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Cropping Tool Recommendation
(2) Even if they remember to crop the preview image(s), they must do so with great care, keeping the cropped width at 300 pixels wide, again because many of the block templates are coded to pull in preview images that are exactly 300/100 pixels wide. If they fail to do this perfectly, some of the blocks will not show the photo at all.
I've been thinking about this for a long time and think a great solution would be to allow users to crop the original image and upon saving they are prompted with a "yes" or "no" dialog box asking if they would like to re-create preview images based on the latest crop. This would insure cropped photos carry thru to the preview images and at the proper dimensions for block templates. Of course the user could always select "no" if they only wished to crop the original image.
If this is doable, I believe this would solve both of the issues detailed above.
Custom Properties
1. Is there anyway for a block template to expose its custom properties in such a way that when you add a new property, instead of typing in the property name you get a dropdown of properties valid for that block template.
2. Not as big a deal, but ditto for properties that only accept a certain list of values. if the only acceptable values for a property are true and false then why not have a drop down of true and false instead of blank box
3. I often take a screen shot of the custom properties when experimenting with changes or duplicating a certain layout elsewhere. however blocks often have more properties than will appear on screen at one time. the appearance tab of the edit block form has significant unused space below the custom properties block. If you expanded the custom properties to use the unused space it would allow you to see more without scrolling and reduce the number of screen shots I take
Added features for story comments
One of the more popular online commenting services is Disqus. I'd like to see the BLOX commenting system adopt these features. I've suggested these privately but here they are for all to critique:
For readers, the ability to:
• Upvote or downvote comments.
• Like or dislike other commenters.
• Set a rating threshold for which comments they want to see. For example: "I don't want to see any comments that have a rating of -5 (5 downvotes) or lower."
• Block individual commenters. ("I don"t want to see any comment by user John Smith.")
• Sort comments (e.g. oldest to newest, newest to oldest, highest rated first)
For administrators, the ability to:
• Assign commenters to groups, such as "Trusted" and "Not Trusted" commenters. Trusted commenters have their comments posted immediately without moderation. Not trusted commenters have their comments held for moderation.
• Post customized messages when any comment is removed or posted by a banned user.
• Close comments without removing previous comments.
What are your best BLOX power tips?
Hi everyone!
Starting tomorrow, I'm doing a content-related webinar series covering what I think are some cool - and sometimes overlooked - features in BLOX editorial. Here are the times:
Customer Webinar - Newsroom Protips - Part I
Thu, Nov 07, 10:30 amCustomer Webinar - Newsroom Protips - Part II
Thu, Nov 21, 10:30 amCustomer Webinar - Newsroom Protips - Part III
Thu, Dec 05, 10:30 am
What webinars would you like to see in the future?
Thanks for any ideas and input you have! =)
Christine
How can I add more flags to the events calendar?
Ability to re-order saved searches in the asset manager
We're starting to accumulate more and more saved searches in the asset manager. It would be helpful to have the ability to re-order the searches by drag-and-drop or have them sort alphabetically (or both!).
Duplicating ad assets
Use Ajax to check to see if a username is available
On the signup page, add an ajax check (1 second after last keystroke, or something) to check to see if the requested username is taken. There is a system call for this.
Customer support service by UserEcho
