What does the new feature do?
It lets you give a list of terms / phrases for the pipe to use, one after the other. So every time an IFTTT recipe uses the pipe a different search term is used.
You could use it to focus posts / shares on, say, sport in general and each post could be about a different sport. If so, your list could look like this:
basketball hockey soccer golf tennis motorsports wrestling badminton baseball football
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| Example use of the new feature on the Zaps pipe configuration screen |
Or maybe you're a bit of a fashionista and want to post all about a particular colour theme. Then your list could include many shades or tones of that color.
Btw, if you're using the new feature and need to include a search phrase such as
golden yellow, then you'd join the words together with a + like this
golden+yellow.
Background
First
it's useful to mention how Zaps normally uses the Zazzle Query.
Whatever you put in the Zazzle Query box gets used as the search term to
use to pull the products from Zazzle. If you used "girly pink glitter" -
without the quotes - then the pipe passes those to Zazzle. Zazzle uses
them as a search phrase and you should get only products power-tagged
with that phrase (or having that phrase in the product description or
title).
If you use the new feature, the pipe doesn't pass them all to Zazzle, instead it chooses one and passes that to Zazzle instead.
Get at the new feature's query term / phrase in IFTTT
This isn't the most obvious of things but it's all I had to work with! When you use the new feature, the
EntryAuthor recipe ingredient will hold the query term chosen and used by the pipe when triggered by the recipe.
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| How to access the query term chosen and used by the pipe |
How the pipe chooses the search term to use
An easy way to picture this in your mind is to think of your list with the words placed in a circle.
The pipe chooses from it by using the date and the time when the pipe is run.
It actually takes the day number and the hour number, so right now (here in the UK) it's the 16th of the month and just after 15:00 (if the pipe is set to post twice a day, it'd be 3pm and handily makes sure the same search term is used in both posts).
So 16+15=31.
The pipe starts counting from the first word in the circle and counts off 31 words. And that's the word it chooses and uses to pull from Zazzle. Ok, being more accurate, it counts phrases -
golden+yellow counts as 1, as does
lemon.
You might have spotted that the maximum size of list according to that method is 74 words / phrases (23:00 on 31st of the month). That's way more than is practical!
Gotcha to watch out for
If you don't use daily posting then there's something you need to watch out for.
Let's say your recipe posts twice per day at 7oclock and does so every two days.
And let's say you're using a list of
apples bananas pears oranges.
On the 1st of the month, it chooses the 1+7=8th, that is oranges (remember, the words are in a circle, so when you're counting, one on from oranges is apples).
On the 3rd of the month (remember, your'e posting every two days) it chooses 3+7=10th, bananas
On the 5th of the month it chooses the 12th item, oranges
Poor old apples and pears - they never get chosen, it's only choosing even numbered items!
If the list were
apples bananas pears oranges mangos instead, it'd go like this:
On the 1st of the month, it chooses the 1+7=8th, that is pears
On the 3rd of the month (remember, your'e posting every two days) it chooses 3+7=10th, mangos
On the 5th of the month it chooses the 5+7=12th item, bananas
On the 7th it chooses the 14th list item, oranges
On the 9th it chooses the 16th list item, apples
...which works out just fine :)
So here's a question for you. In my first example at the very beginning, will all sports be chosen if I'm posting every Saturday? The list I'm suggesting is:
basketball hockey soccer golf tennis motorsports wrestling badminton baseball football
I'll leave you with that brain tickler :)
Until next time.... keep on promoting wisely!
