News Collector

A WordPress plugin that aggregates RSS/RSSHub feeds (Telegram channels), parses each item into structured content, re-uploads media to Catbox for persistent hosting, and displays the feed via shortcodes with an Instagram-style modal and canonical per-item URLs.

Features

• Scheduled ingestion via Action Scheduler. Configurable interval.
• Robust parser handling Telegram/RSSHub quirks: blockquote article extraction, too_big video fallback, image dedup, YouTube ID detection, "Forwarded From" stripping, OG metadata scraping.
• Catbox media hosting. Downloads media locally and re-uploads via fileupload multipart (works with Telegram CDN token-protected URLs that urlupload cannot access). Monthly album organisation with automatic daily sync.
• Expired Telegram links re-minted. Signed cdn*.telesco.pe URLs die in hours, but the message does not: a retry re-reads t.me/{channel}/{id}?embed=1, which re-signs the media on every request, and matches each stored piece by position. No Telegram account or API credentials involved.
• URL shortener resolution for t.co, bit.ly, tinyurl.com, etc.
• Feed UI:
  • Single-image display (no crop, natural dimensions).
  • Media grid for 2–4 items (1:1 crop, lightbox).
  • Single-video inline autoplay (muted, looped) via IntersectionObserver (one at a time).
  • Article card with site name, title, excerpt and cover image.
  • YouTube CTA when no other media is present.
  • too_big videos shown as Telegram links with poster.
  • Infinite scroll via REST + IntersectionObserver.
  • Instagram-style modal with history.pushState. Back button closes the modal; direct URL visits load the full-page item view.
  • Media lightbox (keyboard + swipe) inside modal/detail only.
• Admin UI with items list (filters: too_big / upload_failed / hidden), bulk actions, per-item media editor (paste a Catbox URL for too_big videos), sources CRUD, and Catbox albums dashboard.
• Translation-ready. Ships with es_ES. Date format and timezone follow the WordPress site settings.

Requirements

• PHP 8.1+
• WordPress 6.0+
• MySQL 5.7+ / MariaDB 10.3+
• Pretty permalinks recommended (plain mode falls back to ?nc_item=N)

Installation

1. Upload the wp-news-collector folder to wp-content/plugins/.
2. Activate via Plugins → Installed Plugins.
3. Run the DB migration: deactivate and reactivate the plugin once (creates the four custom tables).
4. Set Settings → General → Site Language to match your audience so the correct translation loads.
5. Set Settings → General → Timezone to your local timezone (dates are displayed in this timezone).
6. Add RSS/RSSHub feed URLs under News Collector → Sources, e.g.: http://rsshub.example/telegram/channel/your_channel
7. Optionally enable Catbox under News Collector → Settings and add your userhash.
8. Make sure Settings → Permalinks is not set to "Plain".

Shortcodes

[news_feed]

[news_feed]
[news_feed limit="10" source="mychannel"]
[news_feed source="channel1,channel2" limit="30" show_videos="false"]

Attribute	Default	Description
source	''	Filter by source handle(s), comma-separated. Empty = all sources.
limit	20	Maximum items to load initially (cap: 200). Infinite scroll loads more.
show_images	true	Render the image/media grid.
show_videos	true	Render videos and too_big links.

[news_widget]

[news_widget]
[news_widget count="5" title="Latest news"]
[news_widget count="8" source="channel1,channel2"]

Attribute	Default	Description
count	5	Number of items (1–10).
source	''	Filter by source handle(s), comma-separated.
title	''	Optional heading above the list.

[news_sources]

[news_sources]
[news_sources title="Channels"]

Renders the list of active sources with their Telegram links. Useful in sidebars.

Sidebar widget

News Collector → Latest news also appears as a classic WordPress widget under Appearance → Widgets, with the same options as [news_sources].

Canonical URLs

• /{slug}/{id}: full-page item view. The slug defaults to noticia and is configurable in Settings.
• /wp-json/nc/v1/item/{id}: REST endpoint returning {id, permalink, title, html}.
• /wp-json/nc/v1/feed?page=N&page_size=20&source=: paginated feed used by infinite scroll.

Theme customisation

CSS design tokens

Override any of these in your theme CSS:

:root {
  --nc-radius:       8px;       /* card and image border-radius */
  --nc-accent:       #2271b1;   /* source name, article border, links */
  --nc-card-bg:      #fff;      /* card background */
  --nc-border:       #e2e2e2;   /* card borders and dividers */
  --nc-muted:        #888;      /* secondary text (dates, excerpts) */
  --nc-surface:      #f4f4f4;   /* image placeholder background */
  --nc-text:         #222;      /* body text inside cards */
}

Example, square corners with custom accent:

:root { --nc-radius: 0; --nc-accent: #e45d12; }

Template overrides

Copy any template to your theme to customise the HTML:

wp-content/themes/your-theme/
└── wp-news-collector/
    ├── item.php          ← feed card
    ├── item-detail.php   ← modal + standalone page content
    ├── feed.php          ← feed container (loop, sentinel, disclaimer)
    └── single-item.php   ← full /noticia/{id} page (header + item-detail + footer)

Child themes are checked before parent themes; plugin defaults are the final fallback.

Settings

Stored as option nc_settings:

Key	Default	Description
catbox_enabled	false	Re-upload media to catbox.moe.
catbox_userhash	''	Catbox account userhash (optional, required for albums).
fetch_interval_minutes	30	Recurring fetch interval in minutes.
max_items_per_source	50	Items inserted per source per cycle.
item_slug	item	URL prefix for single-item pages (e.g. set to news for /news/123).
source_slug	source	URL prefix for per-source landing pages (/source/<channel>/).
catbox_retry_enabled	true	Sweep failed uploads automatically.
catbox_retry_interval	3600	Seconds between retry sweeps.
catbox_retry_batch_size	10	Uploads attempted per sweep.
catbox_retry_max_attempts	8	Attempts before a piece counts as out of attempts (0 = no cap).
catbox_retry_breaker_threshold	3	Consecutive failures that abort a sweep (0 = never).

Database

Six custom tables created on activation, dropped on uninstall:

Table	Contents
{prefix}nc_sources	RSS feed sources (url, name, enabled)
{prefix}nc_items	Parsed items (text, images JSON, videos JSON, audios JSON, article JSON, …)
{prefix}nc_catbox_uploads	Per-file Catbox upload state (url, type, album, error, retry backoff)
{prefix}nc_catbox_upload_attempts	One row per upload attempt (trigger, outcome, error)
{prefix}nc_catbox_albums	Monthly Catbox albums (YYYY-MM → album short code)
{prefix}nc_source_covers	Recurring channel cover images pending review

Background jobs

Managed by Action Scheduler (bundled in vendor/). View under Tools → Scheduled Actions.

Hook	Trigger	Description
nc_fetch_all_sources	Every N minutes	Full fetch + parse + upload cycle.
nc_backfill_catbox	Manual	Re-upload non-Catbox media on all items.
nc_catbox_sync	Daily	Reconcile uploads and assign to monthly albums.
nc_catbox_retry	Every N minutes	Retry failed uploads with per-row backoff and a circuit-breaker.
nc_detect_covers	Daily	Flag recurring channel cover images for review.
nc_clean_covers	Daily	Strip confirmed covers from stored items.

Trigger manually:

as_enqueue_async_action( 'nc_fetch_all_sources', [], 'nc' );

Translation

Ships with es_ES (Spanish). To add another language:

1. Copy languages/wp-news-collector-es_ES.po as wp-news-collector-{locale}.po.
2. Translate the msgstr entries.
3. Compile with msgfmt wp-news-collector-{locale}.po -o wp-news-collector-{locale}.mo
   (or use Poedit).
4. Place both files in wp-content/languages/plugins/.

License

GPL-2.0-or-later