Welcome to TownNews.com's customer community! Connect with other TownNews.com customers and with us to suggest features, share best practices and ask questions.

Though TownNews.com 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.
0

Blox Now App story list does not refresh automatically.

Jeff Sebestyen 5 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

I have been noticing that on the Blox Now App, a story will not show up unless the user either force closes the app, or manually refreshes the feed by hitting the refresh button in the menu.   

I had a story post to Blox at 1:13pm.  At 2:15pm I opened my app and the article wasn't there.   I had to manually refresh my feed.  I realize some operating systems put background apps to sleep under different variables and behaviors my differ.  I do not expect a typical user to force close an app or have to manually refresh the feed.  

I would like a feature request for future versions to refresh the users feed after a certain amount of time whether the app is open, closed, or asleep in the background.  

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

Image 656

+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

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.

Image 650

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 .

+1

Feature request: Add column in Editorial/Assets next to Title, Status, Sections and Start Time for Notification Date and Time.

erikover 5 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

What I would like, if possible, is to have a column in Editorial/Assets next to Title, Status, Sections and Start Time for Notification Date and Time.


1) What problem(s) does this idea solve? Why do you need this idea implemented? Provide as many problems or use cases as possible.
As of now, to remember or view what assets are set for you have to open each individual asset. This takes many steps and extra time. Also, as you know, opening an asset after a notification has been set increases the odds the post is prone to errors.


2) How often would you use this feature?
Daily. It would be used just like the Title, Status, Sections and Start Time columns.

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

Everyone who posts assets.

+1

private browsing / Incognito Mode Detection

The Keene Sentinel 5 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

It would be nice to have a detection and pop up for when people are viewing our site in incognito mode.    It should allow for a message and perhaps a promo code to purchase a subscription at a special offer.    

* It should work like the ad blocker detector*

0
Answered

PRNewswire

jim green 5 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Joe Hansen (Product manager) 5 years ago 3

How do I block PRNewswire from getting included in my Town News Content Exchange? 

Answer

All PR Newswire content gets assigned to a specific set of section tags under Partners -> PR_Newswire. You can adjust your importer to exclude those section tags, or build an importer to import just the content exchange sections you want to import.

0

capturing still frames from video

Eric R 5 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

Since Blox includes the ability to capture a POSTER or PREVIEW image from a video clip, could we have the ability to save those captures as individual images?  That way, we could easily create a photo gallery or collection from stills taken from a video clip.

+1

Find user: default to admin

Eric R 5 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

When creating articles, our writers typically want to assign an author to the story.  When selecting an author, the "find user" query defaults to ANY user.   It would be wonderful to be able to have this default to ADMIN so that our own users (authors) would appear at the top of the list.