Squirrel News

This plugin helps you have more content on your website by providing blocks with positive, solutions-focused news headlines and teasers. All articles are thoroughly handpicked by the editorial team of Squirrel News. Squirrel News is a curated solutions-focused news service, run by the German nonprofit Constructive News e.V.
The plugin provides three different blocks showing teasers of constructive news stories from a variety of different media sources, including links to the original articles on the websites of the corresponding media.
For this purpose they can choose among three Gutenberg blocks:
<ul>
<li>Constructive News Card</li>
<li>Constructive News Grid</li>
<li>Constructive News List</li>
</ul>
The plugin is published by Jonathan Widder for Squirrel News / Constructive News e.V. and developed by Anouar Ben Hamza.
<h3>Getting started</h3>
To get started, activate the plugin, choose the language on the Constructive News settings page, then insert one of the Constructive News blocks into a post or page.
Language note: English and German content are fetched from completely different source pools and countries, so switching the language will change the geographic focus and sources of the articles.
<h3>Use of external service</h3>
This plugin is a service-based plugin. 
It connects to an external content service to fetch article data:
<ul>
<li>Endpoint: <code>https://getarticlesforlastissues-mdlzfg63qq-uc.a.run.app</code></li>
<li>Query parameters sent by the plugin: <code>lang</code> and <code>limit</code>, plus editor-only preview/cache parameters when blocks are previewed in wp-admin.</li>
</ul>
Without the external service response, the plugin cannot fetch fresh article content and does not work.
<h3>Service and Privacy Disclosure</h3>
This plugin performs outbound requests to the Squirrel News content service to retrieve article data.
The service is operated by Squirrel News for Constructive News e.V. and is used to deliver the curated article data shown by the plugin blocks.
The plugin sends requests to the external service whenever a Constructive News block is rendered and needs article data, including in the block editor preview and on the frontend.
Data sent to the service:
<ul>
<li>The selected content language (<code>en</code> or <code>de</code>)</li>
<li>The requested article limit</li>
<li>Technical request data sent by normal HTTP requests, such as the visitor IP address, user agent, and request timing</li>
</ul>
Why this data is sent:
<ul>
<li>To request the correct article feed</li>
<li>To return the requested number of curated articles</li>
<li>To allow the remote service to respond and operate securely</li>
</ul>
Service links:
<ul>
<li>Privacy Policy: <code>https://squirrel-news.net/privacy-policy/</code></li>
<li>Legal notice / service terms information: <code>https://squirrel-news.net/imprint/</code></li>
</ul>
Plugin settings data stored locally in WordPress:
<ul>
<li>Selected language (<code>en</code> or <code>de</code>)</li>
<li>Cached API payloads for performance/fallback</li>
</ul>
External links rendered on the frontend can point to:
<ul>
<li>Squirrel News website</li>
<li>Squirrel News support page</li>
<li>Third-party publisher article URLs</li>
</ul>
Site owners should review and publish their own privacy disclosures as needed for their jurisdiction and site policy.
<h3>Development</h3>
The distributed plugin includes the original, human-readable source files used to build the JavaScript and CSS assets.
Included source and build files:
<ul>
<li><code>src/</code> contains the original block editor and frontend source code</li>
<li><code>build/</code> contains the compiled production assets used by WordPress</li>
<li><code>package.json</code> contains the build commands and dependencies</li>
</ul>
Build tools:
<ul>
<li><code>npm</code></li>
<li><code>@wordpress/scripts</code></li>
</ul>
To rebuild the generated assets:
<ol>
<li>Run <code>npm install</code></li>
<li>Run <code>npm run build</code></li>
</ol>
<h3>Developer Hooks</h3>
The plugin includes filters for customization without editing core files.
API filters: 
* <code>constructnews_api_lang</code> 
* <code>constructnews_api_limit</code> 
* <code>constructnews_api_payload</code> 
* <code>constructnews_api_base_url</code> 
* <code>constructnews_api_request_args</code> 
* <code>constructnews_api_articles</code>
Card block filters: 
* <code>constructnews_card_block_lang</code> 
* <code>constructnews_card_labels</code> 
* <code>constructnews_card_behavior_flags</code> 
* <code>constructnews_card_styles</code> 
* <code>constructnews_card_articles_prepared</code> 
* <code>constructnews_card_display_articles</code> 
* <code>constructnews_card_plan</code>
Grid block filters: 
* <code>constructnews_grid_block_lang</code> 
* <code>constructnews_grid_labels</code> 
* <code>constructnews_grid_behavior_flags</code> 
* <code>constructnews_grid_styles</code> 
* <code>constructnews_grid_articles_prepared</code> 
* <code>constructnews_grid_display_articles</code> 
* <code>constructnews_grid_plan</code>
List block filters: 
* <code>constructnews_list_block_lang</code> 
* <code>constructnews_list_labels</code> 
* <code>constructnews_list_behavior_flags</code> 
* <code>constructnews_list_styles</code> 
* <code>constructnews_list_articles_prepared</code> 
* <code>constructnews_list_display_articles</code> 
* <code>constructnews_list_plan</code>
Example:
<pre><code>add_filter( 'constructnews_api_limit', function( $limit ) { return 10; } );
</code></pre>

Constructive News

Display constructive news in Gutenberg blocks using the Squirrel News content service.

ericfrisino

<h3>About the Plugin</h3>
This plugin is based on the book The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor and looks to help you achieve the Happiness Advantage by training your brain to scan for the positive first giving you a boost in problem solving and creative thinking.
A Note: For now, this plugin takes over the standard <code>post</code> post-type in the future I hope to make it so that it can be switched to take over the <code>post</code> post-type or create its own post-type.
<h3>Why Bother?</h3>
<blockquote>
“The lens through which your brain views the world that shapes your reality, and if we can change the lens, not only can we change your happiness, we can change every single educational and business outcome at the same time.” -Shawn Archer
</blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Happy doctors have 3x more intelligence and creativity and make accurate diagnosis 19% faster</li>
<li>Optimistic sales people out sell their pessimistic counterparts by 56%</li>
<li>Students primed to feel happy before taking math achievement tests far outperform their neutral piers.</li>
</ul>
<h3>So how does this plugin help me?</h3>
Each day you will fill out a new post and do the following:
<ul>
<li>3 Gratitudes – List out three things that they are grateful for each day, not specifically from the last 24 hours, but anything at all that you can think of. Doing this as a daily exercise your brain will learn to scan the world for the positives first.</li>
<li>Journaling – Write about 1 positive experience from the last 24 hours this allows you to relive it. This activity, much like the first one, trains your brain to think about and focus on the positives first.</li>
<li>Exercise – Teach you and your body that your behavior matters.</li>
<li>Meditation – 5 minutes each day to watch your breath go in and out, when doing this, try to remain patient and if you feel your mind drifting bring it back to focus. this will take practice, but it is one of the most powerful happiness lifters. Shortly after meditation you will feel calm and contentment and you will increase your awareness and empathy. Longer term affects of regular meditation include the rewiring of the brain to elevate your happiness baseline, reduce stress, and improve immune function.</li>
<li>Conscious Acts of Kindness – Write 1 positive email praising or thanking someone in their social support network. Alternatively plan and carry out one positive act for someone in your social network, then write about it here, reflect on what you did and how it made you and the recipient of your positive act feel.</li>
</ul>
<h3>How do I contribute?</h3>
If you are a developer or would like to contribute to the code you can head over to the <a href="https://github.com/ericfrisino/absolute-happiness" rel="nofollow ugc">github repo</a> and submit bug reports and/or create pull requests!
If you are a user and have no interest in the code, please hit me up in the support tab above, but be nice and please explain your problem fully so I can figure out how to best fix it.
Maybe you are interested in <a href="http://ericfrisino.com/absolute-happiness-wordpress-plugin/" rel="nofollow ugc">reading the docs</a>.

Absolute Happiness

Achieve the Happiness Advantage by training your brain to scan for the positive first giving you a boost in problem solving and creative thinking.

Constructive News vs Absolute Happiness