Welcome to the BLOX Digital (formerly TownNews) customer community! Connect with other BLOX Digital customers—and with us—to suggest features, share best practices and ask questions.

Though BLOX Digital representatives often participate in discussions, this is not a customer service site. For immediate help, call 800-293-9576 or submit a support request via our online ticketing system.

+5

Search by author

Mike Stickler 5 years ago in BLOX Total CMS updated 5 years ago 1

Ugh!!! - There needs to be a way to search for assets based on who's working on it that is not tied to print or online presentation. "Created By", "Last Modified by", or preferably an "Assigned to" field should be a searchable option(s).

Only about half the content in our paper should be attributable to a specific author so we don't need/want the author field populated for records, obituaries, compiled reports, or articles with a "Newsroom" byline. However this eliminates the authors easiest method to find "Their Stuff"

Sorry guys but this seems like a no-brainer and I am confused why it isn't already present.

+2

Breaking news writethroughs

Henry M. Lopez 5 years ago in BLOX Total CMS updated by Mike Stickler 5 years ago 5

My colleagues tell me that if we did an online breaking news story, then we'd have to use a different asset for the final story that would go in print and online. That would generate a second url for the same story whcih makes no sense. I would think one could do the breaker, then just use notes to do the writethrough. What do you all do?

+1

Feature request: Cropping images assets for web and print

scott rada 5 years ago in BLOX Total CMS updated by Mike Stickler 5 years ago 1
It would be helpful if TCMS let users crop a photo for use in print, too.
0
Completed

Webinar | New ways to supercharge revenue growth and master your data

Cherry Wolf (Marketing specialist) 5 years ago updated 5 years ago 1

Webinar recording now available.

The New Year means big new initiatives at TownNews—and a webinar you won’t want to miss! At our January webinar, we gave a sneak peek at two new data-powered solutions that will transform your digital growth in 2020: iQ Audience+ and Data Insights.

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Learn more about:


  • iQ Audience+: An audience acquisition and retention platform that enables you to precisely tailor your conversion funnel using audience data, machine learning, and proven industry best practices.Image 660
  • Data Insights: A powerful new tool for gathering, understanding, and acting upon the world of data that drives your business.Image 661

Both iQ Audience+ and Data Insights are slated for release in the first quarter of 2020. Be the first to see what’s coming! Watch it now.

0
Answered

Search result box headers and columns

thomas fluharty 5 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Christine Masters 5 years ago 1

How do you add categories to the bar above the search box? Right now I get type, title, status, sections, authors, priority and start time.

I would like to get the slug and inch count at least, if possible.

I seem to recall there was an easy way to do it under your profile or settings, but I can't find it now.

I can't find an answer (at least easily) in any of the online documentation.

Thanks for any help

Tom Fluharty

Carolina Design Center

Greensboro NC

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+1

Custom calendar export

Maureen Reinert 5 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Allen Schmidt 5 years ago 8

Does anyone have an example of a custom calendar export template that they would be willing to share with us? We are looking at improving our calendars and are getting some resistance from people who want to keep using the text files they've always used for building our print calendars.

+2

Is there a way to designate assets not to be included in search results?

Dustin B. 5 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Maureen Reinert 5 years ago 7

It seems silly to have all assets be displayed on the search results list, especially if some are just images (and especially if some of those images have funny/incomplete titles). Also, we create some assets specifically for our e-mail newsletter, and those are not to be displayed anywhere else on our website, except in the newsletter, and those are showing up in the search results as well.

There must be some way to designate an asset to not be "searchable". Please advise. Thank you!

+2

Publish changes

Henry M. Lopez 5 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Kevin M. Cox 5 years ago 3

I'd like to request that we add an additional button called Publish Changes. If I write a short story, that an editor looks at and puts online, I'd like go and add more to it and save it. I believe that would publish the change without an editor seeing it. I'd like to as a reporter save the change so my editor can see it, make edits and then committ the change with a Publish Changes function.

Would anyone else thing that'd be helpful?

0

News Budgeting Process

Henry M. Lopez 5 years ago in BLOX Total CMS 0

Hello, Folks.

We're just moving from web hosting to full integration of Total CMS. Can someone hear give me an example of how you do your news budgeting using BLOX Total CMS. What are best practices, frustrations, opportunities? Thanks.

0

Alter AP photo byline for API delivery

Amanda Reiter 5 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

In the new AP API delivery, in the preview of the image, you see (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) in the caption. When you open the image to publish on your site, the credit has been removed from the caption, but in the byline field you usually see Seth Wenig - staff, AP or Leila Coker - stringer, AP. Sometimes you see just the name and no organization. 

The reader doesn't care what the title is of the photographer, so we would need to remove this prior to publishing. 

We are used to seeing the credit in the caption, and styled like how it appears in the preview (AP Photo/Seth Wenig). 

My request is the photo byline be styled as you see it in the caption. If that is not possible, the next easiest thing might be to remove the title from the byline. 

0
Answered

Photo versus video as lede image

Erica Smith 9 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Dave Hon 5 years ago 8

If a couple of photos are added to a story, the photos are displayed under the headline; hooray! If a YouTube video is added to a story, the video is displayed under the headline; hooray!


But if there are both photo and video child assets, the visual under the headline defaults to photos, and pushes the video to the bottom of the story on mobile or a sidebar on desktop (unless the video is dragged into the body of the story). That's much less exciting.


If an article has both photos and videos, we'd like to have the flexibility to choose which is dominant. The easiest way: The asset listed first should win. (If it's not the easiest way, it's still what we'd like to happen.) Is that possible?

Answer
Christine Masters 9 years ago

On both platforms (Zen and Flex), we think inline assets are the best way to go. That is our recommended way to do "positioning" within an article.


I believe that if you have 1 video and 3 photos, for example, you can pull the photos inline and then the video will be used for the "main display" area. Again, that functionality is for Flex.


Thanks!

0

Webinar | What’s new in the BLOX Now app and BLOX CMS

Cherry Wolf (Marketing specialist) 5 years ago in BLOX CMS updated 5 years ago 0

Webinar recording now available.

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At our November customer webinar, Susan Bell, product manager, and Christine Masters, director of product management, will show off what’s new in the BLOX Now app and in BLOX CMS.

Topics will include:

  • Exciting updates to the BLOX Now app, including: lucrative new ad positions, powerful full-site searching, updated weather features, and enhanced subscription support.
  • An introduction to BLOX Media Library, a new way to keep track of images and other binary files in BLOX CMS.
  • Fighting ad inventory fraud within your apps with new “app-ads.txt” support.
  • . . . and much more!

Ready to get started? Watch it now.

+3
Under review

Feature request: Support for Facebook Instant Article Metering/Subscription

Bob Rose 5 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Patsy J. Moore 5 years ago 3

Facebook is offering an instant article paywall that lets publishers keep 100 percent of subscription revenue.
Details here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/tdcq6ocqd1x3hoo/2019-07-25%2013.36%20Subscriptions%20within%20Facebook%20Instant%20Articles.mp4?dl=0

The page that talks about instant article paywall(https://developers.facebook.com/docs/instant-articles/subscriptions/) shows that the integration requires custom FB Pixels events being triggered, on login, and during purchase.
This level of integration doesn’t appear to be something that can be done in GTM, nor in BLOX templates, and seems to  require BLOX software support.The page that discusses account linking (https://developers.facebook.com/docs/instant-articles/subscriptions/account-linking) mentions the need for “signed pixel events.”
That page shows sample code in PHP to generate the signed data, which requires access to the FB App secret, which would be unique to each BLOX website, just as the FB App is unique to that website.
This whole process requires running code server side to keep secrets. The “account linking” event requires an account_id to link the FB user to the BLOX user (for subscriber access details.) The only really reliable/secure account_id is the user’s UUID, which isn’t exposed in a cookie, so the front-end doesn’t have access to it .

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Completed

Webinar | How to upgrade your ad targeting with data you already have

Cherry Wolf (Marketing specialist) 5 years ago updated by Patsy J. Moore 5 years ago 2

Webinar recording now available

Join Tim Turner, iQ Engage program manager at TownNews, and Tim McDonough, manager of client strategy at Lotame, as they show you how TownNews and Lotame can help you improve ad targeting, and make more money with your in-house (first-party) data.

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Topics included:

  • Using your own proprietary audience data to maximize advertising revenue
  • Augmenting your in-house data with third-party audience data to unlock new ad targeting opportunities
  • Expanding your advertisers’ reach with look-alike modeling
  • . . . and more!

Ready to get started? Watch it now.