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Create a saved article list/article queue
We live in a world where people increasingly want to save media(songs, TV shows, movies, YouTube videos, etc) to view at a later date. For instance YouTube has its "Watch Later" list where users can flag videos they may want to watch in the future. I use it all the time.
I've heard a few people mention that they frequently save articles to read later. I see in the BLOX user dashboard there is a section called "Saved Items" but it seems like that's just for classified listing. I would like to see a feature where users can save articles.
Some people would also like to have a place to save articles that they want to just keep indefinitely. Sure bookmarks exist, but they don't always transfer from device to device.
And it would be great to have a very noticeable button to save the article to a list so people will see that it is a feature.
We need maps to display in calendar assets when the full address is provided but not linked to a business listing
We need maps to display in calendar assets when the address is provided
by simply filling in all address fields for the venue--NOT JUST with a
venue linked to a business listing.
From what I can tell for the map to show, a venue must be added as a
business in the Businesses Manager. However, the option to search for
the address is not obvious to the front-end user.
So when the user chooses to skip the search--because it's function isn't
obvious to them--they fill in available fields for the location.
3. Generally, the user fills in all of the fields. Since a user has
filled in ALL the fields, I would expect the Google map to
generate--very similar to how it is generated when the business listing
is used. I would think this is also similar to how maps are generated in
our Blox Classifieds. I think Classifieds require a street address and
zip code to generate a map.
This feature would be useful for the end user--generating a map for
readers searching events on Blox Calendars. This would also be useful
for Blox customers that do not manually approve events in Blox Calendar.
In that case, Blox admins aren't approving events and enhancing the
event asset by linking to the business listings. But the end-user still
gets the benefit of having a map to the event.
Can you please tell me if this is an option and how to have it set up?
Rss feed to incude related content box
Is there a way to include related content boxes with rss feeds.
Here is the article with a related content box http://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/videos/cook-this/recipes/cast-iron-skillet-cooking-from-stove-top-to-oven/article_bae44646-ba41-11e5-9771-931eca51937a.html and here is the feed in which I would like to add content boxes to. http://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/search-whiz/?q=&t=article,collection&l=20&d=&d1=&d2=&s=start_time&sd=desc&c[]=videos/cook-this/recipes&f=rss&fulltext=unionall
Test Environment for a version of the live site?
I'm new to the BLOX system but I was wondering if there is any way to clone our site into a test environment for me to look at while playing with design, templates, etc.
Thanks everyone! I look forward to learning more about this robust system.
Facebook sharing unavailable with AddThis tool
We've been getting people who can't share article pages using the AddThis tool. The error says:
This content is no longer available
The content you requested cannot be displayed right now. It may be temporarily unavailable, the link you clicked on may have expired, or you may not have permission to view this page.
This has been happening for at least the past few days, but it could have been even earlier than that. Has anyone else seen this error?
Child article asset behavior in Flex
I just noticed this today, but it seems like child article assets attached to another asset behave the way we used to expect sibling assets to behave in the old Zen templates.
Complicated words. Let me explain.
For example, if you add an article as a child to another, it appears in the parent article's sidebar as a content box. However, if you then visit the "child" asset, it shows a similar content box that contains the "parent."
This reciprocal linking is the same way things work when articles are related as siblings; however, the sibling display is a simple list of headline links with no rich media.
Back under Zen templates, the reciprocal links would only happen when things were related as siblings. A child/parent relationship added the child as a sidebar to the parent.
It seems like the sibling and child relationships do exactly the same things under Flex, just with different formatting. Is this by design?
Shouldn't the parent/child relationship be more of a "this asset is subordinate to this other asset" relationship, rather than "these assets are on an equal footing"?
Facebook "like" counter disappeared with Flex
When we switched to the new Flex site, our Facebook "like" counter disappeared (Twitter, too). We used to be able to see the number of people who "liked" the story, but now there is just a button to "Share on Facebook." Anyone know how to make those numbers visible again?
I tried Settings > Site > Custom properties and changing "facebook_count_style" to "button-count" but don't see any changes on our site.
Thank you!
Hi Michelle!
As part of evaluating ways to improve the speed of our system, we looked at the amount of time it takes to query each service and wait for it to return with count data for each page. This process could take a few seconds, which is added to the download time of the page. This hurts SEO (because you get a page rank boost if you're speedy in Google results), and it hurts usability (there are studies that show that each additional second of download time on the page, you will lose a percentage of your visitors). So, when looking at that, we felt these counts were too "expensive" to add into Flex by default.
However, if this is worth it to you, it is possible to override our code to use your own counts on the pages. You can submit a ticket to our Customer Support team and they will point you in the right direction.
I should mention, however, that Twitter discontinued their count mechanism (again, due to speed and performance issues) at the end of last year. So the Twitter count is no longer available for any of the widgets.
https://blog.twitter.com/2015/hard-decisions-for-a-sustainable-platform
Screen names with Facebook and Google authentications
Is it possible to auto generate screen names with the provided Facebook and Google authentication systems? I've enabled the authentication but when signing in the first time it will ask you to enter a Screen Name with the authenticated email automatically filled in. Once completing the CAPTCHA the system feeds back and says "this email address is already used, would you like to login?" This happened with both Facebook and Google signup and sign in pages.
It would be great if the screen name is autogenerated using data from "first name" during authentication. So the user is just logged in without the need to enter more info.
I can take some screen grabs if this doesn't make sense.
Thanks everyone. I just started wrapping my head around the BLOX system last week and It's awesome. I look forward to learning more and hopefully upgrading to FLEX soon.
eEdition PDF Download Link
Is there a way to add functionality for a PDF edition download link outside of the eEdition app? Would like to include a button below the thumbnail.
It would reduce the number of clicks by 4 or more and decrease load time as well especially on low end devices.
Feature Request: Title Caps in Footers for Sections and Geolocations
We have several Sections as well as numerous cities we cover that are two words. Right now in the footer of our site only the first of the two words is capitalized while the second is not.
See “High school” and “League city” below.
To me the section is only slightly annoying while the city name is a bigger problem. To the average reader it is going to appear that we made a mistake and typed the name of the city incorrectly.
My feature request would be for the Sections and Geolocations in the footer to use title caps. e.g. High School and League City.
Let me know what y’al think, thanks.
EEdition ad positions?
Is there an ad region map out there on the positions within the e-edition? (something visual).
Mosaic block won't show cropped preview
Is there a way to crop image previews in the mosaic block? I've tried adding a preview image and a static preview but only cropping the actual image changes what the way the preview displays in the mosaic block.
Hi Nick! Yes, that block should show image previews - I consider it a bug that the MAIN image shows up anywhere but on the story page (and maybe in a top story slideshow, not sure about that). I will add a bug ticket for this.
Recurring Credit Card Subscriptions / Replacement for PGP Email Option
As I’m sure you all saw in the update last month, Town News will be disabling the use of PGP encrypted email to capture credit card numbers sometime soon.
We had been using this feature very successfully to capture credit card numbers for entry into Circulation Pro for recurring (Easy Pay) subscriptions.
How are the rest of y’all handling recurring subscriptions?
For those who were using PGP email through Town News forms what is your plan for a replacement?
There were several suggestions in the notice from Town News, but redirecting users to a third-party site to enter their payment information is exactly the type of thing we train consumers to watch out for to avoid being scammed.
Thanks for any and all suggestions and discussion!
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Security update: PGP encryption with BLOX CMS You're receiving this message because your email address is used on a BLOX CMS form using PGP encryption. Due to heightened security standards, TownNews.com will be changing the functionality of PGP encryption on BLOX CMS. When this change takes effect, credit card numbers will no longer be transmissible via email using TownNews.com systems and resources. This applies to both unencrypted and PGP-encrypted email messages. This software upgrade will occur in the very near future, sometime on or after January 1, 2016. This update is necessary to ensure that we and our customers maintain Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance. PCI compliance is a strict set of standards that any organization accepting credit card transactions must meet. These measures will strengthen security and help safeguard our clients from the potential negative impacts of PCI non-compliance. If you have BLOX CMS forms that currently accept credit card information, there are a variety of alternatives:
It's possible that you received this message in error, perhaps due to a form existing with PGP email (but disabled), or a form with both PGP enabled and a regular payment handler. You may receive additional notifications for other TownNews.com products affected by changes to PGP and online credit card processing as we continually review and enhance our security procedures. We apologize for any inconvenience this necessary security upgrade may cause. It is our goal to make this process as painless as possible for our customers. We sincerely appreciate your business and look forward to serving you in the future. Please call our support team at 800-293-9576 if you have specific questions or concerns. |
Edit Article Footer / Section & Location Tags
I’m wondering if there is a way to edit the behavior / display of the Section and GeoLocation tags that are displayed in an article footer:
I’m actually hoping to do two different things here.
1. Change the name displayed for a section.
We have several nested sections like “/news/free/“ and the text displayed in the footer for an article there just says “Posted in Free.” It would be great if we could customize it to say something like: “Posted in News” or “Posted in Free News” as that will be much more descriptive than the text pulled right now.
2. Change the URL that a GeoLocation links to.
By default when clicking the Location Tag link the site runs a search for assets that have that GeoLocation tagged: http://www.galvnews.com/topic/?g=seabrook&t=&l=25&d=&d1=&d2=&f=html&s=&sd=desc&s=start_time
I’d like to be able to edit the URL associated with a Geolocation to instead point to a URL that I’ve setup with blocks that run this same filter, e.g. http://www.galvnews.com/communities/galveston
This presents a much cleaner display of headlines without the large search box at the top.
Please let me know what y’all think or if this is already possible and I just missed it.
Thanks!
Trying to understand ad impression limits in relation to the ad's end date
We have our first ad that's set for a limited number of impressions instead of a date range. The date of the event the ad is for(which I set as the absolute end date) is approaching quickly but the impression limit hasn't been met. But it isn't showing online anymore today. I did some research on help.bloxcms.com and I see that it's spreading it over the course of the ad's start and stop date. I don't want it to do that.
I see this on the help site: "If the scheduled run dates for the ad are MORE THAN 2 years, the Total impression limit will be a simple, hard limit from the start date of the ad."
So does that mean if I set it to end on Jan 1, 2038 it will just run through the impressions as quickly as it can display the ad rather than spreading the impressions? Because that's what I want.
- If you remove the end date and leave the monthly impression limit, the ad will serve out the impressions as soon as possible (given weighting and rotation of other ads).
- If you remove the impression limit and leave the end date, it will serve the maximum number of impressions possible during that time (given weighting and rotation of other ads), and will end at that time regardless of impressions.
- If you have a DAILY impression limit, it also will not try to average the impressions over the month.
The combination of the two limitations (end date and impression limit) tells Ad Manager that you want to spread the impressions over that time as best you can.
So, I would remove the impression limit, keep the end date, and make sure it is the only add (or at least weighted really high in the rotation).
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