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.
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Avoid outages: Update your Google, Facebook and Twitter APIs today!

anonymous 9 years ago updated 9 years ago 0

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It's spring, and new APIs are in the air. Google, Facebook and Twitter are updating their authentication procedures, and you may need to take action to ensure that these services continue to work properly with BLOX CMS.We've created a set of handy docs to guide you through the process of updating your authentication settings:

• Our broadcast settings document gives step-by-step instructions for configuring Facebook and Twitter social media broadcasting to use the new APIs.

• Our user authentication doc will guide you through the process of switching to new federated login APIs for Google and Facebook.

Google and Facebook have both set late April deadlines, after which services like federated login and social media broadcasting may fail. Twitter hasn't announced a deadline yet, but why wait? Spring clean your APIs today to sidestep future problems.

In most cases the changes should be painless, but if you have any questions please call TownNews.com customer support at 800-293-9576.

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Under review

Using Adobe Muse for creating HTML assets?

Jacki Gray 10 years ago updated 9 years ago 4
Anyone familiar with using Adobe Muse for creating HTML assets?

We found that designing something in Muse and then passing it through Dreamweaver and creating an HTML asset was unsuccessful. It seems like Blox does not like the code or language?

Just looking for input.
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Under review

block description

Mike Stickler 10 years ago updated 10 years ago 4
would love to see all block templates have a description custom property. the description would appear on the site as a short sentence or paragraph in small text between the block title and first asset.
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Completed

First Thursday Webinar

anonymous 10 years ago updated by Christine Masters 10 years ago 2
At this month's FREE webinar, we'll discuss exciting new features, updates and revenue generating tips. Topics will include:

  • Improve your workflow with our all-new inline notes
  • Configuring broadcast settings to comply with Facebook updates
  • New run-of-site exclusions in BLOX Ad Manager
  • Tip of the month: Native advertising with BLOX CMS
Sign up today!


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Answered

asset search for invalid section tags

Mike Stickler 11 years ago updated by Christine Masters 10 years ago 2
If you want to search for articles in a specific section it's fairly easy. Put a check next to the section in the drop down and hit search. In addition to this there is an "uncategorized" box that can be checked to bring up instances where there is not section tag.

However we occasionally run into human error issues where something might end up in the section tag field that is not a valid section. For example if no web category is selected in our pagination system then articles will be imported with a section_tag of none. TN gave me a shortcut to search for these (enter tag_section:(none) in the search text), however I'd like to see an "invalid" section search similar to the uncategorized one. The results from this search would return any asset with a section tag that is not currently a valid section tag for the site.
Answer
Christine Masters 10 years ago
1. In BLOX itself, there isn't a way to select a section that doesn't exist, so that shouldn't be an issue for sites creating content inside the BLOX hosted system, or our front-end editorial system, BLOX Total CMS. Since they are essentially the same system, they work in unison in this way.

2. For other front-end editorial systems, you'd have to talk to that vendor about not allowing invalid sections to be chosen for an article. It sounds like the sections should be a choice out of a selection of sections rather than something the user is asked to type in, anyway.

3. As far as auto-creating sections when a new one is found, I would think that it could lead to a lot of accidental sections that are misspellings or incorrect variations of existing sections. They would then not have ads assigned or could mess up page statistics. In BLOX, we like to think of the sections as more well-defined. Keywords, on the other than, are more organic and could vary in this way.

4. As far as searching for "invalid" sections, that is very difficult for us to do. We would have to perform an inverse search on every section tag that is possible from the database, and our developers felt there was no reasonable way to do that.

Hope this helps! Thanks!
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Completed

Did you miss TownNews.com's customer webinar?

anonymous 10 years ago updated by Christine Masters 10 years ago 1
At this month's webinar, we discussed ways to ensure that your BLOX CMS site and content are search-optimized. Watch it today!

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Completed

The October edition of the TownNews.com Bulletin is out!

Aaron Gillette (Marketing Director, TownNews) 10 years ago updated by Christine Masters 10 years ago 4
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In this month's issue:

  • Group publishers: Stop worrying and learn to love sharing content
  • Content exchanges are an idea whose time has come
  • Image proxy enables efficient, on-demand image previews
  • Webinar video: What's new in October

READ IT NOW!

Not signed up? No problem! To receive the monthly TownNews.com Bulletin and other news and alerts from TownNews.com, click here and enter your email address in the "Stay Connected" sidebar.
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Read it now: TownNews.com Bulletin (March, 2015)

Aaron Gillette (Marketing Director, TownNews) 10 years ago updated 10 years ago 1
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In this month's issue:

  • How the Tulsa World boosts revenue and SEO with topic pages
  • New! Inline notes for easier workflows
  • Facebook updates API - check your social media broadcast settings
  • How to fast-track updates to your front page with flags
  • Marc Wilson on the future of media technology
  • Webinar video: Focus on SEO

READ IT TODAY!

Not signed up? No problem! To receive the monthly TownNews.com Bulletin and other news and alerts from TownNews.com, click here and enter your email address in the "Stay Connected" sidebar.
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Answered

disable comments by section

Maunette Loeks 10 years ago updated 10 years ago 4
Hello,
I thought I was remember something in documentation that I could disable comments per section (not per asset). If I am remember correctly, could someone kindly direct me to the right place? Thanks!
Answer
Christine Masters 10 years ago
You can use the blox_comments custom property to change the comments setting on a per-URL basis. Just go to URL settings, then add the name and your chosen value.

http://docs.townnews.com/kbpublisher/blox_comments_5750.html
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Answered

AP Flag

Maunette Loeks-Van Patten 10 years ago updated by Maunette Loeks 10 years ago 3
OK, maybe I am being blond. :) It wouldn't be the first time. 
We are testing the Asset Index: Headlines block on our front page. However, we are feeding AP stories into the block and the "AP" flag is showing.
According to the docs, we can hide a flag, but I've tried every different configuration I'm not getting it to go away.

This is from the documention: skipped_flags

With this setting, specific flags can be turned off. For example, if you have a block that pulls in assets that are flagged featured, every asset would have a featured icon next to it. To turn it off: skipped_flags = featured.

I'm not doing something right. Anyone? Thanks in advance.
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Answered

Having to authenticate EVERY DANG TIME...

Kelly Thomas (DE Admin) 10 years ago updated by Aaron Gillette (Marketing Director, TownNews) 10 years ago 4
Having to authenticate EVERY DANG TIME I  want to watch a video discourages me from actually watching training videos. 1PWord won't even create a login >:-(

http://townnews.com/shared-content/perform/?domain_name=townnews.com&form_template=training_videos&tra
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Answered

longview presentation - cutlines

Maunette Loeks 10 years ago updated by Christine Masters 10 years ago 1
I like using the Longview presentation for what we call our "Lifestyle" pieces.
However, if you pull the photo into the copy, you lose the cutline. Is there a photo presentation option I can use to keep the cutline working? I've tried showcase, but of course, it moves it to the top of the page.
http://www.starherald.com/entertainment/air-link-receives-state-of-the-art-helicopter/article_bd3e8753-5626-54e9-b446-5535dc92cede.html
Answer
Christine Masters 10 years ago
The cutlines are there, you just need to click on the photo to see it. We did it this way because sometimes cutlines are so long that they cause a huge break in the story that it is distracting.

However, I'll see if there is a way we can 'hint' to the user that there is more if you click on the photo. Maybe it needs to do something on a mouseover or something...

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Answered

Article personality

Maunette Loeks 10 years ago updated by Christine Masters 10 years ago 4
OK, so I missed this section in the webinar because I was having difficulty logging into the webinar. 
How do I get the author to show up above as it shows in the documentation? Do I put the author byline in the "author" section? I've tried byline and tagline, have an image of the author, but it doesn't do it, so I'm assuming I'm doing something wrong. Thanks for your help!
Answer
Christine Masters 10 years ago
Hi Maunette!

The author needs to have a user account, be assigned to the story as "author," and the account should be filled out with their avatar, bio, etc. If they fill out their Twitter and Facebook, those will show up as well. 

Then, of course, you need the "presentation" mode set to "personality."
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App Server cache

Craig V 10 years ago 0
Is there any way to control the caching on the app server? We frequently need to update files on that server and it takes a while to see the changes.
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Read it now: TownNews.com Bulletin (November, 2014)

Aaron Gillette (Marketing Director, TownNews) 10 years ago updated 10 years ago 0
TownNews.com Bulletin (November, 2014)
In this month's issue:

  • Ferguson unrest drives heavy traffic to St. Louis news sites
  • Learning the value of your archives
  • Webinar video: Exciting editorial enhancements help you create long-form stories, paged galleries, timelines and more!

READ IT TODAY!

Not signed up? No problem! To receive the monthly TownNews.com Bulletin and other news and alerts from TownNews.com, click here and enter your email address in the "Stay Connected" sidebar.