Curated content lists - embedding external links and content in your Buzzy app

Embed external content such as documents, articles, tweets, videos and more via a simple link

Buzzy microapps are great at capturing data, and we’ve recently introduced a couple of new options (simple list and simple grid views) that work well for situations where your app is more about disseminating content to an audience than gathering data. These views work well for content added to the microapp directly— text, dates, images, local files and attachments (uploaded to Buzzy) and so on. Clicking on the table row, list or grid item in the result summary view opens a detailed view of your content in Buzzy.

All well and good, Dave, but what if my Buzzy microapp is all about sharing ‘external’ content with my audience — for instance, a ‘help’ or training section consisting purely of documents, Youtube videos, news articles and more, all hosted elsewhere? Or a curated ‘news’ feed?

Glad you asked. Introducing our brand new ‘Embedded link’ field type and the ‘Embedded link grid’ results view! Simply provide the link to the content you need, whether it’s a news article, document, tweet, instagram post, video or more — and the images, titles, and summaries are displayed automatically; document previews are generated; and videos are available directly in Buzzy.

An attractive and information-rich layout of external content — you just provide the links, Buzzy does the rest

So how do I use it? (The short version)

We’ve already packaged this up as a microapp template you can add to your Buzz — simply click the ‘Add content’ button (while on the Buzz tab of your Buzz), and choose the ‘Curated News’ option — a brand new pre-configured microapp will appear in your Buzz content area.

To add a new item, simply click the ‘Add New’ button, enter a link (eg to a news article or youtube video) in the text field and click ‘Done’. Repeat. Simple.

Adding the new ‘Curated news’ item to your Buzz couldn’t be simpler.

Clicking on the newly-added ‘card’ in your curated list grid layout will, depending on your link, take you directly to the relevant web page or content while items such as videos will play on the spot.

NOTE: By default, the ‘Curated news’ microapp is configured so that only Buzz owners and authors have the rights to edit existing links, remove them or add new ones — other participants won’t see the edit or delete options. As with any microapp, you can always modify these permissions via the ‘Properties’ dialog, add new field types and more — but that’s what the next section is about.

So how do I use it? (The long version)

We’ve introduced a new field type called ‘Embedded links’ to our library of available microapp fields — which means you can easily add external content such as videos, article links, documents and more to your existing microapps.

Add new ‘Embedded links’ fields type to your microapps the same way you add other field types — open your microapp ‘Properties’ modal, go to the ‘Fields’ tab, select ‘Embedded link’ from the ‘Add new component’ selectbox and click the‘Add component’ button. Your new field will appear in the field list below the button — give it a name, drag it to the correct order/spot in your list of fields, and click ‘Done’ in the modal footer. Now you can add new results rows to your microapp, or edit existing ones, and include embedded external content.

Easily add embedded link content to existing microapps.

Once your microapp includes ‘Embedded links’ as a field type, you may decide that these links are the most important part of your data or content that you need to share. Your microapp may be displaying the results as a summary table, or one of the new ‘simple list’ or ‘simple grid’ views — in which case the embedded link may not render until your users click on the result row or grid item to show the detailed content view. The good news? We’ve created a custom ‘Embedded link grid’ view for your microapp results.

Simply open your microapp ‘Properties’ modal and under the ‘Results Display’ section of the ‘Results’ tab, select ‘Embedded link grid’. Too easy — your microapp now displays content as a grid of embedded links.

Switching a microapp’s results view to the Embedded Link Grid is also easy and makes your linked content the star of the show.

NOTE: the ‘Embedded link grid’ view for your microapp results will only display results if your microapp includes the ‘Embedded link’ field type. Applying this view to a microapp without the ‘Embedded link’ field type won’t break anything — it just won’t display any results until you either change back to a different view type (such as ‘Table’), or you add the field type and populate some results with links.

Thanks for reading! For more information on Buzzy, jump over to our website or get in touch with any questions, feedback or suggestions! Check out our forum at http://forums.buzzy.buzz/ to see Buzzy tips, announcements and new features.