Last updated on March 16, 2018

Widget: RSS Ticker


The RSS ticker widget displays a scrolling or fading ticker of RSS feeds. It provides a standardized solution to automatically display updated textual web feeds in a clean and easy-to-read format. An RSS Ticker widget is commonly used for:

  • Displaying the latest news feeds and/or headlines from online media broadcasts including news sites.
  • Providing the latest updates from users on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
  • Sharing of new content from blogs and organizations with regularly maintained websites.

This article provides the instructions add and configure a RSS Ticker widget.

Adding a RSS Ticker Widget

To add a RSS Ticker widget to your Signs sign, follow the instructions in the Adding Widgets section in the Managing Widgets article and select the RSS Ticker widget in the Widget Library.

Configuring a RSS Ticker Widget

To configure a RSS Ticker widget’s properties, please follow the instructions below:

  1. In your Signs sign’s layout, click the RSS Ticker widget name under the Widgets section.



  2. In the Widget Properties window, configure the common tabs as per this article: Configuring Widget Properties.

  3. In the Widget Properties window, click the APPEARANCE tab.

  4. Edit the properties sections as per the tables provided below:

    • COMMON: general widget color, width, and margin settings
    • PROPERTIES: the various attributes that affect how the RSS information will be displayed
    • FONT: different customization options for different fields of the RSS feed



    The PROPERTIES section allows you to alter the behavior of the RSS text being displayed, such as:

    • Display Layout: the arrangement of elements
    • Layout Spacing: the gap between the content and the layout
    • Item Spacing: the space between each RSS item in the ticker feed
    • Ticker Speed: the speed of the text moving in the feed
    • Ticker Direction: the direction of the movement of the ticker feed

  5. To change the RSS feed display layout, in the PROPERTIES section, click the [+] sign to the right of the Display Layout field.



  6. In the Layout Display window, click and drag any of the elements from the Available Element section and drop it into the Display Element section to display it in the RSS Ticker, and vice-versa to hide it. You may also re-order any of the elements in the Display Element using the drag and drop method. Click OK when you have completed your layout selection.


  7. In the FONT section, click the sub-tabs to customize the look of the TITLE, DATE, and TEXT.


    Property Name Description
    Font Provides the options to select the font from the dropdown list.
    Size Assigns a selection of sizes for the designated text (from 8 to 120).
    Align Sets the positioning of the text in the layout (Left Align, Right Align or Center Align).
    Color Customizes the color of the text to be displayed.
    Bold Toggles the text to be formatted in BOLD.

    When customizing the font size, you may choose to define a custom size measured based on pixels. Select the Custom option from the Size drop-down menu to define the pixel size of your font.


    Note

    To change the default date format, ‘MM/DD/YYYY HH:mm’, click the PROPERTIES tab, and add the following property with the desired value

    Widget Property Value Description
    custom.rssticker.date.format

    dd/MM/yyyy

    dd/MMM/yyyy

    dd/MM/yy

    dd/MMMM/yyyy

    MM-Do-yy

    MMM-dd

    To change the date format

    d - Day

    M - Month

    y - Year

    Do - Ordinal Day (1st, 2nd)

Adding RSS Feeds

  1. In the Widget Properties window, click the CONTENT tab.

  2. Click the Add RSS button or link.


  3. In the RSS Feed window, enter the feed URL in the URL text box. If necessary, check the ‘Require authentication’ checkbox and fill in your credentials in the Username and Password text boxes. Click the Apply button when finished.


    Note

    Supported RSS formats: RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, mRSS, Atom 1.0

    With Appspace 5.6, authentication can be enabled for feeds if necessary, and SharePoint feeds are accepted.

  4. Configure the following options for the RSS feed:

    • Refresh Rate: determines how frequently the system will search for new content from the web feed.
    • Display Duration: sets the expiration date of the oldest updated content from the web feed.
    • Max Items Per Feed: configures the maximum number of content (items) to be displayed for each individual web feed.


Editing RSS Feeds

  1. In the Widget Properties window, click the CONTENT tab.

  2. Click the date link for the designated RSS feed under the Updated column.


  3. In the RSS Feed window, make the desired changes and click Apply.


Removing RSS Feeds

  1. In the Widget Properties window, click the CONTENT tab.

  2. Click the Remove link under the Options column for the desired RSS feed.


  3. When prompted, click OK to remove the RSS feed from the widget.


Known Issues

  • Text in the RSS Text widget is visually truncated when displayed in Appspace App. This is due to a browser limitation, when the text exceeds the HTML component width limit. A workaround is to add the following custom widget property:

    Widget Property Value Description
    custom.ticker.render.type single Displays 1 RSS item at a time
    custom.ticker.render.type multiple Displays multiple RSS items at a time