Welcome to TownNews.com's customer community! Connect with other TownNews.com customers and with us to suggest features, share best practices and ask questions.

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.
0
Answered

Block Custom Property Type Image - How to get the image/URL?

Robert Dundon 10 years ago in BLOX CMS updated 10 years ago 2
When making a custom block and creating custom properties via Customizations, there is an "image" type, where you can upload an image (pretty cool!). Though, there seems to be no way to pull the image URL, and I've seen no examples in the docs or Core block code, etc.

I've already tried:
this.block.custom.test_image_type;

and

this.block.custom.test_image_type.url;

and they don't appear to work. Any ideas?
Answer
Christine Masters 10 years ago
Hi there!

You will see a lot more of this in our new templates which are due out next year.

But, the way to access this image is:

[% this.block.custom.image.resource_url %]

(Where "image" is the name of the property.)
0
Thanks

timeline feedback

Mike Stickler 10 years ago in BLOX CMS updated 10 years ago 6
I was very happy to see the presentation modes for collection assets. I am in the process of implementing several of them. I was most excited to try the timeline mode. Unfortunately it left me disappointed.

There's too much white space between the arrows. The timeline doesn't size to accommodate more 3 items occurring at the same time (it will work with 4 or more but they sit on top of each other.) The article list looks like an un-formatted mess. In my example if it could accommodate a full size picture it did otherwise it used a 300px thumbnail. I'd prefer as much consistency as possible. For example always use a 300px thumbnail (unless image is smaller). When it used the full size picture the metadata (posted, comments, keywords) showed up under the 1st paragraph text (like it should.) When a thumbnail was used the metadata showed up under the thumbnail which I don't particularly like but could accept if it was consistent, which it's not. Lastly clicking on the items in the timeline does nothing. It should either open the article or at least take you to the item further down on the page. 

Image 55

I love the concept and think with some tweaking it would be a much better. I did a mockup of my idealized version of the timeline. The biggest difference is the current asset is on display between the arrows. As you would click on the arrows or boxes in the timeline that asset would change. Because the asset link, preview, preview paragraph etc would all show up top the only thing needed in the article list is a headline list and maybe the posted date.Image 56

I'm interested in seeing feedback on this and in seeing how other are implementing the new options.
0
Answered

banner ad impressions declining, could reporting be incorrect

Ray Seale 10 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Christine Masters 10 years ago 3
These last few months our banner ad impressions have been reporting 200-300 less than impressions from like 3 months ago, we need to find out way and make sure there is isn;t a problem with the reporting system, any ideas??
0
Under review

Geolocations

Mike Stickler 10 years ago in BLOX CMS updated 10 years ago 2
Ok I recently switched from including locations as a keyword to using geolocations and I noticed some inconveniences with the switch.

1. If I'm in an asset and I click "Add" to add a geolocation I have to select an existing geolocation. I can't add a new one... I would love to be able to an "add new" button that would let me create one on the fly.
2. OK so even if there's not a shiny "add new" button, its fairly simple to go to the menu choose settings/tags/geolocations and add a new location. Except it seems the array of locations you can add to the asset is set when go to editorial/assets... In order to see the new location in the list you have to close the asset your working on and reload editorial/assets
0
Under review

Collection on section front?

Greg Wood 10 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Christine Masters 10 years ago 1
Is there a way to get a full collection to display on a section page? I know we could redirect the section to the collection, but I'm just wondering if there's a way to avoid that.
0
Under review

Aligning images inside articles

Lindy Bazner 10 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Christine Masters 10 years ago 1
Question: When manually dragging/dropping an asset in between article paragraphs, can it be aligned left or right, or only centered? It's nice to be able to drop images throughout a story but it leaves large empty gaps to either side...
0
Answered

exclude dates on calendar items

Mike Stickler 10 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Christine Masters 10 years ago 2
when doing schedules for events I would love to be able to set dates to exclude...

For example "Wee Read" at the library is set for every Monday and Thursday at 10 am until the end of time. Except the library is closed for Thanksgiving. So now I have modify the schedule and set an end date prior to 11/27 and then add another schedule starting after Thanksgiving and extending until the end of time.

I would love to be able to just enter an excluded date of 11/27 and have item not scheduled for that day.
+1
Answered

Block template that only brings in assets that have a child image asset.

Craig V 11 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Christine Masters 10 years ago 9
Is there a way to set a block to only include assets that have a child image asset? If not, can this be written in utl? Does anyone have an example?
0
Under review

subscription_bypass > true is not applying to mobile site.

Jeff Sebestyen 10 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Christine Masters 10 years ago 3
We have instant paywall.  I have applied subscription_bypass to a story.  But when I visit the story on a phone, it is still locked up on the mobile site.

Desktop: http://www.tdtnews.com/news/article_d447d8a6-6960-11e4-ae5b-5f6396a12010.html

Mobile:  http://m.tdtnews.com/news/article_d447d8a6-6960-11e4-ae5b-5f6396a12010.html?mode=jqm
0
Answered

Image asset presentation options

Christine in Bristol 10 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Mike Stickler 10 years ago 4
So with the upgrades, do we lose the miscellaneous tab option for type of display (ie mug to panorama) on the image assets? It's disappeared from our options, at least where it once rested. Did it move? Or did we lose it altogether?
Christine
0

Customized meter messages

Nick 10 years ago in BLOX CMS 0
I'm trying to customize the message below to include a promotional offer of 99 cents for a month. I've tried putting in metered_sub_final_message in the URL custom properties but it won't change the text. This is what I'm trying to add:

<a style="font:bold 13px Arial,sans-serif; color:#21491d; padding:10px 10px; background: repeat-x scroll 50% 50% #d3e0cd; border-radius:4px;" href="https://thebrunswicknews-dot-com.bloxcms.com/users/admin/service/purchase/?serviceid=3767&driver=subscription&referer_url=/users/admin/service/purchase/&step=1">99&cent; Trial</a>

Image 50
+4
Under review

Mobile-friendly display for Election platform assets

David Marsters 11 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Travis Tyler_ 10 years ago 2
I've been setting up our election coverage for the 2014 cycle, and as best I can tell, the assets within the Election Stats platform do not display in a mobile-friendly fashion when viewed on a mobile device, like an article would. I've been able to pull them in to Touch 5 blocks, but when you click on them on a mobile device, they just go straight to the desktop version of the page. This is particularly inconvenient for a phone display. 

With the huge growth in mobile traffic and the way voters are consuming content now, it would seem to be an absolute must that these election assets get a mobile-friendly display in the future.

Thanks very much.
0
Answered

Google news images/links are not ours

Craig V 10 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Christine Masters 10 years ago 5
If I search our stories in google news we get the correct text but sometimes images are not ours. Search "site:buckscountycouriertimes.com" in google news. Has anyone found a workaround to tell google news to use a default image and not someone else's?

Image 47
Answer
Christine Masters 10 years ago
Hi Craig!

Here is the Google News help page, which says that if you don't have a related image (that meets their requirements) they will sometimes help you out by adding one from somewhere else:

https://support.google.com/news/publisher/answer/1...

"Please keep in mind that in order to show as many different sources to our users as possible, we sometimes pair relevant images with articles from different sources."

So, it doesn't look like much can be done other than to try to have images with all of your main stories.

I had thought that setting an og_image setting would help, but you have that already, so clearly Google News won't use that.
+3
Under review

Real-time Sports Scoreboard

Craig V 11 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Jason Schaefer 10 years ago 2
I want the ability on a section front to create a real-time sports scoreboard, then when the game is complete, display the results. I don't see a sports stats block for this. Has anyone ever done this before?
0
Under review

Trouble with bots and crawlers

Mike Stickler 11 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Patrick O'Lone (Director of Software Development) 10 years ago 6
Is anyone having bandwith overages and when they try to track them back discover msnbot is accounting for 24%-33% of total page views. I am loathe to block them completely but changing the crawl delay had no effect? 

By way of comparison googlebot, yahoo(slurp), and bingbot all seem to account for about 6% of our pageviews. 

How are you dealing with the issue?