Documentation - Options

From the Dashboard, choose the Options menu item within the MyCurator menu. Each of the options are described below, with each heading corresponding to an Options tab. Press the Save Options button when done to save the option values. You can update options under multiple tabs, and the Save Options button will save all changes from all of the tabs.

Basic

Turn on MyCurator – Check this option to turn on the MyCurator background processing operation using the schedule chosen in the”Run MyCurator Every” option below. Clear this checkbox if you wish to stop MyCurator from processing in the background. You can use the Run AI Process button at the top of the Topics page to run MyCurator manually.
Create Gutenberg Blocks into Curated Posts? – The new Gutenberg editor works with Blocks. Checking this option will have MyCurator create Gutenberg blocks for the title, excerpt, attribution link and any embedded images whenever you [Make Live], [Quick] or auto-post. You can then edit these blocks and use MyCurator Click-Copy (clicking on yellow highlighted paragraphs) to add text or images. Clear this option if you are using the Classic Editor. You can also clear this option and use the Gutenberg editor, and MyCurator will create Classic blocks.
Save first article picture as featured post thumbnail? – WordPress has an ability to display an image as a featured post thumbnail for each post. MyCurator will set the first image that it finds that is large enough (at least 25×25 pixels) as this featured post image if this option is checked. It is up to your theme to display this image, and some themes do not support this or need some modifications to display them. See this article in the WordPress Codex for more information.
Save First Image into Curated Post – If this option is checked, MyCurator will save the first image it finds directly into the post. The image will be the very first item in the post content, followed by the excerpt. The image size and alignment are controlled by the next two options, but you can over-ride them in the post editor as needed for any individual post. Warning: If the option ‘Save first article picture as featured post thumbnail?’ in the Basic tab is also checked, you may end up displaying two pictures for each post. This will depend on how and where your theme displays the Featured Image. Normally you would clear the featured post thumbnail option if this option is checked.
» Image Alignment – Choose the alignment of the inserted image. Since the inserted image is the first item in the post, choosing Left or Right will allow the post text to float around the image.
» Image Size – Choose the size of the inserted image. If there is not a stored image with the size chosen here, WordPress will default to Full Size. Because of this, it is best to choose Thumbnail, which is most likely to have an image. You can over-ride the value for any individual post in the WordPress editor when you make the post live. The actual sizes of these values are defined in the Settings – Media menu item in the Dashboard.
» Insert at Bottom of Post – Check this option to have the inserted image placed at the bottom of the post rather than at the top.
Use Post Title for Image Title & Alt Tag – Check this option to use the Post Title as the title of the image in the media library and as the Alt text for the image on the page. This assures you have some text on the image for SEO purposes. You can still always edit the text in the Editor or the Media Gallery.
Run MyCurator Every – This controls how often MyCurator runs in the background, reading the source feeds and looking for articles. You can set this from every 3, 6 or 12 hours or once a day (every 24 hours). If you have a lot of feeds or each feed is very active, you should probably set this to 3 hours. Based on this setting new articles will show up in your training page (and the live site if your topic status is Auto Post Good) at the same schedule. MyCurator uses WordPress built in Cron, so it may not start exactly on time, it is dependent on activity at your site for it to wake up and check whether to run.
Enable Non-English Language Processing? – If your blog or website is not in English, you should check this option so that MyCurator processes all characters in UTF-8 format. This will enable MyCurator to process non-English language characters correctly. This will allow you to filter and train articles retrieved by MyCurator just as you would with English language blogs. If your blog is wholly in English and does not use any special characters, do not check this option as it will process more efficiently using ASCII format. See the International Documentation item for some more details.
Set Get It Default Tab to Notebooks – Check this tab to have the Notebooks tab selected when the Get It bookmarklet is opened.

Curation

Keep good trainees on Training Page? – This option describes what happens when you click the green Thumbs Up on the Training Page to tell MyCurator that an article is good. By default, the article will stay on the training page and wait for manual curation when you click [Make Live]. If you clear this option, articles will be posted to your live site automatically or placed in the editor at this time and removed from the training page (see option 3 below). This has no effect on articles posted automatically to the live site.
Edit post when made live? – When you are on the training page and you click the [Make Live] tag MyCurator normally will take you directly to the Edit Post page with this post loaded and ready to edit. The full text of the article and its images will be available in a widget below the editor window so that you can easily cut and paste quotes and images into your curated post.moves the post to the live blog. The articles is also removed from the training page. If the option is cleared, the article will be published directly to the live site immediately and removed from the Training Page. If option 1 “Keep Good Trainees on Training Page” is cleared, then clicking the green thumbs up will behave just like clicking the [Make Live] tag.
Do NOT show readable page in Training Popups – Check this option to clear out the embedded, hidden readable pages in the Training page and the Training Posts admin page. The readable pages can cause format problems and by checking this option, you will clear them out and restore your Training page format. If this option is checked, you will not be able to see the extracted readable page when you click the [Quick] tag.
Place attribution link above excerpt – Check this option to have the attribution link for the article placed above the excerpt rather than its default location below the excerpt. This only applies to attribution links to the original article, not to a readable page. After this option is set, it will not take effect until the next run of the MyCurator background process, previously found Training Posts will NOT be affected.
Make Post Date ‘Immediately’ when Made Live – When this option is checked, the date and time of the post will be set to the current date/time when you [Make Live] from the Training page. If the option “Edit post when made live” is checked, the post will be made a Draft in the editor with the Publish date set to ‘Immediately’. The default, when the option is not checked, is that the published or draft post will have the date and time when it is first added to the training page.
Remove Duplicate Titles Within Same Topic – When this option is checked, articles with the same title within the same Topic will be ignored. This will help filter duplicate articles that appear on multiple websites or with slightly different URL’s.
Embed Video in Post for Video Topic? – For Topics with a Topic Type of Video, you can have MyCurator embed the actual video it finds as an Iframe into the excerpt for the post by checking this option. No text excerpt will be added, just the video Iframe. If no video is found, MyCurator will try to create a text excerpt. Not all videos can be extracted, but youtube videos are usually extracted correctly. If no video is found, you can usually go to the original article and use the video share options to embed the video manually into your post. Warning: Some videos have an embedded Auto Play feature and will start playing when displayed on the page. MyCurator looks to disable obvious Auto Play tags, but is not always able to do so.
»Size of Embed Iframe – You can enter the Width and Height of the Iframe to be created in the post. Normally videos use a 4:3 (4 width for every 3 height) ratio, but HD videos use a 16:9 ratio. Setting a width and height that uses these ratios (400:300 or 200:150 etc) will normally format the video better.
» Video Alignment – Choose how to align the embedded video in your post. Using an alignment will also wrap text around the video. None will put the video in the top left of your post with text below it.
Insert Description into Post for YouTube Videos? – Check this option to grab the description of a YouTube video that has been embedded into the post. This only works with videos from YouTube.
Do Not add link to embedded video – Check this option to NOT insert a link back to the original site of the video. This option works best with the Insert Description chosen too, as the description frequently has links that are important to the video creator.
Capture YouTube Thumbnail as Featured Image – If you do not display the video on your blog or home page, you can check this option to save the video thumbnail as the featured image for the post. If the embedded video does show up on your home page, checking this option will most likely result in a duplicate image – the featured image and video embed thumbnail will be the same.
Custom Post Types – If you have any public custom post types created for your site, they will appear in this section. Just check the box for each custom type that you would like to post curated content to. Below each custom post type is displayed the Taxonomies that are available for that custom post type, if any. If you wish to use a Taxonomy with a custom type you have checked, just check the box next to it.
Skip These Domains – The domains you enter here will be skipped across ALL Topics. You can selectively skip domains for a specific Topic in the Topic page. Any articles that are found on websites with a domain listed here will be skipped. Enter one domain per line. A domain is the part of the web address up to and including the .com or .net or other ‘dot’ ending. For example www.target-info.com is a domain. This is useful to skip domains that bring back articles you are not interested in such as job search listings. If you are following news on your industry, you will be able to skip monster.com, dice.com and other jobs domains that will have help wanted listings. Be careful with this, as you can enter just a single word or set of characters and if they match anywhere in the domain string, it will be excluded. For example you could enter jobs here and any domain with the letters jobs in it will be excluded such as jobsforme.com or mylocaljobs.com etc.

Format

Note: With version 1.2.2 of MyCurator, the Link to the Original Article or Saved Page is now covered by a tag for CSS selection and formatting. The complete link, including domain or title and the intro text, is surrounded by a paragraph tag. You can select the whole link with the #mct-ai-attriblink CSS selector and just the anchor text with a #mct-ai-attriblink a selector.

Link to Original Page Text – You can put in any wording you wish for an introduction to the link to the Original Page that MyCurator places in the post (if you are using the Original Article Link option). This is especially helpful for blogs in languages other than English. After this option is set, it will not take effect until the next run of the MyCurator background process, previously found Training Posts will NOT be affected.
» Do Not Use this text as part of Link Anchor – When checked, this option keeps the introduction wording in the preceding option from being a part of the anchor text for the link. If checked, Only the link URL or Title (depending on the Article Title option below) will be part of the link anchor text.
Use Article Title Instead of Domain in Original Article Link – When clicked, the article title will be used in the link to the original article, and not the URL domain. This option does not limit the title length, so you may need to edit long titles when posting to the live blog. After this option is set, it will not take effect until the next run of the MyCurator background process, previously found Training Posts will NOT be affected.
Clicking on Post Title or Image will go to Original Article – Checking this option will redirect a click on the post title or image of the post on your main blog page to the original article site instead of the single post page on your site. This is best if you are using short excerpts and the single post page adds no additional information. The next option below if checked will open the original article in a new tab when you click on the title or image. NOTE: this will only work if your theme uses standard WordPress coding to generate the link to the single post page (technically, using a call that allows for filtering the link used).
Open Original Article Link in New Tab – Checking this option will open the original article website in a new tab within the visitors browser, allowing your site to continue to stay open in the original tab. This only works if the “Insert Readable Page Link not Original Article Link?” option is NOT checked in the Admin Options tab.
Do Not Use Blockquotes on Excerpt – If checked, MyCurator will insert the excerpt of the article as a paragraph (html <p> tag). If unchecked, the default, MyCurator will insert the excerpt of the article as a block quote (html <blockquote> tag). After this option is set, it will not take effect until the next run of the MyCurator background process, previously found Training Posts will NOT be affected.
Do Not Show Training Tags on Live Site for Admins – Check this option to remove the training tags from the live site for Admins and Editors. Others cannot see the training tags at any time.
Excerpt Length in words – MyCurator creates an excerpt that it puts in block quotes for each article it posts. The length of this excerpt is set with this field, 0 means no excerpt will be created. After this option is set, it will not take effect until the next run of the MyCurator background process, previously found Training Posts will NOT be affected.
Save Line Breaks in Excerpt? – This option is available to store line breaks in the excerpt that MyCurator creates. Especially if you are using over 40 words for an excerpt, this will make the excerpt much more readable. Warning: if you display the readable page on the Single Post page you need to Use Blockquotes on Excerpt. If you do not use Blockquotes on the excerpt and have this option set, you will see some of the excerpt after the full readable page.
# of Articles shown on Training Page – This option sets the number of articles that will be shown on the training page, with a default of 10.

Twitter

To use Twitter searches or to follow a Twitter user, you need a Twitter App. A Twitter App must be set up on your Twitter Account. Once the App is set up, you will copy the Consumer Key and Consumer Secret into the corresponding fields in this tab of the Options. You can get a detailed view of the steps to create a Twitter App in the Twitter API documentation.
If you need to change your Twitter App, you first need to clear out one or both of the Consumer fields on this tab and then Save Options. This will remove your old application from the database. Come back to this tab and copy in the new Twitter App Consumer Key and Consumer Secret. Then Save Options again.

Twitter App Consumer Key – Copy the corresponding Consumer Key field from your Twitter App to this field.
Twitter App Consumer Secret – Copy the corresponding Consumer Secret field from your Twitter App to this field.

Admin

Do Not Save to Excerpt Field in Post – Normally, MyCurator saves the article snippet (length set in option 8 above) into both the Post Content field and the Post Excerpt field. With some themes that display the excerpt on the main site, this causes problems when you edit the post but don’t update the Post Excerpt field – your edits don’t show up in the live site. To fix this, check this box and MyCurator will not place any text in the Post Excerpt field. This means that themes that use the excerpt to display will create an excerpt from your Post Content, which will include your edits.
User for MyCurator Posts – You can set which user, with roles of Editor or Administrator, that will be assigned to the posts MyCurator creates. If not set, it will default to the first Administrator it finds.
Show Links Menu Item? – The sources that MyCurator reads for articles are stored in the Links pages. This option when checked will display the Links menu item on the WordPress Dashboard menu. You can use the Links menu item to edit Sources as well as manage Source Groups – which are called Link Categories in the Links menu item.
Feed Cleaner Base URL – If you have or know of a feed cleaner program that will clear up feed errors, you can add its base URL here. If MyCurator finds a feed with an error, it will post the feed URL to the feed sanitizer you enter here and expect the sanitizer to return a valid feed result. If the feed is still invalid you will get an error message.
Delete Readable Page when Curated Article Published? – The readable page is shown as a popup in the Training Posts and in the Saved Page metabox when you edit an article. When the article is published, you can delete this saved page automatically by Checking this option. You can’t check this option if either of the next two options are set as they rely on the saved page being available after an article is published. You will have to uncheck both of the next options to check this one.
Show full Article Text in Single Post Page? – If you check this option, MyCurator will replace the excerpt with the full article text that it saved as a readable page. WARNING: Choosing this option means you are copying the full text of an article from another web site. This may violate copyright laws. Even though attribution links are shown, copying the full text may also be viewed as plagiarism by the original author. You are responsible for any articles that you publish using this option.
Insert Readable Page Link not Original Article Link? – By default MyCurator places a link to the original web site where the page is located into the post it places in the Training page or live blog. This is recommended if you are curating articles for a public blog as it creates the attribution to the original author’s site automatically. You may tell MyCurator to place a link to a readable page of text that it has extracted from the original web page into the post it places on the training page or live blog by setting this option. For a private blog where only members have access, this may be acceptable. The text-only page can be easier to read, just like Instapaper or other tools that create a readable page from a web site. WARNING: Setting this option means you are copying the full text of an article from another web site. This may violate copyright laws. Even though attribution links are shown, copying the full text may also be viewed as plagiarism by the original author. You are responsible for any articles that you publish using this option.
Link to Saved Readable Page Text – You can put in any wording you wish for the link to the Saved Readable Page that MyCurator places in the post (if the Original Article Link option is not set). This is especially helpful for blogs in languages other than English. After this option is set, it will not take effect until the next run of the MyCurator background process, previously found Training Posts will NOT be affected.
Remove Formatting Help – Check this option to remove the highlighted link to the formatting help popup at the top of the Training page and Training Posts admin page.
Keep Log for How Many Days? – MyCurator keeps a log of the articles it processes and any errors which you can review in the Logs menu item. To keep the logs from growing too large, MyCurator will remove any entries older than the number of days set in this field. Normally, keeping 7 days worth of activity should be fine.
Keep Training Posts for How Many Days? – MyCurator posts articles it finds into your training page. As it gets better at classifying articles, you will find that you don’t need to review articles scored as ‘bad’ or even ‘not sure’ as often. To keep them from piling up in your training page, MyCurator will remove any articles – good, bad or not sure – from your training page older than the number of days set in this entry. Set this to a number of days that you find comfortable for you to review good or not sure articles before they are deleted.
Look back How Many Days for Articles? – When MyCurator is initially installed it will begin looking for articles in your RSS feed sources. It will ignore articles older than the number of days set in this option. This value will also be used after you reset the logs on the Logs page. After reading through your sources the first time (or after a reset), this option will have no effect. MyCurator marks all articles in your RSS feeds as read, and will only process new articles at this point forward. The date checked is the date of the entry in the RSS feed, which may not be the actual date the article was published.
Page Request Mode – Check this option to turn on the faster and more efficient Page Request mode. With request processing on, the url’s of articles in your sources are sent to the cloud process without waiting for them to be processed. MyCurator then checks back a bit later (within an hour) and collects all of the articles . This allows the background process to finish in seconds rather than up to several minutes for sites getting a lot of articles.
Use Inline Site Processing – Check this option to use this simpler and more reliable background process. This is required if you are on a host with very tight security.
Hide MyCurator menu for non-Admins? – This option will hide the MyCurator menu for any user who is not an Admin. The Get It bookmarklet will still be available and will be the only menu item that will show up for MyCurator if you are not an Admin. This option only works for installations who are using one of the paid plans such as the Pro or Business plan.