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.
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?
Static Email Blocks
Are there static blocks for email in the new email templates?
If not, can we get some for placing images and text (WYSIWYG)?
eEdition - Date Picker / Calendar / Advanced Search
We have request from readers to bring back the date picker on the eEdition index page and add one within the application itself.
Better control over length of asset preview/lead
I realize the reporters/editors could be adding an online lead in the summary tab, but sometimes I feel like it's a good day if everything has the proper section tag and start date/time. Asking them to add this to their workflow will most likely be met with hostility. And I also realize I could go in and add my own lead to the offending assets, but so much in BLOX flows with such fluidity and ease...So why can't this?
If there's another way to do this please let me know.
Ad at the bottom of page
Is there an ad region like the Halloween ad at the bottom of this site?
If it doesn't load hopefully this screenshot will explain the location of the ad.
It stays at the bottom of the page as the user scrolls. I've never seen this ad region so I suspect it is a custom template. But it would be nice to have it as a standard BLOX region.
On our Flex templates we do have this as a built-in "block" ad type - we call it an anchor ad.
For Zen, we don't have anything built-in, but if you put in a Customer Support ticket, we have some example code that can help you with this. You'd have to do one size for desktop, and another for Touch 5.
And thanks Mike for your help! =)
Customer support service by UserEcho
