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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.
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Under review

Instant Articles

Paul MacNeill 8 years ago updated by Christine Masters 8 years ago 3

Now that Facebook instant articles is live for all publishers, can you update how we incorporate this into the BLOX system.

Answer
Christine Masters 8 years ago

Hi Paul! We are working with two papers to do a live test before releasing this to all sites. We've already had to make several updates to our Facebook Instant Articles feed based on our first live tests. But, neither of the two papers have been approved. Once that happens we'll do an announcement. :)

0

Join us | Spring cleaning 101: Easy tips for optimizing your BLOX CMS site!

anonymous 8 years ago 0

Image 152


Spring cleaning 101: Easy tips for optimizing your BLOX CMS site!


Spring is here, and it's a great time to think about updating and cleaning up your BLOX CMS site! At our May customer webinar, Christine Masters, director of product management, will discuss a variety of ways to refresh and renew your website.

We'll cover:

- Keeping your site up-to-date by cleaning out old blocks, auditing your admins and evaluating your ads.

- Freshening up your front page with new display blocks.

- Making sure your site is mobile-ready and search optimized.

- And much, much more!

Join us on Thursday, May 5th at 10:30 AM CDT.

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facebook instant articles right to left

Yael Kremer 8 years ago updated by Christine Masters 8 years ago 1

Does anyone know weather facebook instant articles are about to support right to left languages such as hebrew?


thanks:)

Answer
shadyanwar 8 years ago

Yes. Having tested IA today, you can simply edit the code of the published post and make sure the html tag has the direction attribute set to right-to-left: <html dir="rtl">

0
Planned

Global Regions Displaying only on detail pages and not the index page

Sarah McCraley 8 years ago updated by Christine Masters 8 years ago 3

Does any one know if there is a way to have a block within a global region appear only on the detail page and to be hidden on the index page. Also is there anyway to have a global region be sticky on a detail page?

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Webinar recording: Making money with FREE content

anonymous 8 years ago 0

At our April customer webinar , Tim Turner, Content Exchange program manager, discussed ways to grow your bottom line with value added content and TownNews.com's Content Exchange program.

Highlights include:

  • Tips on making money from TownNews.com's FREE value added content options.
  • Best practices for using articles, videos and more from the Content Exchange program on your site.
  • How to encourage users to stay on your site longer and consume more content with recommendations.

For more information, download the slideshow or watch the recorded webinar today!

0
Under review

Locked story warning

Erica Smith 9 years ago updated 8 years ago 6

It's very easy to get into a story that's locked by someone else, edit it and assume you can save those changes. That doesn't work, of course — the file is locked by someone else. There's a red warning at the bottom of the asset, but it's easy to skip — especially if you're starting at the top of an asset.


Anyone else interested in a more obvious warning? A pop-up would be very helpful to our editors: "This story is locked. Would you like to read it?" (Or something similar.)

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Answered

Sharing an image collection to facebook

Sarah McCraley 8 years ago updated 8 years ago 3

When I share an image collection from our site to facebook - the post does not pull any image assets or even our logo into the post. When I share an article and individual images it works fine. See my screen shot of the two posts. The top is an image asset, the bottom post is a collection. We try to use collection assets throughout our site. It would be nice if the sharing of collections displayed consistently with the other types of assets.


Image 140


Answer
Christine Masters 8 years ago

Hi Sarah!


That article of the adorable sloth does have an og_image correctly associated, and it is the right size, so this appears to be a problem that was identified in this post here:

http://community.townnews.com/topics/433-facebook-refuses-to-pull-child-images/


Essentially, especially on the first share, Facebook sometimes does not get the image due to async loading. This is a newish issue with Facebook, but they have a new method that we hope will fix it (which we are implementing in the next few weeks).

In addition, see my best practices in that link above. If you as an editor (or anyone in the newsroom) triggers a Facebook share when the page is not ready, Facebook will give an error which leads to the issue above.


We have several initiatives to workaround the scraping mechanism changes from Facebook. But for now, you can go to:


And run the URL through it a few times (until it should the proper preview at the bottom) and that will fix it. Obviously this is not ideal for every situation, which is why we are attempting to add more features to help workaround these Facebook issues.
0

Webinar: Making money with FREE content

anonymous 8 years ago 0
At our April customer webinar, Tim Turner, Content Exchange program manager, will discuss ways to grow your bottom line with value added content and TownNews.com's Content Exchange program.

We'll cover:
  • Tips on making money from TownNews.com's FREE value added content options.
  • Best practices for using articles, videos and more from the Content Exchange program on your site.
  • How to encourage users to stay on your site longer and consume more content with recommendations.
  • Q&A session to follow the presentation.

Join us on Thursday, April 7th at 10:30 AM CDT.

0
Under review

Related News artciles on Marketplace Listings

Sarah McCraley 8 years ago updated 8 years ago 2

We relate funeral home marketplace listings to our obituary article assets. The business is related as a parent to the article.


The obituaries display with the businesses marketplace under the news tab, but they display with the oldest listing first. Is there a way to have the news articles display in order from newest to oldest?

Answer

Hi Sarah,


If you're relating these obituary articles to the business you can also re-order those assets per business under the Related tab to accomplish your preferred order. Hope that helps!


Thanks!

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Under review

Broadcast for calendar events

Kim Mason BGDN 8 years ago updated by Christine Masters 8 years ago 1

Is there any way to use broadcast for calendar events? It lets me choose the calendar sections but since the events aren't in editorial assets I can't actually use it. When I go to them in community/calendar there is no broadcast option under the other tab.

This would be very beneficial to get the word out about events, so we'd like it added as a feature request.

+4
Started

Add HTML, YouTube, link assets as sibling assets

Erica Smith 9 years ago updated by Christine Masters 9 years ago 4

The list of what can be used as a sibling asset is too limited. Link, HTML and YouTube assets, for example, are excluded, but shouldn't be. We have HTML assets and YouTube assets that are story — stories are more than text these days.


Anyone else? (Bonus if they're more than headlines, but there are rumors that that's already in the works.)

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Section tag order

Greg Wood 9 years ago 0

No big deal, but would it be possible to get the option to have the most recently added section tags appear at the top of the list? This would ensure that the wire stories are opening in the local site sections we apply instead of our "ap" section, where we are not really targeting ads. I know it's easy to drag it to the top, but people don't seem to be getting the message...

+5

Title option in batch edit

Lindy 9 years ago updated by Nick 9 years ago 1

Is there a plan to add a title field in the batch edit window?

Example: 100 photos get batch uploaded but have incorrect filenames. Each one has to be edited individually to fix the naming convention or title.

0

Webinar recording: Introducing TownNews.com iQ Standard

anonymous 9 years ago 0

At our March webinar, Wesley Farris (TownNews.com iQ program manager) introduced the all-new iQ Standard tier, designed to help sites of all sizes use data to extract superior results from their programmatic and remnant advertising campaigns.


For more information, the recorded webinar today!

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Answered

Have form product selected by default?

Nick 9 years ago updated by Sean Bova | Web Developer 9 years ago 5

We're offering a product online with a BLOX form. We only have one product and want it to be selected by default. Is there a way to do this? Users can choose how many to purchase. But the only way I can get the radio selection to go away is to remove the ability to purchase multiple copies.