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Flex Feature Request: Restore Staff indicator on comments from Zen
Ticket # 617487 is already open on this request from our Zen to Flex transition, but posting here in addition per normal feature request protocol.
In Zen, when a staff/admin user leaves a comment on an article, it is indicated as such with a little flag as seen here.
Apparently this functionality wasn't carried over to the Flex templates and we would like to see it brought back. Right now there is nothing other than name recognition to help identify that one of our staff members is participating in a discussion with readers.
Having this identifier goes a long way to establishing that a response could be considered official or is coming from something with authority at the newspapers.
What do y'all think?

Hi Kevin!
This should be very easy to add. Just to make sure - is "Staff" the right verbiage? Maybe, "admin"? It would have to be the same always, though.

Content expiration in a block
Hey all, trying to find a way to have a block show a story for 7 days, then have that content disappear from that block (but not expire off the site, for instance). It should always be looking back a rolling 7 days. Is this possible?

Just add a query rule Start date/time set to no earlier than "7 days ago."


Trying to add dfp ad unit to top of main container
I have created two dfp (simple) blox for a desktop and mobile pencil pushdown. I tested both of these yesterday in the global-container-top-fullscreen region, but I really want them at the top of the page. I took them out of that region, and it shows that they've been added to the top of main container in the utility regions pullout bar. I have saved the layout, however even the placeholder for the blox is not showing up when I preview the site. I also have the Google Publisher Toolbar extension installed, and the ad unit overlay is not showing up there in the live site either. Do I have to enable this utility region somehow before the changes take effect?

Feature Request: API interface for Calendar system
What I would like to see is an API (like user, subscription, assets, etc) for the Calendar system.
It would allow 3rd partysoftware the ability to directly interface the calendar system from Townnews without having to resort to FTP'd files
We currently have an in-house calendar that we use for print. Currently we have to manually export each of the calendar items from the townnews hosted management system, and enter it into our system by hand. Using an exported .CSV file will work, but we would then have to create an import system for it.
- The API would allow any 3rd party program a way to interface directly, in nearly real time, with your calendar system.
- For us, this would allow us to Add/Remove/Edit entries on-the-fly without having to wait for a batched upload and download to take place. It would give a much finer control to managing the entries in the calendar without having to 'translate' them into files for processing. Also much less change of any errors creeping into the individual entries.
- For a large company such as The New York Times, it would mean faster processing, less chances of failure, and more real-time processing instead of batches.
- For Townnews it would mean a lot less proccesing power would be needed at any given time to process the batch. Spreading this load out over a longer time would reduce any bottlenecks in the work flow that might be created with a large 'batch' being processed.

Webinar | What’s new in BLOX CMS!
Join us on September 7th @ 10:30 AM CDT
At our September customer webinar, Christine Masters, director of product management at TownNews.com, will highlight the exciting new features in the latest major release of BLOX CMS.
We’ll show you how to:
Create eye-catching article intros with our all-new Cover Art feature.
Bounce back when your browser crashes while editing with our new auto-save functionality.
Boost user engagement with the new, mobile-friendly Vertical Gallery presentation mode.
Use automatic ad placement to lift revenue from article pages.
Keep your site’s tags up-to-date with Google Tag Manager integration.
. . . And lots more!
Ready to take advantage of the latest and greatest improvements to BLOX CMS?
Join us on September 7th at 10:30 AM CDT to learn more.
Want to take in the webinar on your own time? Register now and we’ll send you a link to the webinar recording once it’s ready.

Question: Any way to change content displayed in one block based on what's in a second block?
So we've got one block in which we want to display a story which will be randomly selected from a list of stories.
We've got a second block where we want to display the remaining stories from that list -- but not the one selected to display in the first block.
Does that make sense? And how to do it?

Building a "newsroom" contact page
Is there a way to grab all the "author bio" information we put in Blox user areas and pull it into one coherent page? Like is there a block that we can pin author assets to to create a "meet the newsroom" page of some sort?

Anyone else have a page curl that displays like this?
Our page curl ad isn't displaying correctly. It jumps around and shifts behind the curl. I'm used to the curl revealing an image that doesn't bounce around. Check out the video and let me know if any of y'all have similar issues.

I found a video that demonstrates how I think it should work. Notice how the ad graphic doesn't shift. It just fades from the small ad to the large ad.


Better sharing buttons in longform?
We like the new article designing functionality, but notice that we lose the sharing tools for any longform. So our best stories become the most difficult to share. How about larger, persistent share buttons along the left edge of longform stories?

Stats for metered site use of free stories
I'd like to know how many unique viewers are using one, two, three etc. free visits and how many hit the subscribe button at some point.

Accessible CAPTCHAs
Currently, it appears that the CAPTCHA in the forms in Blox CMS are just an image. Is there any audio or other alternative for sight-impaired users?

Handling Table Assets via Webservices API
I've looked through the improvements to the API where you can create and update editorial assets, which is great!
However, I found no way to get, update or create table assets, though I can retrieve existing ones and create (empty) table assets.
Is there a way (or a plan) to provide this in the future?

Any plans to support AMP-AD/AMP-EMBED for monetization?
Are there plans to allow AdSense ads in AMP templates? https://www.ampproject.org/docs/reference/components/amp-ad

Social Teaser Field
I am writing in regard to the Teaser field on the asset editor and asking another field be added — the social teaser. We are currently on Zen and when we move next month to Flex, we will lose one of the best uses of the Teaser. Right now, since Zen isn't completely supported by Teaser, when I add an image to Teaser its image shows up in the OG and Twitter tags for that asset(article). But, it does not show up as the thumbnail preview on the public facing home or index pages and it doesn't show up on the article page. That's fabulous.
Sadly once we move to Flex, the Teaser content, my understanding is, will show on the site's public-facing side on the index and home pages. Boo!
We aggressively use social images created in Adobe Spark to promote content in FB and Twitter. We often use these on stories where we have no art and on stories where we can make it more interesting in social media. But, there aren't really the type of images that make for good on-site thumbnails.
My usage of these promo images, which have no place on the story page either, really help spur forward user engagement. So, what I'm asking for is another tab called Social Teaser that acts just like Teaser except it isn't used for thumbnails — the social teasers url is passed only for social media. We want these images to come up when people share.
The hierarchy then for OG and Twitter tags would be
Social Teaser
If not, then
Teaser
If not, then
Article image
If not, then
Default image as stored in settings.
I hope you'll consider. This is a concession to the idea that like all platforms, social needs content built for it and that should be supported in the CMS. You can see by the images shared above these look strong in social media, but really don't have a place as a thumbnail. If there's already a way to achieve what I'm asking, please let me know, I didn't see it in documentation. Web editors, please vote up this idea, and if you want to learn more about this technique reach out to me at webeditor@sfnewmexican.com
Thanks for your consideration.
Henry M. Lopez
Digital Enterprise
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Paging gallery display options
Hey folks, anyone know of ways to further tweak paging gallery display options? For instance, it'd be cool to have the numbers be reversible (count down, rather than up), hide the numbers or make the photo credits have a lower profile (they're pretty prominent). Wasn't sure if those settings existed, but if not, would be a cool one to put on the radar. Be nice if you could just add a #reverse keyword to a collection and have it count down, for instance.
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