for this type of purpose: an "Alerts" blog for in-house alert needs, and a "News" blog for public-facing announcements. We just use the RSS feed to push the alerts where needed, and there's certainly no shortage of RSS collection/parsing libraries. I'm partial to Magpie (http://magpierss.sourceforge.net/) but only because I've had years of using it. We even recently moved to using Growl for Windows with an RSS plugin to do "heads up" alerts on staff/faculty PCs, so that when something is posted to the Alerts blog, all staff machines get an impossible-to-ignore alert overlay on their screens. We will likely be doing a similar thing for "Emergency" use and the public machines. Jason On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 9:12 AM, Michael Schofield <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Hey everyone, > > > > I've been toying with the idea making something because I can't seem to find > a free alternative, but I thought I'd do my due diligence and pick your > brains. I'm open for any alternatives to the following, but I'm specifically > looking for a free option with an API. > > > > Scenario: our main website lives on the university's server, which turns out > to be a very dull playground: HTML/CSS/JS only. This means there's about 150 > static files that I'm now presently rolling into a WP Network living on our > own boxes-and our own domain-(we've been waiting for the last year for a > university-wide CMS, but we just don't want to hold our breaths any longer > J) but the main site, the landing page, will always be static. This means > that whenever there's an early closure, a hurricane watch, or some other > announcement someone has to submit a ticket and then I have to make a > change. My goal is to cut me-the middleman-out of the process. > > > > My potential project: So what I was thinking was jury-rigging a Wordpress > theme into an "alerts" dashboard for managers, directors, and so on. I want > to empower the Circulation manager to login, make an announcement, and be > done with it. For all the departmental and other sites that live on the WP > Network, I'd write and install a corresponding "alerts" plugin that watches > the JSON API for an alert and-if true-display it. For our static sites, I'd > toss in a jquery plugin that did the same. > > > > My question: this seems like something that's been done before! Has it? If > not, anyone want to collaborate on github? > > > > All the best, > > > > Michael Schofield(@nova.edu) | Web Services Librarian | (954) 262-4536 > > Alvin Sherman Library, Research, and Information Technology Center > > > > Hi! Hit me up any time, but I'd really appreciate it if you report broken > links, bugs, your meeting minutes, or request an awesome web app over on the > Library Web Services <http://staff.library.nova.edu/pm> site. > >