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Bug in batch edit of section tags, or a feature request
During a batch edit of section tags, the tags end up in alphabetical order rather than the order in which they are selected. The order of section tags is important, of course.
To make the batch editing of section tags as efficient as possible, it would be great if one or both of the following options were available:
1. Section tags were "added" in the order they are selected. (I believe this function happens else were in the admin.)
2. The user could drag and drop the order of the tags within the batch window to reorder the tags.
Thanks.
Calendar posts across several sites
Is there a way to share calendar entries between multiple Blox sites? Is anyone doing this, and how are you going about it? (syndication? jobs?)
No way to attach image to related content item
I just noticed there's nowhere to add an image(s) to a related content item(like in a "More information" or "If you go" box). There are many instances when our break-out boxes have images. I may be missing something, and if so, please tell me what I'm doing wrong.
I tried adding an <img> tag with the image but BLOX seemed to have stripped that out.
Can't view our site(or other Chicago sites)
We're having an issue and I'm 99.9% sure it has something to do with Chicago servers. I've pulled up TN sites that use NY servers and they work fine. I can't view any of these:
http://thebrunswicknews.com (our site & the backend)
http://docs.townnews.com/kbpublisher/
http://www.gulfcoastnewstoday.com/
I'm not sure because I can't see which servers they're on but I'd be willing to bet they're all Chicago. This issue isn't limited to us. We've got someone traveling in North Carolina and he can't access our site either.
So I guess this question is: Is anyone else on a Chicago server unable to access any other Chicago servers?
Real Estate Vertical Leads
Several of my sites have asked about any future developments in the real estate vertical to include a leads form in their Real Estate vertical. I know that the "Send Email" link displays on featured agents, but would there be a way to make that email link be a lead form like the "Send Email" link on the business directory page itself so that lead could be tracked in the analytics?
Is there a way to create a separate stylesheet for certain URLs?
We're thinking about completely rebranding our marketplace section. So that would be a huge amount of custom CSS and it would make our site.css heavy and very long. Is there a way to target a different stylesheet for the marketplace section?
What you describe is pretty much what I would recommend - adding your own css link in the head include file.
It is possible to target specific sections based on section-specific classes that are included in the "main" container on the page (on Zen it is main-container, on Flex it is body). Like so:
.sports h1 {font-size: 53px;}
But that reference would be included on all pages.
If you want to include a SEPARATE style sheet, what you describe is good on Zen.
On Flex, we include our site-specific CSS on the page (rather than in a separate file) in order to reduce http requests. To add a section-specific CSS to the page, Mike explains it well in this thread: http://community.townnews.com/topic/1025220-css-instance-and-customizing-css-in-flex/
Thanks!
Shorten the URL before it broadcasts to Twitter
This would allow us to add more of the headline or tagline to our tweet. It will also make the tweet look more authentic on our Twitter feed. BLOX generates decent URLs by default, but they are long for Twitter. Does anyone else find this to be an issue?
Is there an ad region for the site's background?
We'd like to do a "wrap-around" ad for the website that sits behind the main content. For example, the area in this image...
This is very common among websites these days so I think TownNews would definitely be keeping with the current trends by developing this ad position.
Calendar timestamps include every minute of every hour?
Is there a reason for having the timestamp dropdown use EVERY minute of the day when scheduling calendar entries? This is apparent on the front and back end of Blox.
I can't think of an instance that I've ever seen a public event that had any other timestamps than on the hour, 1/2 hour, (or quarter hour.) It's a drag having to scroll up or down through all those minutes to set your event times.
Or am I just off-base here?
When we first designed the BLOX Calendar app, we looked at existing events in our old system to see the start times and we did find a number that had non-quarterly starts. We would prefer to do quarter-hours (00, 15, 30, 45) but sometimes the Calendar is used for things like movie times, and those could start at 8:32 am, and so forth.
I will say though that, in the BLOX admin, you can very easily type in the time and it will work! It's really nice actually...
So try creating a new event, adding a daily schedulee, and then typing things that make sense into the various fields. Such as, for the date, just type:
Mar 1, 2016
3/16/16
And it will "translate" it for you to the correct date. You don't have to use the little calendar popup UI.
In addition, you can type into the time fields 4 pm or 4:35 pm and it will "translate" it to 04:35 PM for you - you don't have to use the drop down!
Let us know if this helps! Thanks! =)
CSS Instance and Customizing CSS in FLEX
What's the correct way to edit the CSS in FLEX and use the "CSS instance" option in the customization options?
Looking to make changes that will affect only one page.
Google DFP dynamic reload
Is there anyway to change/reload the advertising display on a page without a page reload?
I've got a dynamically generate page on our site, in this case a database of restaurant inspections: http://bit.ly/1NNqsHk. The content is update via an ajax call without a page reload. However, while the content updates the ad units obviously don't.
Writing the code to trigger an update via the DFP API looks straight forward, but how that interacts with the various Blox components looks intimidating.
I'm hoping there's a way to do this without getting that far under the hood.
Thanks Much
How do I add "flags" to Utility: Search Form for events?
Trying to include flags in Utility: Search Form so that users of the can search for calendar events flagged "family-friendly", "featured", etc.
Users need a place to update credit card info
We've had a number of people have their credit card expire during their subscriptions. So when it's time to renew they are notified their card has expired. The only problem is there's no way to update their card info and have the system carry on with the renewal. They have to either call us or know to make a new subscription. It would be nice to have a place to update their card, whether their account needs to be renewed or even if they're updating it way before their account is set to renew. If the system has tried once but failed due to an expired card and then the user updates their card it would be great if the system recognizes the new card and sees that as a prompt to retry the renewal transaction.
Do you allow your print advertisers to place paid events in your calendar?
A few print advertisers pulled back, becouse they could post their event for free in out calendar. I allowed it. How do you deal with this, or do you even come across this isse much?
Hi Edith!
Mike gives some great advice regarding how to deal with the "relationship" between online and print. I'll give you a few set up ideas.
Firstly, you are currently on our new Flex templates which have really fine-tuned support for how to accept calendar submissions from the website. You're also using Upsell Manager, so that users can self-service "buy" a featured listing for a price determined by the paper. You've got a bunch of self-service upsells already, which is great! All of those people with featured listings paid for them. So you have a lot of options:
1. You can turn off online calendar submissions completely (I wouldn't recommend this, but it is possible).
2. You can turn off paid calendar upsells, or change the pricing. (Instead of $10, you can have $100 upsells, or whatever you want). You can offer multiple calendar upsell packages - such as a $10 which gives you a listing, but nothing on the front page. Then a $75 listing that gets you the featured flag on the front page. These prices are determined by the site, so they can be whatever you want.
Also remember that calendar events can be exported for print. We have a lot of sites that encourage businesses to post their events online (and encourage self-service upsells online!), and then export those listings out for print using our calendar export tools. This provides self-service upsell opportunities, and improves efficiency of getting events for print and online.
Provide drop-down list of businesses in block query
If I do a search on classifieds in the asset manager, I get a drop-down list of business names. I can narrow the list by typing the first few letters of the name. However, if I'm setting up a query for a block, business is just "equal to" a blank line. Apparently undocumented is that you can put the business ID in there, but it's not obvious how to find the ID. Why not provide the same behavior as in the asset manager?
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