Higher Logic provides dozens of widgets that you can use to:

• modernize the look of your community pages,
• enhance the usefulness of your site, and
• increase member engagement.

In this article, we'll focus on our RSS widget.

Access the widget

You'll be able to add, edit, and remove widgets when editing one of your community's pages. To edit a page:

1. Navigate to the page you want to update and click Edit Page on the Admin Toolbar (or right click for a new tab). Alternatively, you can click Edit Navigation to access the CMS and your community's complete page list, from which you can access and edit any page.

2. Editing a page is accomplished with Page Designer. Click the Build tab and scroll down to the Widget section.
3. Use the Category dropdown and/or the search field to more quickly find a specific widget.

• Widgets are grouped and accessible from their own category in the dropdown.
• Select the All category to view the complete list of widgets; click RSS to view the widget discussed in this article.

RSS Reader

Use this widget to display an RSS feed of your choosing, on a page of your choosing. In order for this widget to function, you'll need to understand how to retrieve the correct URL for the RSS feed you want to share.

NOTE: There's no "one size fits all" way to locate an RSS feed's URL, as the steps are slightly different depending on the platform where it's hosted. While Higher Logic cannot promote a specific resource to walk you through how to find an RSS URL, you can find plenty of help using a quick Internet search.

Options

You can configure the RSS Reader widget via the following options:

• RSS Feed URL: Use this option to enter the RSS feed URL the widget should read from. The widget uses this URL as its content source, so the feed must be valid and publicly accessible to display content correctly.

• Hide if No Data?: Use this option to hide the widget when the RSS feed does not return any items. Enable it when you do not want an empty RSS area to appear on the page.

  • No Data Text: Use this option to set the message shown when the widget does not find any feed items. Use it to provide a clearer empty-state message to users.

• Max Description Length: Use this option to control how much description text displays for each RSS item. Use it when you want to keep the list compact or limit how much preview text appears from each post.

• Max Number of Content to Show in List: Use this option to control how many RSS items appear in the widget at one time. Use it when you want to show only a short feed or surface more items from the source.

• Max Title Length: Use this option to control how many characters of each RSS item title are shown. This is useful when you want to prevent long titles from affecting the widget layout.

• Show Body Preview?: Use this option to show or hide preview text from each RSS item. Enable it when you want users to see a short summary before clicking through to the source content.

• Show More Link at Bottom of List?: Use this option to show or hide a More link below the widget. Enable it when you want users to have a clear way to open the full feed or continue to a broader list of content.

  • More Button Text: Use this option to set the text shown for the More link at the bottom of the widget. Use it when you want the call to action to match your site’s wording.

  • More Button URL: Use this option to set the destination URL for the More link. The helper text indicates that, if you do not specify a separate URL, the widget uses the RSS Feed URL for the More link destination.

  • More URL Target: Use this option to control how the More link opens. This setting determines whether the More URL opens in the same tab or another target.

• Show Publish Date?: Use this option to show or hide the published date for each RSS item. Enable it when users need to know when each item was originally posted.

  • Use Time-Ago Format?: Use this option to change how item dates are displayed. The alternate format shows the exact timestamp the post was published and always uses Eastern Time, so you should use it only if that display style fits your page and audience.