Author Topic: Get summary from latest episode?  (Read 506 times)

Zach Herbert

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Get summary from latest episode?
« on: September 18, 2016, 12:13:02 pm »
Is there a way to pull the iTunes summary from the most recent episode?

I'm creating the homepage for my podcast, and I'd like it to automatically feature the most recent episode. I see that I can use the playlist player to stream the latest episode. And that I can include the Title/Subtitle in the player.

But I'd also like the page to include the summary of the latest episode without having to manually update it every time.

Does anyone know how to do this? (Doesn't have to be through PowerPress.)

Thanks!

Shawn Thorpe

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Re: Get summary from latest episode?
« Reply #1 on: September 18, 2016, 01:14:14 pm »
There's definitely nothing in PowerPress that can do this. But, there might be a plugin that reads RSS feeds that can do it. Might be worth checking around on that.

Zach Herbert

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Re: Get summary from latest episode?
« Reply #2 on: September 19, 2016, 03:00:34 pm »
In case anyone else is looking to do this, I solved the issue using the Recent Posts Widget Extended plugin. Using a shortcode to pull from a specified category and limiting to 1 entry. This pulls the title and excerpt from the most recent podcast episode.

I'm also using the playlist player with a custom style that hides the title and playlist. (Also limited to 1 entry.)

The result is a podcast homepage that features the Title, Description and Player for the most recent episode. Without having to manually update the page every time.

Shawn Thorpe

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Re: Get summary from latest episode?
« Reply #3 on: September 19, 2016, 07:26:25 pm »
That's great! Glad you found a solution. Re: using the PowerPress playlist player. What did you do to modify its appearance like that? Were you able to do it thru a shortcode or did you do it thru CSS?

Zach Herbert

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Re: Get summary from latest episode?
« Reply #4 on: September 19, 2016, 08:31:02 pm »
The playlist shortcode allows a "style" argument that will append the supplied value to the player's class name. That way you can specify CSS that only applies to that player instance. (Basically just adding a couple "display:none;" styles.)

Shawn Thorpe

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Re: Get summary from latest episode?
« Reply #5 on: September 20, 2016, 03:38:04 pm »
Cool. Thanks for the clarification.