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Find user who has accessed an asset?
We recently had an article leaked. It was an early draft and still required many edits and fact-checking before we were to publish.
Through revisions, we can see who has edited/saved an article, but is there a way to see which user account has entered into an asset but did no edits and not saved (i.e: just viewed)?
If not, would it be possible to add in a "log" field near revisions that just show who has entered into an asset and what time, regardless of any changes made?
Hey Robert,
Please submit a Customer Support ticket on this and they may be able to help. We do have various types of logs and may be able to search for some activities, depending on how long ago it was.
Email Newsletter Advertising Sizes (FLEX)
Would anyone be willing to share what ad size(s) you are using for for your email newsletters?
Under the Zen templates we used the two-column layout with "Wide Skyscrapper" (160x600) ads and they worked well. However replicating that under Flex with responsive sizing just looks awful.
As seen here: http://www.galvnews.com/newsletters/headlines/
We'd like to switch back to what was the Town News Flex default one-column layout for our newsletters, but now we're not sure on the optimal size to use for the ads.
Any links, thoughts or details appreciated.
Thanks,
Kevin
Our newsletters are 580px wide, which is the generally agreed consensus, so 580x72 as Nick mentioned is a good size for local ads that can just be resized or redesigned at that size.
We also see a lot of "full banner" ads, which is the IAB standard size: 468x60.
Also, remember that mobile accounts for more than 50% of email browsing. So having a 300x250 between rows of content works well there.
(I'm going to mark this as answered so it is easier for me to keep track - but if other people see this and want to share their email newsletter ad ideas, please please share!)
setinterval DFP
I need to be able to refresh ads on our site. We use DFP and in Flex I am unable to add the var slot1. how do I add: var slot1 in flex?
Sample code:
<script>
googletag.cmd.push(function() {
// Define the ad slot
var slot1 = googletag.defineSlot("/6355419/Travel", [728, 90], "leaderboard").
setTargeting("test", "refresh").
addService(googletag.pubads());
// Start ad fetching
googletag.enableServices();
googletag.display("leaderboard");
// Set timer to refresh slot every 30 seconds
setInterval(function(){googletag.pubads().refresh([slot1]);}, 30000);
});
</script>
Bug? No spaces around bold words in articles
We've just noticed a problem that appears to have been happening for a while now.
In our business column we bold names of people and businesses. Everything looks good in print (TotalCMS) but online the spacing around these bolded words is missing.
I feel like we would have noticed this before if it had really been happening this long. Could the recent BLOX update have caused this change in behavior, even for older articles? Everything looks perfect in the TCMS backend.
Is anyone else seeing this issue on their sites?
Hi Kevin!
Yes, this was a bug related to the BLOX Core release we did today, and it was fixed earlier this afternoon.
Thanks!
Two quick revenue ideas...
Hey community people!
The marketing team may be posting this somewhere else as well (and I didn't ask them ahead of time before posting this, so hopefully it's OK - if not, uh, sorry guys!), but I just want to make sure you folks on the community board saw this because this stuff is really getting great results.
Firstly, have you seen the integrated Native Advertising stuff? It's really easy to set up, and we've already seen it getting surprisingly good results. I would highly recommend just trying it out on one or two sections, and see how you do. We have been surprised so far, and it is a nice way to include another revenue-generating spot without adding a banner ad.
Some of the "native ads" are from decent publishers as well. Check out my test site right now, for example (which prompted me to write this post, in fact):
It is just a new property group called Native Advertising that is available in several of our blocks. More info: https://help.bloxcms.com/knowledge-base/applications/editorial/assets/faq/article_6d3353b8-08f3-11e7-b1fe-278a427431ce.html
Also, wanted to make sure you saw the new blog post which talks our our iQ programmatic ad program. A fourth of our iQ sites are making more money in the program than their TownNews.com monthly bill! So instead of paying us each month, we send THEM a check! How cool is that?
Anyway, let me know if you have any questions!
Feature Request: Reducing the number of clicks to log in to the e-edition
It takes four clicks from the time a user hits our e-edition section front (http://www.herald-dispatch.com/eedition/) until he is actually viewing an e-edition page.
Our request is to reduce the number of steps.
1) What problem(s) does this idea solve?
We have our e-edition locked down to subscribers only, and they must log in each day to access the e-edition. Four clicks is a bit much to get to where they are going. If the "Sign Up or Log In" screen could be replaced with the appropriate text-fields for logins or sign-up instead of the buttons, it would reduce the number of clicks.
Fewer clicks to log in would improve user experience.
Subscribers would use it every day.
Employees also must have logins to access the e-edition, so it would help us, as well.
Hi Andrea!
We have to make sure that the page where the user enters their information (username/password) is on a fully-secure (https) page, so it must redirect to a secure page, and then come back once the user is authenticated. This is a requirement of modern browsers to avoid "Man in the Middle" attacks (where a hacker will capture data and send it off to a third party).
It is possible once your site switches to become fully encrypted that we could look at ways to move the username and password up a step or two. I will ask about this.
I would also recommend that you turn on "remember me" for your site. I also recommend to make it "disabled at user's option" - so most users end up with the setting.
This way, a bunch of your users will already be authenticated and remembered, and they will get right in with one click! If they don't delete their cookies, they will remain remembered for 365 days.
More information: https://help.bloxcms.com/knowledge-base/applications/settings/users/workspace/article_a8b8751e-2bf3-11e5-a626-df030e819425.html
Feature: Integrate SoundCiteJS
We're starting to use SoundCite in articles on our site. It would be great to see an option in the editor to create clips directly from within Blox rather than going to their site all the time to create the proper code. It would be awesome if we could highlight the text we want to use SoundCite on and have Blox auto-generate the <span> code around it with the parameters we choose.
Feature request: Easily style blocks of body copy and breakout boxes
BLOX is a great system for cleanly and simply delivering articles to the public. But sometimes I want to crank the "Feature' knob up to 11. For example, when I have time for our magazine(from the time it's sent to the printer to the time it goes online) to really enhance the web version to mimic a 'feature-y' style. But I have to do this in HTML, which I can do, but it's time consuming. What would be awesome would be a way easily select certain paragraphs to place in a colored box and select the font color.
Would anyone else use a feature like this?
Here are some examples of what I'm talking about:
Our plan was to crank the Feature Knob up to 10, sorry. But we can look at 11 if you want... ;)
But yes, we are looking at additional features along those lines. Currently in development:
- We are adding the ability for siblings, parents and Related Content to be pulled inline, and then drag and dropped around the article. This will give you a lot of functionality to create feature-y pages with info boxes, pull quotes, inline videos, etc.
- Inline asset styles: You'll be able to set card styles on inline assets of all kinds. This includes:
- Headline Link card
- Full Width card
- Left Float card
- Right Float card
Plus there will be additional styles to "play out" the asset in its native form, such as an inline poll where you can vote on the poll, etc. Those would be available as full width, left float and right float as well.
So, the Related Content items would be affected by styles as well, though, we currently don't have colors as options. I can look at this for the future, though.
- Slight change to the Longform presentation so that the article is more narrow, and inline assets will protrude from the margins. (Hopefully this makes sense.)
- More inline assets: We are expanding the inline asset capability to include other applications such as Calendar, Business Directory or Classifieds.
- Cover art: The ability to upload a single image which can serve as the background for the headline at the top of the article.
Almost all of these items should be available in Q2 2017.
image export format question
When I try and export/batch export images from BLOX, I get a funky '.bpm' file. What is a .bpm file and how do I open it? Can anyone share some info?
Question about ad geo targeting
An advertiser wants to serve an ad with geo targeting. They want certain zip codes. If we specify a zip code with no proximity will it ONLY serve ads in that zip code or do we have to put a proximity? I'm afraid if we are required to put a proximity we run the risk of serving ads in another zip code.
Backup Exports
In the event that BLOX goes down, is there a way to export our Editorial Assets so that we can keep a backup on our local computers?? Also, what is a .bmp file and how does one open it?
Block "Update Time" Sorting Rule
I’m looking for help sorting out block sorting rules…
We can use the standard “ASSET | Main Index | Dynamic Section & Children” block for the example here, but it applies to all asset blocks equally.
The problem we’re trying to fix is that when we update an existing article asset and check the “This update is important” box it doesn’t float the story to the top of the block. It remains buried under articles with more recent Start Times.
We should be able to fix this with the block sorting rules but have run into a wrinkle. It seems like a bug to me, but might be intended behavior.
The current sorting of our blocks is as follows:
Start date (descending)
Display priority (highest first)
Start date/time (newest first)
What I assumed would get the behavior we are after is:
Update time (newest first)
Start date/time (newest first)
Display priority (highest first)
However it appears that the “Update time” being referenced in the sort logic is the internal “Last modify time” and not the public “Updated:” time. This means that if we fix a small typo in a story it would bump the article to the top of the list even though nothing of substance was really changed.
The fix would appear to be making the “Update time” sort rule reference the “This update is important” checkbox and public display time whenever a site has the “Manually declare important updates” option enabled. The current behavior would be fine for sites without the “Manually declare important updates” option since then every internal edit results a change in the Updated: time displayed on the public site.
We basically want our block sorting to be based on the public “Posted: Wednesday, April 22, 2015 8:13 pm | Updated: 10:09 am, Thu Apr 23, 2015” text that readers see displayed on an asset.
Please let me know if I need to elaborate more or explain in more detail.
Feature request: Changing how often ads show in Infinity Scroll
We're using the Infinity Scroll feature now that it supports the sidebar. We also like the fact that we can put ads in this section as well. But this is where we're seeing some issues from a user enjoyment/experience standpoint.
Currently, it injects an ad every 2 headlines. This results in the user being bombarded with ads, sometimes the same one over and over again (if only one ad in the position.) As much as we like visitors seeing ads, too many and they will turn adblock on and we lose out.
Solution: Allow us to change the amount of headlines between ads. This is the same as the option for when to show ads in a gallery setting. We can set it to show every 3 headlines, 5 headlines, 10 headlines, or any whole integer that is put in on the back-end.
Other thoughts: The ability to choose between different ad sizes would be nice as well. Having a "leaderboard" style ad between headlines would also give it a nice look and not take up a lot of space.
News Service
I would like to see in the syndication panel if a story asset has been locked at a specific time before I add the story using the curated news. It's frustrating to add a story and then find that they have the time locked and it won't allow me to adapt it to my needs.
Clickable image asset redirect
We created a custom block to display the front page of a print article, which we'd like to redirect to a different dedicated site. How do we create the hyperlink, so that the image is clickable??
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