Creating a display allows you to effectively curate and showcase content in visually appealing layouts. Follow these steps to set up and embed your first display.
Step 1: Open Displays
Log in to your WordPress dashboard. In the left-hand menu, find and click on Aggregator.
Under the Aggregator section in the left-hand menu, click on Displays.
On the Displays page, you will see a button labeled Create a new display. Click this button to start the process of creating a new display.
Step 2: Name your Display
From the top left, change the name of the display to something that best describes what it will show and/or where it will be used.
Click on the New display placeholder name with the pencil icon next to it to change the name.
Enter your own unique name and click on the Rename button to confirm.
Step 3: Select the Sources
In the new display creation screen, you will first need to select the sources that will be included in this display. Click on the field under Sources in the Settings section and start selecting the sources by typing in their names.
If you want to display content from a group of sources that you’ve placed in a folder, you can select the folder itself by clicking on Want to display a folder? and selecting the folder in question.
As soon as you select a source or a folder, the live preview will start displaying all their available items.
Next, from the Select your layout section, choose how you want the content to be displayed on your site. There are three layout options available right now:
- List: Display the content in a simple list format.
- Grid: Arrange the content in a grid layout.
- Excerpt & Thumbnail: Show excerpts of the content along with thumbnails.
The live preview will change according to the layout you select.
You can also change the device shown in the preview area so that you can see what your display will look like on desktop, table, and mobile devices. To do this, click on the icons at the top of the preview area.
Step 4: Customize the Display
Click on the Customization tab to adjust additional settings for your display.
Below is a list of some of the available customization options. Note that these may differ according to the layout selected in step 2.
- Appearance: Customize the overall look and feel of the display, including the number of items to show, max number of column, and more.
- Image: Manage settings related to images.
- Title: Adjust the appearance and max length of titles in the display.
- Excerpt: Customize how excerpts are displayed.
- Author: Configure the display of author information.
- Publish Date: Set how the publish date appears, including the date format.
- Source Name: Decide how the source name is displayed.
- Link: Manage the settings for links within the display.
- Audio Player: Configure the audio player settings if your content includes audio.
- Pagination: Adjust pagination style or remove it altogether.
Learn more about each layout’s customization options:
Step 5: Apply Filtering
Filtering allows you to tailor the content included in your display according to your visitors’ interests, ensuring they find exactly what they’re searching for in each section of your website.
Click on the Filtering tab to apply filters to the display’s content.
Start by clicking on the Add new filter button to create a new filter.
If: Define the condition for the filter. You have several options to choose from:
- Title: Filter by the title of the content.
- Content: Filter by the content body.
- Title and content: Filter by the title of the content and the content body.
And: Apply multiple rules using And logic, meaning each requirement in the filter must be met for an item to be eligible to be included in this display.
Or: Apply multiple rules using Or logic, meaning at least one of the requirements in the filter must apply for an item to be eligible to be included in this display.
Then: Finally, decide on what happens if the filtering rule’s requirements are met.
- Show items: Include the qualified items in the display
- Hide items: Hide the qualified items from the display
Once you have configured the filter rule, click the Save button at the bottom to activate the filter. You can Pause or Delete the filter at any time using the corresponding buttons.
To add another filter rule, click the Add new filter button and repeat the steps above.
For an in-depth guide on how to create a filter, click here.
Step 6: Save and Embed the Display
Once you have configured the sources, layout, customization, and filters, click on the Save button at the top right corner of the screen to save your new display. After saving, click on the Embed button to add the display to your site.
You have 4 options at this point
- Create a Page: Add the display to a newly created Page called “Aggregator”.
- Create a Post: Add the display to a newly created Post called “Aggregator”.
- Block: Add your display to existing posts or page using the block.
- Shortcode: Add your display to existing posts or page using the shortcode.
This completes the process of creating and embedding a display using Aggregator. You can now showcase your curated content in beautiful layouts anywhere on your website.
