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Election Stats: Bug fixes and feature requests
I've been trying for over a year in various forums to get TownNews to fix some problems with Blox Election Stats, including a customer service ticket (#567614), but I have received no feedback. Here again are some of the bug fixes and improvements we would like to see:
1. Need a way to specify section tags, or to specify party
I find it strange that candidate assets don't have a discrete field for party. Instead, the Election Stats way is to assign a party is to give the candidate a section tag (ie /elections/party/republican).
But neither the Candidate CSV nor the Race CSV have a field for section tags. So there is no way to specify to which party a candidate belongs when we upload the CSV.
The end result is that we have to go through hundreds of candidates and manually select add party tags, when it could be done all up front in the CSV.
2. Need to fix creation of child candidates from CSV
Say I create a bunch of races and candidates; then I put all their respective UUIDs into a properly-formatted Race CSV; then I upload that CSV to Blox. The race_child candidates SHOULD become associated with the race that I specified. Jason Dean from Madison told me that this used to be the case. But for more than a year, it has ceased working.
The end result is that we have to go through hundreds of races and manually attach all the candidates as children. This takes hours, when it could all be done up front instantly.
3. Broken search
Many aspects of Election Stats search are broken.
For example, if you add a column (ie Right-click a column header, then select "Columns" > "Delete Time"), that column will immediately disappear when you refresh the search.
When you sort by a column other than "title," results on different results pages overlap (ie: Sort by "city" and Page 2 contains multiple results which were already listed on Page 1). I believe that sometimes results are *missing* in this circumstance, as well.
Further, search seems to be limited to only the title/name fields.
Say you wanted to search for all the races which have "St. Louis County" in the "District" field so that you could batch-add the elections/st-louis-county section tag. We can't do it by searching for "St. Louis County." Search doesn't turn up results for things in "District," "Description" or even the "Notes" field, for example.
The only workaround we have found is to concatenate information into the name fields. So, the "Affton Fire Protection District Director" race becomes "Affton Fire Protection District Director+=St. Louis County"
Now we can type "St. Louis County" into "Search text" and find the right races.
4. Not enough batch tools
Okay, after concatenating and uploading a CSV as explained above, we can search for "St. Louis County." But yikes, there's hundreds of races -- and we can only batch-edit one results screen at a time.
Same problem if we want to batch-delete assets. Say you wanted to purge all the races from 2013 out of the system. Yes, you can search by "Election Year," but I would have to delete the 597 races one screen at a time. That means hitting the select-all check box and clicking "Delete" 24 times, instead of just once.
It would save time if the Batch Edit, Unlock, and Delete buttons had submenus similar to Export, with which you could apply those functions to "Selected Assets Only" or "Search Results Only".
1. Need a way to specify section tags, or to specify party
I find it strange that candidate assets don't have a discrete field for party. Instead, the Election Stats way is to assign a party is to give the candidate a section tag (ie /elections/party/republican).
But neither the Candidate CSV nor the Race CSV have a field for section tags. So there is no way to specify to which party a candidate belongs when we upload the CSV.
The end result is that we have to go through hundreds of candidates and manually select add party tags, when it could be done all up front in the CSV.
2. Need to fix creation of child candidates from CSV
Say I create a bunch of races and candidates; then I put all their respective UUIDs into a properly-formatted Race CSV; then I upload that CSV to Blox. The race_child candidates SHOULD become associated with the race that I specified. Jason Dean from Madison told me that this used to be the case. But for more than a year, it has ceased working.
The end result is that we have to go through hundreds of races and manually attach all the candidates as children. This takes hours, when it could all be done up front instantly.
3. Broken search
Many aspects of Election Stats search are broken.
For example, if you add a column (ie Right-click a column header, then select "Columns" > "Delete Time"), that column will immediately disappear when you refresh the search.
When you sort by a column other than "title," results on different results pages overlap (ie: Sort by "city" and Page 2 contains multiple results which were already listed on Page 1). I believe that sometimes results are *missing* in this circumstance, as well.
Further, search seems to be limited to only the title/name fields.
Say you wanted to search for all the races which have "St. Louis County" in the "District" field so that you could batch-add the elections/st-louis-county section tag. We can't do it by searching for "St. Louis County." Search doesn't turn up results for things in "District," "Description" or even the "Notes" field, for example.
The only workaround we have found is to concatenate information into the name fields. So, the "Affton Fire Protection District Director" race becomes "Affton Fire Protection District Director+=St. Louis County"
Now we can type "St. Louis County" into "Search text" and find the right races.
4. Not enough batch tools
Okay, after concatenating and uploading a CSV as explained above, we can search for "St. Louis County." But yikes, there's hundreds of races -- and we can only batch-edit one results screen at a time.
Same problem if we want to batch-delete assets. Say you wanted to purge all the races from 2013 out of the system. Yes, you can search by "Election Year," but I would have to delete the 597 races one screen at a time. That means hitting the select-all check box and clicking "Delete" 24 times, instead of just once.
It would save time if the Batch Edit, Unlock, and Delete buttons had submenus similar to Export, with which you could apply those functions to "Selected Assets Only" or "Search Results Only".
0
Under review
Using Adobe Muse for creating HTML assets?
Anyone familiar with using Adobe Muse for creating HTML assets?
We found that designing something in Muse and then passing it through Dreamweaver and creating an HTML asset was unsuccessful. It seems like Blox does not like the code or language?
Just looking for input.
We found that designing something in Muse and then passing it through Dreamweaver and creating an HTML asset was unsuccessful. It seems like Blox does not like the code or language?
Just looking for input.
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Getting HTML description of collection asset
I am creating a block template that will list mulitple collection assets to choose from.
The description field for collections in BLOX uses a WYSIWYG editor allows you to enter HTML code.
However, when i use mycollection.description or mycollection.content in my UTL code, the text I get has all HTML stripped from it.
Does anyone know how to get the HTML version of the description?
The description field for collections in BLOX uses a WYSIWYG editor allows you to enter HTML code.
However, when i use mycollection.description or mycollection.content in my UTL code, the text I get has all HTML stripped from it.
Does anyone know how to get the HTML version of the description?
+1
Under review
block description
would love to see all block templates have a description custom property. the description would appear on the site as a short sentence or paragraph in small text between the block title and first asset.
0
Answered
Start Date/Time (no older then 60 days)
I want to set a query rule on a editorial block to only show assets that are no older then 60 days using Start date/time. Is this possible?
Answer
Christine Masters
10 years ago
Hi Craig!
Yes, there are a few ways to do this.
First, you can set the archive time on those blocks for 60 days from the start time. The archive time doesn't really do anything unless you use that rule in a block, so it won't have negative impact elsewhere on your site. So if you add the archive rule to your blocks, the items that are archived will not show.
Second, and probably easier in your situation, you can add a rule of:
> Start date/time > No earlier than > 60 days ago (type that in)
That will make sure that articles with a start date earlier than 60 days ago will not show.
Let me know if this works for you! I tested it on my site and that seems to be the right configuration.
Yes, there are a few ways to do this.
First, you can set the archive time on those blocks for 60 days from the start time. The archive time doesn't really do anything unless you use that rule in a block, so it won't have negative impact elsewhere on your site. So if you add the archive rule to your blocks, the items that are archived will not show.
Second, and probably easier in your situation, you can add a rule of:
> Start date/time > No earlier than > 60 days ago (type that in)
That will make sure that articles with a start date earlier than 60 days ago will not show.
Let me know if this works for you! I tested it on my site and that seems to be the right configuration.
0
Completed
First Thursday Webinar
At this month's FREE webinar, we'll discuss exciting new features, updates and revenue generating tips. Topics will include:
- Improve your workflow with our all-new inline notes
- Configuring broadcast settings to comply with Facebook updates
- New run-of-site exclusions in BLOX Ad Manager
- Tip of the month: Native advertising with BLOX CMS
0
Answered
asset search for invalid section tags
If you want to search for articles in a specific section it's fairly easy. Put a check next to the section in the drop down and hit search. In addition to this there is an "uncategorized" box that can be checked to bring up instances where there is not section tag.
However we occasionally run into human error issues where something might end up in the section tag field that is not a valid section. For example if no web category is selected in our pagination system then articles will be imported with a section_tag of none. TN gave me a shortcut to search for these (enter tag_section:(none) in the search text), however I'd like to see an "invalid" section search similar to the uncategorized one. The results from this search would return any asset with a section tag that is not currently a valid section tag for the site.
However we occasionally run into human error issues where something might end up in the section tag field that is not a valid section. For example if no web category is selected in our pagination system then articles will be imported with a section_tag of none. TN gave me a shortcut to search for these (enter tag_section:(none) in the search text), however I'd like to see an "invalid" section search similar to the uncategorized one. The results from this search would return any asset with a section tag that is not currently a valid section tag for the site.
Answer
Christine Masters
10 years ago
1. In BLOX itself, there isn't a way to select a section that doesn't exist, so that shouldn't be an issue for sites creating content inside the BLOX hosted system, or our front-end editorial system, BLOX Total CMS. Since they are essentially the same system, they work in unison in this way.
2. For other front-end editorial systems, you'd have to talk to that vendor about not allowing invalid sections to be chosen for an article. It sounds like the sections should be a choice out of a selection of sections rather than something the user is asked to type in, anyway.
3. As far as auto-creating sections when a new one is found, I would think that it could lead to a lot of accidental sections that are misspellings or incorrect variations of existing sections. They would then not have ads assigned or could mess up page statistics. In BLOX, we like to think of the sections as more well-defined. Keywords, on the other than, are more organic and could vary in this way.
4. As far as searching for "invalid" sections, that is very difficult for us to do. We would have to perform an inverse search on every section tag that is possible from the database, and our developers felt there was no reasonable way to do that.
Hope this helps! Thanks!
2. For other front-end editorial systems, you'd have to talk to that vendor about not allowing invalid sections to be chosen for an article. It sounds like the sections should be a choice out of a selection of sections rather than something the user is asked to type in, anyway.
3. As far as auto-creating sections when a new one is found, I would think that it could lead to a lot of accidental sections that are misspellings or incorrect variations of existing sections. They would then not have ads assigned or could mess up page statistics. In BLOX, we like to think of the sections as more well-defined. Keywords, on the other than, are more organic and could vary in this way.
4. As far as searching for "invalid" sections, that is very difficult for us to do. We would have to perform an inverse search on every section tag that is possible from the database, and our developers felt there was no reasonable way to do that.
Hope this helps! Thanks!
0
Answered
Automatic AP Video matching - HELP!
Now that AP Video matching is working, we are in a fix...
Shouldn't AP Video matching only work with AP syndicated articles that are given an 'AP' flag? We are seeing them show up for our local stories as well.
So, that being asked; is there a way to disable 'matching' for certain stories? Can you add a Custom Property in an article asset (like video_matching=false) to disable the automatic addition of the AP video player in that article?
We encountered something yesterday that a local story is getting random videos that have NOTHING to do with the topic; plus that can get hairy if there is inappropriate video/B-roll advertising that plays before a story depending on its topic.
Shouldn't AP Video matching only work with AP syndicated articles that are given an 'AP' flag? We are seeing them show up for our local stories as well.
So, that being asked; is there a way to disable 'matching' for certain stories? Can you add a Custom Property in an article asset (like video_matching=false) to disable the automatic addition of the AP video player in that article?
We encountered something yesterday that a local story is getting random videos that have NOTHING to do with the topic; plus that can get hairy if there is inappropriate video/B-roll advertising that plays before a story depending on its topic.
0
Under review
Content Importer set article presentation mode
In the content importer it would be nice to have an option in the other settings menu to set the presentation mode of articles that are being imported. We have bloggers only that use the content importer and currently we go back into the articles and change the presentation mode to personality. It would be nice if we could set the mode in the importer for this person and have it assign the presentation mode on import.
+1
Answered
Flex Templates--Will they use LESS or SASS, or both?
Hi There!
I and some other colleagues noted that the Flex templates will use Bootstrap , which can use LESS or SASS http://docs.townnews.com/kbpublisher/Flex-Overview_9180.html#Bootstrap.
Has TN already chosen one or the other for use? Or will there be an option?
Thanks!
I and some other colleagues noted that the Flex templates will use Bootstrap , which can use LESS or SASS http://docs.townnews.com/kbpublisher/Flex-Overview_9180.html#Bootstrap.
Has TN already chosen one or the other for use? Or will there be an option?
Thanks!
Answer
Christine Masters
10 years ago
We aren't using SASS or LESS right now with Flex, but we do have some really interesting tricks we've employed. For one, we have some sections of CSS which are now included in page - which means that you can run UTL in that CSS.
This allows you to do things like conditionals which check the section and then implement CSS if it matches. Or, using a variable color defined in your page customization as the background for a custom block or custom design.
This should be used sparingly, of course, because you don't want 10,000 lines of CSS on your front page.
But it does allow for some programmatic changes, and it gets rid of a separate site CSS http call.
This allows you to do things like conditionals which check the section and then implement CSS if it matches. Or, using a variable color defined in your page customization as the background for a custom block or custom design.
This should be used sparingly, of course, because you don't want 10,000 lines of CSS on your front page.
But it does allow for some programmatic changes, and it gets rid of a separate site CSS http call.
+3
Under review
[Request] Add 'Custom Properties' to Batch Edit > Miscellaneous in Editorial Assets
For example, If I have over a dozen stories I need in front of the paywall (e.g. Subscription_Bypass), I can accomplish this in one task.
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Completed
Did you miss TownNews.com's customer webinar?
At this month's webinar, we discussed ways to ensure that your BLOX CMS site and content are search-optimized. Watch it today!
0
Answered
Any one use FIDO?
This only started when we switched to TCMS so I was wondering if other designers/layout in the community are using the MEI plugin FIDO? We are experiencing a lot of InDesign crashes when updating ads with this plugin. Both InDesign and FIDO are current and compatible. I've been told by TownNews that we are the only company using FIDO. Are any designers in the community using it and experiencing crashes? If not what is your workflow or programs used.
We use the MEI program AdForce to dummy and lay ads on our InDesign template. We split the document into individual pages for the copy editors. When we get the pages back we use FIDO to update ads on the page that were missing or updated during the day. Then export our pages to pre-press and the web. The only solution we've tried is deleting the Ad Layer and re-lay the ads on the individual page before exporting. This takes longer and introduces a place for human error of importing the wrong page of ads.
We use the MEI program AdForce to dummy and lay ads on our InDesign template. We split the document into individual pages for the copy editors. When we get the pages back we use FIDO to update ads on the page that were missing or updated during the day. Then export our pages to pre-press and the web. The only solution we've tried is deleting the Ad Layer and re-lay the ads on the individual page before exporting. This takes longer and introduces a place for human error of importing the wrong page of ads.
Answer
Christine Masters
10 years ago
Hi Jennifer!
Yes, definitely! Our TotalCMS platform is on a different update schedule so will be a few months behind the "hosted" software. Also, individual newspaper sites choose when to do the updates to their local site, so that could vary the timeline as well.
But, it is definitely on the way! :)
Yes, definitely! Our TotalCMS platform is on a different update schedule so will be a few months behind the "hosted" software. Also, individual newspaper sites choose when to do the updates to their local site, so that could vary the timeline as well.
But, it is definitely on the way! :)
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Completed
The October edition of the TownNews.com Bulletin is out!
Aaron Gillette (Marketing Director, TownNews) 10 years ago
•
updated by Christine Masters 10 years ago •
4
In this month's issue:
- Group publishers: Stop worrying and learn to love sharing content
- Content exchanges are an idea whose time has come
- Image proxy enables efficient, on-demand image previews
- Webinar video: What's new in October
READ IT NOW!
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