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.

+4
Under review

Way to set default workflow for all users?

Robert Armstrong 6 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Tom Houston 3 years ago 4

I know you can set the default workflow on an individual basis, but is there a way (or is it planned if not) to have the option to set all users default workflow, or even set the default workflow upon user creation?

+1
Answered

What's your reaction to User Reactions?

Christine Masters 8 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Kevin M. Cox 3 years ago 17

Hi community people!


Earlier today we had our big BLOX Core update! If you missed the release notes, they are here.


I've noticed a few media sites start using the User Reactions feature. Are any of you thinking of enabling it? Maybe on just a specific section? I'm interested in hearing your reactions or ways to improve it.


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+12
Completed

More fine-tuned controls on "Buy Now" buttons on photos

Graham R. Archer 8 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Ashleigh Snoozy 3 years ago 7

Hey folks, I submitted an idea to Town News, and they said I should post it here to see if this development idea would help others, too. Anything else think this would be helpful?


The idea is basically to add a few new controls — either on the section level or on specific photo types — to allow editors to turn off the "buy now" button on all mugs, all crime stories, or other examples like that.


Town News asked me to answer these questions:


What problem(s) does this idea solve? Why do you need this idea implemented? Provide as many problems or use cases as possible.

A: There are dozens of photos used daily on our website that we do not want to sell. Many of these get automated tags that remove the "buy now" button (AP photos, for instance), and that's great. But still a large number of photos get manually tagged with #nosale to keep that button hidden. It would be very helpful to have more specific, targeted and automated ways to blacklist some photos from being sold. For instance, we NEVER want to sell a photo of a criminal who just committed some heinous crime. And a huge number of the mugs we run on our website are handouts that we can't sell, and even the ones that are ours are not any real source of revenue. My proposal would be that we have some ability to turn on/off the "Buy now" button for specific photo types (like all mugs) or sections (so you could turn off sales for all photos attached to stories categorized as crime, for example).

How often would you use this feature?

A: This would be used daily. The automated button removal would impact dozens of stories and several dozen photos each day.

How many people in your organization would use this feature?

A: All online editors would gain from this function, and reporters would no longer have to alert online staff to photos that got missed during the tedious and error-prone manual #nosale application process. Dozens of employees would be impacted.

Answer
Christine Masters 5 years ago

Hi guys!

We have now added more logic to our "automated" photo sales option. See this updated doc:

https://help.bloxcms.com/blox_cms/editorial/assets/article_0f8a8332-27c2-11e8-88a8-5318a95cfee3.html?wewe

We have also added the ability to turn off photo sales per section (via custom properties), as well as batch update photo sales.

Hope this helps!

Christine

+1
Under review

Can we restrict photo purchasing based on "Provided" byline?

Nick 8 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Ashleigh 3 years ago 2

I know the system is set up to restrict photo purchasing through MyCapture to anything with the keyword #nosale. But I'd say about half the time, maybe a little less, the reporters/editors forget to add the keyword. What they almost always add is "Provided" or "Provided photo" in the byline field because typically they're more concerned with making it look good for print.


So if there's a way to do this please let me know. But if not, this would be a really handy feature.

0
Answered

Can we send an email reminder to our e-edition subscribers?

internet 8 years ago updated by Kevin M. Cox 3 years ago 5
0
Answered

how do I download a picture from blox cms?

dgrunfeld 3 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Christine Masters 3 years ago 1
+2

Begging you for an autosave feature

jtravis 3 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

Please add an autosave feature. I'm having to redo tons of work when something stupid/unexpected happens and my Blox window closes before I saved. Working in another text editor that has autosave isn't a great solution because it usually means I have to fix every paragraph break in the story once I've cut and pasted it into blox, on top of just adding even more complication to my workflow.

+2

Newsletter sign up for article access

Nico 3 years ago 0

I'd love to set up a way to limit access to articles by whether they have signed up for our newsletter. Kind of like a paywall or how Google Surveys worked where you can't access the article unless you have subscribed. Any chance for something like this?

0

Combining multiple pages disappeared

There's been a few subtle changes to BLOX Total CMS lately, the most noticeable change for me is the "Combine Multiple Pages" feature. IT only gives me the option to combine one page at a time. Anyone else have this issue?

+5
Under review

Blox login method changed.

Jeff Sebestyen 3 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Tom Houston 3 years ago 6

So now you cannot enter the email address and password at the same time.  The creates an issue with the web browser auto-populating the credentials, actually hindering workflow.  And of course, creating an headache for I.T...again.  

Image 703

+7
Completed

Feature request: Add sibling or child assets from multiple search pages

Erica Smith 9 years ago in BLOX Total CMS updated by Kevin M. Cox 3 years ago 10

If a user searches for assets to be used as sibling or child assets and the desired assets are on multiple pages, there's no easy way to add them to the story. You have to add the assets you want from Page 1. Then open the search again, search for the assets you want, go to Page 2, add the assets you want from that page. Want more? Repeat that process for every page of search results.

This is time consuming (and annoying). To change it, I've submitted a feature request. Help me make it a reality.

Answer
Christine Masters 3 years ago
+3

Save search result format

Erica Smith 9 years ago updated by Kevin M. Cox 3 years ago 6

In the editorial section of Blox or TCMS, I can add columns, shuffle them around and just generally set things up in a way that's efficient for me. (Sort by start date, for example, or mark which stories have a site tag or which stories are marked "do not publish.") The next time I log in, the page will be set up the same way. That's great.


But when I'm in an asset and want to add child or sibling assets, the search results don't have the same functionality — I can show or hide columns that are or aren't relevant, move columns around to find what I want, but the next time I go to add a child or sibling asset, I have to do to the same thing again. It's time-consuming and, well, annoying. Any chance of being able to save those search result formats on a user basis?

+8

Feature Request: Magazine style e-Editions

Kevin M. Cox 6 years ago in BLOX CMS updated 3 years ago 6

We'd like to submit a request for magazine style "flip book" e-Editions, similar to Issuu with double-truck views:

https://issuu.com/galvnews/docs/coast_monthly_april_2017

Right now we are having to host these off-site to have this magazine view that readers like.

1) What problem(s) does this idea solve? Why do you need this idea implemented? Provide as many problems or use cases as possible.

It allows for magazines and other special sections that aren't newspapers to be hosted in the native BLOX e-Edition.

2) How often would you use this feature?


At least monthly.

3) How many people in your organization would use this feature?

Everyone, including all readers.

+1

VIDEO FEATURE: Add Video Option to Promo Designer

Jared F 3 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

Promo Designer works well if you're using an image, or if you have a written offer of some sort. Taking it one step further, how hard would it be to include the use of video assets in Promo Designer?  I would imagine we could increase our video traffic if we were able to create a pop-up that displays a chosen set of video assets either on load or when exit intent is exhibited. Video assets would be chosen from a Block, a Search or an RSS feed.   how hard would that be to build out?

+6
Completed

Subscription Coupon Code

Kevin M. Cox 10 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Christine Masters 3 years ago 18
We would like to request the option of having a "Coupon Code" function available for new subscriptions on the website.

We envision being able to link specific codes to specific subscription services (e.g. a code would allow a discount on a 7 day print subscription but not on a weekend only).

To be fully functional, the code should include options to select either: $ off, % off or length of free trial.

This would be a huge tool for our circulation/promotions department and we imagine would be a welcome addition for other newspapers as well.

--> Why we're asking:

To give a little more background I thought it might be helpful to give a specific use case. While we see tons of potential for this feature, there is a specific promotion we're trying to develop in the next month and are having trouble seeing a way to do it with the current system.

We're planning on a new subscription marketing push for our newspaper. We'd like to offer potential subscribers a free trial subscription (either print and/or online) to the paper.

In order to make things as easy as possible we'd like them to be able to sign-up online (create a new BLOX user account) and instantly begin their online trial (get behind the paywall) without having to enter a credit card. At the end of their trial period of course we'll offer to make them a subscriber and collect their payment information.

A "coupon code" function seems like the best way to make this happen but of course we are open to suggestions if we can already pull off something similar with existing tools. For example: Is there a way to link directly to a hidden subscription service?

Please let me know what y'all think.

Thanks