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I'd like to import an article asset and make it a child of another article

A. L. Flanagan 10 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Sarah Taylor 10 years ago 0
We have a series of articles about cooks, with related articles (2-4, usually) containing recipes which were contributed by the cook profiled. I'd like to import the recipes from NITF, but don't see a way to say "this article is a child of article {ID}". Is there a way to do that, which I'm missing? If not could, could a way be added? Thanks!
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Answered

Set up Flex on a url with a custom application skin

Craig V 10 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Sarah Taylor 10 years ago 1
Is it possible to set up a custom application skin with Flex so we can use it based off of the url?
Answer
Christine Masters 10 years ago
Hi Craig!

A few issues with this:

1. You can only have one active global folder at a time so that could potentially cause problems. Technically Flex doesn't have dependencies on global, but I'm not sure if there would be conflicts. You definitely wouldn't get customizations and code from that global.

2. Your header and footer from Zen would not work on Flex. Flex would not ask for those files.

3. Any variables set on Zen would not work on Flex (we have purposefully namespaced them) and vise versa.

It MAY be theoretically possible (I haven't tried it) to have a Zen site running a non-standard Flex skin such as Live e-Edition (which has no header and footer or theme options like the rest of the site). However, since Zen and Flex Live e-Editions are very similar, I'm not sure why you'd want to.


+3
Under review

Support for Disqus commenting

Michael Becker 11 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Sarah Taylor 10 years ago 5
Blox already has an option to turn on Facebook commenting. Now how about including the option for Disqus, which is an incredibly popular commenting system. 

Moreover, Disqus has built a single sign-on solution into its API that, though it's a bit complicated, could be integrated with Blox logins, making the experience seamless for users. 

At the very least, the option to use the free Disqus commenting should be one that's included. 
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Under review

How do a I change the size of marketplace logos?

Nick 10 years ago in BLOX CMS updated 10 years ago 2
I know I can change the size of the image with css but it stretches the logo beyond it's actual width. So is there a way to tell the back-end to display a logo with a larger width? I tried the "Logo preview widths" and uploaded a new image but it still gave me a width of 200px that ends in ".preview-200.jpg" When I change the number in that just to test the file it doesn't find an image.
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Under review

Sorting assets with children first

Nick 10 years ago in BLOX CMS updated 10 years ago 2
I know there is a query rule to only display assets with child assets but is there(or will there be) a sorting rule to show assets with children first? Often times only a few of our local articles have photos. The editors are supposed to give articles priorities each night to ensure the ones with photos display at the top but that doesn't always happen. This can be troublesome, especially on the weekends when I'm much more concerned with enjoying my time off than checking BLOX.
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Collection > Pesentation (Series)

Craig V 10 years ago in BLOX CMS 0
For collection with presentation set to (Series), is there a way to make the thumbnail size larger?
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Answered

Add Survey Form to New Asset types

Christopher Aune 10 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Christine Masters 10 years ago 4
I'd like to have an Input Form available thru BLOX CMS New Asset types so that community youth sports coaches can send in their box scores and provide a brief comment to a few simple questions. Questions would vary according to season/sport. About half of coaches feel comfortable sending me an email, but the other half need prodding to get a comment out of them -- an essential for a story. I don't have time to chase them all down each week. Here's an example that I helped set up with one local sports team:http://www.seiunitedsoccer.org/Default.aspx?tabid=846271. When they complete the form and hit the Submit button, the info should come to me in an email. This should actually be easier than the Poll asset that's already available, but the answers would vary instead of multiple choice. Can we do this? Thanks.
Answer
Christine Masters 10 years ago
Hi Christopher!

Looking at your example, this looks very much like something you should be able to build with BLOX Forms. You can set up a new questionnaire, set yourself as the recipient, e-mail the link to the coaches. The submissions would then be e-mailed to you, as well as be available in the Form Submissions panel for review (in case you are on vacation and someone has to fill in, etc.)

Here are our docs:

http://docs.townnews.com/kbpublisher/Forms-Manager-Overview_6417.html

Hope this helps! =)

Christine

+1

Geolocations and Blocks

Craig V 10 years ago in BLOX CMS 0
What is the best way to query a block based off of someone's currently location. So if I am in Doylestown PA then the block would only bring in news tagged for Doylestown.
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Under review

Google Surveys + paywall integration

Christian Ramirez 10 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Rich Griffin | Product Manager (Product Manager) 10 years ago 3
I would like to see the ability to integrate both Google Consumer Surveys with a paywall. Offering a fallback to customers who would like to opt out of surveys for a subscription fee.
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Fixed Navigation of E-edition Viewer

Alessia Alaimo 10 years ago in BLOX CMS 0
When viewing e-editions on all types of media, is there a way we can make navigation fixed? that way the viewer doesn't have to scroll to the top of page to go to next page?
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Election Stats: Bug fixes and feature requests

Josh Renaud 10 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Tim D'Avis 10 years ago 1
I've been trying for over a year in various forums to get TownNews to fix some problems with Blox Election Stats, including a customer service ticket (#567614), but I have received no feedback. Here again are some of the bug fixes and improvements we would like to see:


1. Need a way to specify section tags, or to specify party

I find it strange that candidate assets don't have a discrete field for party. Instead, the Election Stats way is to assign a party is to give the candidate a section tag (ie /elections/party/republican).

But neither the Candidate CSV nor the Race CSV have a field for section tags. So there is no way to specify to which party a candidate belongs when we upload the CSV.

The end result is that we have to go through hundreds of candidates and manually select add party tags, when it could be done all up front in the CSV.


2. Need to fix creation of child candidates from CSV

Say I create a bunch of races and candidates; then I put all their respective UUIDs into a properly-formatted Race CSV; then I upload that CSV to Blox. The race_child candidates SHOULD become associated with the race that I specified. Jason Dean from Madison told me that this used to be the case. But for more than a year, it has ceased working.

The end result is that we have to go through hundreds of races and manually attach all the candidates as children. This takes hours, when it could all be done up front instantly.


3. Broken search

Many aspects of Election Stats search are broken.

For example, if you add a column (ie Right-click a column header, then select "Columns" > "Delete Time"), that column will immediately disappear when you refresh the search.

When you sort by a column other than "title," results on different results pages overlap (ie: Sort by "city" and Page 2 contains multiple results which were already listed on Page 1). I believe that sometimes results are *missing* in this circumstance, as well.

Further, search seems to be limited to only the title/name fields.

Say you wanted to search for all the races which have "St. Louis County" in the "District" field so that you could batch-add the elections/st-louis-county section tag. We can't do it by searching for "St. Louis County." Search doesn't turn up results for things in "District," "Description" or even the "Notes" field, for example.

The only workaround we have found is to concatenate information into the name fields. So, the "Affton Fire Protection District Director" race becomes "Affton Fire Protection District Director+=St. Louis County"

Now we can type "St. Louis County" into "Search text" and find the right races.


4. Not enough batch tools

Okay, after concatenating and uploading a CSV as explained above, we can search for "St. Louis County." But yikes, there's hundreds of races -- and we can only batch-edit one results screen at a time.

Same problem if we want to batch-delete assets. Say you wanted to purge all the races from 2013 out of the system. Yes, you can search by "Election Year," but I would have to delete the 597 races one screen at a time. That means hitting the select-all check box and clicking "Delete" 24 times, instead of just once.

It would save time if the Batch Edit, Unlock, and Delete buttons had submenus similar to Export, with which you could apply those functions to "Selected Assets Only" or "Search Results Only".



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Getting HTML description of collection asset

Matt Connolly 10 years ago in BLOX CMS 0
I am creating a block template that will list mulitple collection assets to choose from.

The description field for collections in BLOX uses a WYSIWYG editor allows you to enter HTML code.

However, when i use mycollection.description or mycollection.content in my UTL code, the text I get has all HTML stripped from it.

Does anyone know how to get the HTML version of the description?
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Answered

Start Date/Time (no older then 60 days)

Craig V 10 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Christine Masters 10 years ago 1
I want to set a query rule on a editorial block to only show assets that are no older then 60 days using Start date/time. Is this possible?
Answer
Christine Masters 10 years ago
Hi Craig!

Yes, there are a few ways to do this.

First, you can set the archive time on those blocks for 60 days from the start time. The archive time doesn't really do anything unless you use that rule in a block, so it won't have negative impact elsewhere on your site. So if you add the archive rule to your blocks, the items that are archived will not show.

Second, and probably easier in your situation, you can add a rule of:

> Start date/time > No earlier than > 60 days ago (type that in)

That will make sure that articles with a start date earlier than 60 days ago will not show.

Let me know if this works for you! I tested it on my site and that seems to be the right configuration.
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Answered

Automatic AP Video matching - HELP!

Lindy Bazner 10 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Christine Masters 10 years ago 3
Now that AP Video matching is working, we are in a fix...

Shouldn't AP Video matching only work with AP syndicated articles that are given an 'AP' flag? We are seeing them show up for our local stories as well.

So, that being asked; is there a way to disable 'matching' for certain stories? Can you add a Custom Property in an article asset (like video_matching=false) to disable the automatic addition of the AP video player in that article?

We encountered something yesterday that a local story is getting random videos that have NOTHING to do with the topic; plus that can get hairy if there is inappropriate video/B-roll advertising that plays before a story depending on its topic.