This tutorial shows how to pull information in from other websites and display it on your WordPress dashboard. In this tutorial we use the RSS feed showing your friends status reports in Facebook.
The tutorial requires that you have the MyDashboard WordPress plugin installed.
1. Get the Status update RSS link from Facebook
From your Facebook home page click on the link in the top right hand corner of the page, next to the heading that says Status Updates, or if you are logged into Facebook, click on the following link http://www.facebook.com/statusupdates/
Towards the bottom right of this page you will see a section that looks like the image below.
Hover your mouse over the RSS icon (the little blue square), or the text next to it and click on the right mouse button. Click the short-cut menu item labelled “Copy Link” or “Copy Link Location” - the exact text will differ depending on the browser you are using. This will copy the link address into your computers clipboard for later use.
2. Add an RSS Feed gadget to your Dashboard
Login to the administration section of your WordPress site. You will need to have installed and activated the MyDashboard plugin to continue with this tutorial.
On the Dashboard, click on the Link, in the top right hand corner, labelled Add Gadgets to open the Dashboard gadget library. Once the library has opened, locate the following gadget.
Click on the Add to page link under the gadget to add an RSS Feed gadget to your dashboard page.
In the left hand column you will see a new gadget that looks something like the following image (the actual look will depend on the skin you are using for your dashboard).
3. Add the Facebook feed details.
Click on the Edit Settings button on the header bar of the added Gadget (in this case it is the little button that looks like a V) to open up the settings panel.
In the box labelled “Feed url“, paste in the URL we copied in Step 1 of this tutorial. You can go back to Facebook at this point to re-copy the link if you need to.
Set the number of items to show to a relatively high number. You can experiment with this, but if you have 20 friends, and want to see all of their status’s (assuming they have set them), then you will want to set this to 20 or 21.
If you only want to see the latest status changes, then set it to show something like 10 items. The Facebook RSS feed displays the most recently updated status’s first.
Click on the Update settings button and the RSS Feed gadget will go and retrieve the entered Facebook RSS Feed.
Finally, click the Edit Settings button on the header bar, again , to close the edit panel.
You can now drag the Gadget to where ever you want on the Dashboard page (I have mine placed in the top right hand corner). It will automatically update the Feed everytime you refresh the page or navigate to the Dashboard, so you will always be up to date with the status reports of you friends.
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