Add new RSS Block

[Soean]

Description

New Block to display RSS Feeds.

Fixes #1799

Features:

• Add Feed URL
• Select number of items
• Display author
• Display date
• Display excerpt
• Select except length
• List and column layout
• Select column count

Screenshots

Placeholder

Add URL https://wordpress.org/news/

Default settings

Enable date, author and except (20 words)

Enable grid layout

Settings with grid layout

Parsing error (Only in backend)

[karmatosed]

@Soean could you refresh this please so a design review can happen?

[gziolo]

Code wise it looks good. All my comments were addressed. Great work @Soean on RSS block. Thanks for updating PR instantly after all feedback received.

@mapk there is agreement that error state needs to get some improvement. There are some technical challenges which we need to look at first to get it done. Given that we still have more than a week until next planned Gutenberg release, I would suggest we merge this PR in the current shape and improve UI separately.

[gziolo]

There is also possible improvements to tackle in the follow-up PR.

1. Set the minimum number of words to 1 or something higher. 0 doesn't look good:

2. It would be good to clarify that the length of excerpt is the number of words displayed:

3. When there is an error we still display all controls (it's related to the aforementioned change to the way ServerSideRender component works:

[melchoyce]

I'm cool with addressing the error messages in a follow-up PR. Can we get a list of all the strings in that future PR?

[mapk]

Given that we still have more than a week until next planned Gutenberg release, I would suggest we merge this PR in the current shape and improve UI separately.

LGTM

I agree about all your additional improvements, @gziolo as well.

1. Set min number of words.
2. Let's change text from "Max length of the excerpt" to "Max number of words in excerpt"
3. Fix the error rendering

and I have a 4th as Mel mentioned above.

4. Let's fix the error message. I don't think many will understand "WP HTTP Error: cURL ..." Can we just say, "Could not resolve host: xxxx"?

Looks like Mark approved :)

[youknowriad]

🎉 Awesome work everyone involved here. Let's get this in and iterate.

[gziolo]

I collected all the issues raised and opened #13498. Feel free to update if I missed anything.

[markzahra]

Hey folks, not sure if this is the right place to ask (if not, let me know where would be best)...

What was the main reason for looking into adding this block to WordPress Core back in 2017?

I ask as the leader of the current team behind WP RSS Aggregator. I just came across this issue as we've been working on introducing our own Gutenberg block. Essentially, our free core version's block does exactly the same thing as this block, then the rest of our features and add-ons take it a step or two further.

I'm wondering what the future holds for this Gutenberg block to see if and how it may impact our plugin going forward. I've read the related Github issues but couldn't find what actually created the need for this feature to be in WordPress core. It would be great if I could hear some feedback on that and the future plans for the RSS block.

[melchoyce]

Hey @markzahra, this block is part of an effort to convert all existing core widgets into blocks. You can read more about that here: https://make.wordpress.org/core/2018/12/17/status-update-porting-widgets-to-blocks/

I don't think we'll do much beyond what's in this PR, except for maintenance.

[markzahra]

Thank you for the clarifications @melchoyce, I appreciate it. Looking forward to learning more about the new possibilities with Gutenberg through your work on this block.