There are occasions when we have assets that are still being worked on, but that have information or elements that are relevant to people other than the person working on the asset. It would be nice to have a means of opening an asset in a read-only mode so that it is not locked by the person viewing it, but is not in danger of having conflicting edits made. This kind of thing would also allow editors to at least read and give feedback on an asset while the author has open.

Here's an example: A reporter is working on a lengthy Sunday feature that has a massive gallery attached to it. She is actively working on the asset, but does not currently have it open. Another employee is simultaneously working on a video to accompany the story, and needs information from the story and photo assets from the collection in order to produce the video. But if the second employee opens the article and collection to get the necessary information, the reporter can't make any edits to the story or collection, because they are locked. A read-only mode would allow the video production employee to open and view the assets without preventing the reporter from opening and editing them.

I just discovered that several of our social accounts had become disconnected in Blox notifier. 

I was able to go in and reconnect the accounts, but it would have been helpful had there been some sort of notification sent to our Blox admin users letting us know the connection was severed.

That would help ensure the problem was addressed more promptly.

Is anyone aware of any news sites where the user is able to customize/personalize the content he or she sees -- sort of like the way you can often select the topics you want to see in an app? For example, I want to see crime news, features and just my favorite sport, but I'm not interested in business, so I select those topics and that's what I see on my version of the homepage or some other "my" page.

I think I have figured out a way to do this, but people here are reluctant to try it because they aren't aware of any sites that do this. If someone knows of a site that does this, I would appreciate the information.

I'm looking for a site that uses WSI for weather data that feeds the TownNews weather blocks. Our meteorologist has a concern about how the high/low temps are showing, and I am trying to find another example to see if the behavior is the same. Most of the sites I know are in the Meredith group and use custom stuff for weather.

It's not often that I need to edit HTML on Blox, but when I do it would be very useful to have the option to word wrap so I can see my code while making quick edits.  At the very least a Maximize button would be cool too.  Of course if I am doing more vigorous work I would use a 3rd-Party notepad; however I find myself using this HTML block more and more often.  Thanks for your consideration.   I have placed a prototype image below.  

It would be nice to be able to syndicate eEditions between sites. Kind of like other content.

Anyone have examples of integrating (local) paid content within a BLOX site that they'd share? How your blocks are set up to preview content on other assets, how you set a site's advertorial calendar, etc? 

Has anyone created a really good-looking and effective employment page/section to feature local job postings? We're hoping to revamp our employment section to make it easier for employers and employees. 

We would like a way to quickly and easily change the start date/time to now to accurately reflect when a story is published. I guess that would look like some sort of button or maybe an extra option by the start date/time in the default article asset window.

We work in a competitive market, and when a story is published is often critical for us. Also, we have times when a reporter or editor will create a file in advance of an event and the start date/time does not get changed to more accurately reflect when a story is published. The difference between when an article asset is created and when an article is published is a big one for us and one we don't want to have to explain to readers. 

Yes, we can manually change it to get really close, but it would be simpler if there was a one-click way to make that happen. If there is, I've missed it!

I'd like to request that a PUBLISH / DO NOT PUBLISH option be added to the right-click context menu when viewing assets.  This would make it very convenient to quickly publish / unpublish assets (possibly as a group) rather than opening the asset and selecting the OTHER tab, then selecting PUBLISH, then saving the asset again.

We'd use this for items like the TRACKING THE STORM weather box we add at the top of our site during weather incidents, or quickly removing LIVESTREAMS when the event is finished.

I wish Blox had a solution for staff pages. One thing I am confused by is when you use the Author filed for an article, it creates that great little card at the end of the article with the author's photo, title, etc. I wish I could just take that box and stack them on a staff directory page. That author box looks clean and is generated by the system, so why not have say a check box in the user panel that automatically inserts that box in alphabetical order on a staff page?

Is there no way to allow a reader to write-in an answer to a poll question? 

This is now becoming a huge week-long issue from a customer service aspect.  I would like for TownNews staff to provide an update on the repairs with an estimated time of repair, and I would like to know if this issue stems from a Blox update, or an iOS issue.  

Issue: weather data on our TownNews sites differ from forecasts we publish over the air in our newscasts. That is because the weather data in TownNews is not connected to the data we create and use for our on-air product through Baron (or WSI).

Solution: allow for the integration of weather data from the provider or our choice.  Both WSI and Baron offer API access. 

Why: allowing for the integration of weather data from Baron and/or WSI would allow for consistency across all of our platforms. The end result is less confusion among our viewers and users. 

We're looking into the TownNews Blox NOW app and are wondering if anyone has any pros/cons with their experience. And if you could tell me what your app name is so I could download it and check it out.