Art Near You

This web site is a demonstration of what can be done using the n0tice platform.

n0tice.com is a community noticeboard, a simple service that aims to answer a single question: “what’s happening near you?”.  And n0tice.org is an open journalism toolkit.  You can learn more about it here: http://n0tice.org.

By pulling the data feeds from n0tice you can add a lot of interesting information and context to your web site.  In this case, we wanted to demonstrate how data from n0tice could be used to support a web site about art.

Here is how we made this web site:

1. Setup a standard self-hosted installation of WordPress.  The custom solutions, as opposed to WordPress.com, give you a lot of capabilities including, crucially, the ability to add any WordPress plug-in.
2. Install a few handy WordPress plug-ins:
• FeedWordPress: This will setup a new syndication function.  You can give the plugin the URL of a content feed, and it will then import the posts from that feed as blog posts.
• WP-RSSImport: This will give you the ability to show headlines from a content feed on your web site sidebar.
• All-in-One Event Calendar: This will take a feed of events and create calendar entries for your web site.  It will also create a nice calendar page formatted in a full calendar view.
3. Identify feeds for n0tice content via the n0tice API.  You can browse through the n0tice API documentation to identify the type of content and what slice of that content you wish to import.  For example, you may wish to pull all the posts from a single noticeboard, all the events from a particular user, or all the offers from an area.
4. Identify external feeds.  Many other sources of information could be used to create more depth and context.  For example, perhaps you’d like to include a feed of gallery openings, news headlines from your favorite art blog, or bookmarks about your favorite artists.
5. Configure FeedWordPress: Using the ‘Syndication’ tool now appearing in the WordPress admin panel, add the new feeds you wish to import directly into your blog.  You can make adjustments such as who the author is, where the links go, and how often to collect content from the source feed.
6. Next add headlines to your web site sidebar using RSSImport.  Go to the ‘Widgets’ panel in WordPress, often located within the ‘Appearance’ tab.  The ‘RSSImport’ widget will appear with other widgets on the page.  Drag it to the position you want it to appear.  Then add the RSS feed you wish to display in that position.  You can configure options such as HTML  and custom description text.
7. Finally, submit your calendar feeds to the All-in-One Event Calendar tool in your WordPress Plug-ins admin panel.  Customize how you want the event items to appear and the options for the new ‘Calendar’ page on your web site.  You will have to go back to the ‘Widgets’ admin panel and drag the new ‘Upcoming Events’ widget to the appropriate sidebar location for your web site.

You can imagine the methods here could be used to create many different types of services for your web site.  Some people have been using n0tice as an open community space and then WordPress as a publishing space.  Some have been using n0tice as a sales pipeline for upselling classifieds. Some have been using notice as an event curation space which then automatically feeds vetted event listings to other web sites.

We would love to hear what you can invent using n0tice.  And the community of n0tice-ers is very supportive and active if you have questions about how to do these kinds of things.

Come and join the conversation over in the n0tice Google Group: https://groups.google.com/group/n0tice