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Display posts ticker-style in WordPress with Zazz
I was thinking about a way to showcase older posts and happened across the Zazz Post Tickerplugin by Stew Houston.
I thought “Here we go, another chance for me to totally bork my blog with some unknown piece of code…” So I picked up the scissors and blah-blah-blah (you get the idea).
I took a quick look at the instructions (note that for historical purposes) and I didn’t see where I had to re-write my server’s kernel or edit core WordPress components and figured “wot the ‘ell”.
The good points: Easy to install, light-weight and does exactly what it’s supposed to do right out of the box (and that’s with WordPress 2.3-beta3). It’s easy to configure (though it does require editing the zazz-post-ticker.php file, it’s a simple, straight-forward edit), it doesn’t use tables (thank you, I’ve puked enough this week) and the CSS is not convoluted! It allows for changing the duration before fading, the number of posts and even allows for an offset (seems redundant to me to display post information that’s displayed an inch lower on the page so I liked this feature).
The bad point (singular, mind you): The javascript isn’t wrapped so it isn’t valid. But here’s a quick fix:
Open up zazz-post-ticker.php and go to line 30, it should look like this:
echo "<script type=\"text/javascript\">\n";
Create a new line under that one and insert:
echo "//<![CDATA[\n";
And right before line 139 which reads:
echo "</script>\n";
Add:
echo "//]]>\n";
Now you have a light-weight, easy to install/configure post ticker for WordPress that validates as well!
Feedback welcome.
Note: As of 10/29/08 it appears the author’s site is down, here is the v1.1 file: Zazz Post Ticker
14 Users Commented on " Display posts ticker-style in WordPress with Zazz "
orakanggo says,Hi… i have modified the query, so the plugin compatible with wp 2.3
http://www.uploading.com/files/UY7V5GZ3/zazz-post-ticker.zip.html
NOTE : to show post only in one category, just add t.term_id=[fill with category id] in where clause query
thanks
Hi Sam,
Thanks for the nice review of the post ticker. I wrote the code a little whiles back, before I started using the CDATA trick to write valid 1.1 markup.
I’ll definitely add this in to the current file.
Thanks again
Stew
Hi,
is there a way to do the same with recent comments ?
Thanks
Bye!!
Hi, the plugin link won’t work and I’ve been looking for this for quite a long time. Is there a way to get hold of your version of this plugin please? Thanks for all!
Hello Everyone, I’m having the same issue as Sachin, the plugin link doesn’t work. Is there any way to get this plugin?
Thanks!
Sachin:
Dazla:
It appears the site is down so I put a link to my local copy at the end of the article above.
Happy hexing!
I found the zip file
http://www.ien.ie/wp/wp-content/plugins/zazz-post-ticker.zip
but please tell me the code to execute the plugin on my blog
This is the call:
<?php if (function_exists('ticker_get_results')) ticker_get_results(); ?>
Thank you so much Sam !!
now I can finally see it working, but the file I downloaded makes the rss items look crappy, in this post you shared a zip file containing the latest “zazz-post-ticker.php” but your uploaded file has errors when you download and extract the content, would you please considering re-uploading the zipped php file you are currently using in this blog ?
After all .. that file contains no private data and it can be useful for many people, thanks in advance for your help
I added your blog to my technorati favorites
Thanks for this resource! I’m wondering how to limit the ticker to only a certain category of posts. I see Orakanggo’s note above, but I have no idea where to put the code 
Thanks again!
Hi,
Been looking for one of these for absolutely ages! And it’s working out of the box
I just have one question, as with Morgan, I have no idea where/how to get posts from just one category, any chance you could post a sample snippet? Pretty please…?
Cheers,
Tracy
I wanted to show the titles of my last five posts, but it showed the title of my last post five times!
It seems to be caused by the use of tags. The ticker shows the title five times when it has five tags.
Obviously I want to be able to use tags AND have this plugin working.
Can you help me?
@Wendy: I wouldn’t waste any time with it, looks like the Zazz-ticker-thing is no longer supported/updated. The only reason I’m still using it is because it hasn’t broken here ;’) (except in the translator).
