Here's my quandary: 

We're trying to make our calendar utilization more robust, in part by making calendar categories more easily navigable and by hiding some of the breadth of the calendar categories from users by curating the presentation of certain categories.

To that end, I'd like to use an autonav block to direct users to specific calendar pages, though not necessarily all the subcategories of /calendar/, and possibly even to pages outside the /calendar/ directory.

So, to wit: One of the requested features was a page where users can see text listings of a large number of upcoming events — say for the next month. If I create an associated URL (/upcoming_events/) in the /calendar/ directory, it will show up in the autonav block configured to call /calendar/, but it will also show up in the user submission form for calendar events on the dashboard. I don't want users to be able to submit an event as an upcoming event, but I do want them to be able to utilize the autonav to navigate to /upcoming_events/. If I create /upcoming_events/ outside the /calendar/ directory, it will not appear in the dashboard submission form, but it will also not appear in the autonav.

Similarly, we would like users to be able to make submissions under certain categories that are not necessarily presented to all users in the autonav. This is because we have a number of calendar categories which are not extensively populated (dance, car shows) but could be presented together in a broader category (say, entertainment). If /dance/ and /car_shows/ exist under /calendar/, they'll appear in the dashboard submission form, but also in the autonav. We do not want this because we'd rather direct users to fewer, more populated pages instead of many sparsely populated pages. I can use a card block to pull in /dance/ and /car_shows/ submissions to an /entertainment/ page, but the /entertainment/ page will not show up in the autonav unless it is also under /calendar/ — and thus it will show up in the dashboard submission form, which we do not want because "Entertainment" is a broad enough designation that it becomes meaningless unless curated on the front end.

If I've got it right, this is because the autonav and the dashboard submission form both call /calendar/. After racking my brain, the most efficient solution I can think of for this is a block that looks and functions (for the user) like the autonav, but which can be configured in the CMS to display only selected directories. Is there a block that does this? Is it possible? Am I missing an obvious answer?

Any insights are appreciated.

Brad Bautista

Citrus County Chronicle

Does anybody have a quick/easy solution to get something like JuxtaposeJS working on a Flex site?

https://juxtapose.knightlab.com/

EDIT: Looks like I might be able to just embed the code though... (and I admit I posted before even trying but figured if somebody already has a system like this that is TownNews friendly it will save me some time).

Would like to learn more about why there's a 5-10 minute delay in newsletters from the moment you click 'send' to the moment they're delivered to subscribers' inboxes. In breaking news situations, that delay puts us well behind our competition. Anything we can do differently?

In breaking news situations, eliminating steps is always a nice thing.

It'd be awesome if BLOX allowed, in users' profiles, to set what section tags their new assets would default to.

For example: I'm Kyle Whitfield. I cover the New Orleans Saints. It'd be great if every asset I created automatically populated new_orleans/sports/saints like it populates my byline and author field.

What problems would this solve? See above

Why do you need this idea? See above

How often would you use this feature? Daily

How many people would this affect in our news org? 100+

We run into problems sometimes where 2 editors are simultaneously in a block, rearranging pins and then accidentally just saving over one another. It'd be nice for blocks to be locked when someone is in one, much like assets would be locked.

We run into situations, especially in breaking news, where 2 people might have our homepage top stories block open. Both are pinning and re-arranging stories -- but they're accidentally saving over each other's work without knowing it.

What problem(s) does this solve? See above

Why do you need this idea? See above.

How often would you use this feature? Daily

How many people would this affect in our news org? 100+

Hi y'all,

We love vertical collections. It'd be cool if on an individual collection level you could turn on/off photo titles. For example, we love photo titles for listicles but don't like them for live event galleries, where seemingly every photo has the same title. Right now we have CSS on our site that always hides the titles. 

What problem(s) does this idea solve? See above

Why do you need this idea implemented? See above

How often would you use this feature? Daily

How many people in your org would use this? 100+

Would be great to be able to assign multiple assets to a publication/page (Publications) through the batch edit function. 

Oftentimes reporters and editors put assets into the system before a dummy is dropped and they know exactly what page an asset should be assigned to. This leaves folks having to open up each individual asset later in the day and assigning a page number to that asset if we want designers to take advantage of the budget tool within InDesign asset manager. 

Example: Opinion page items are put in earlier in the day when possible. This page isn't always in the same position each day, so the editor budgets every asset for the general publication and section but isn't able to assign a page number. Once dummy is dropped and we know the page, each asset (often 10 or more) has to be opened up and assigned a page number. 

If there was a way to assign publications/sections/page numbers to multiple assets at the same time that would be a great timesaver for reporters and editors alike, while also allowing designers to keep using the handy budget tool within ID. 

Can anyone tell me where to find the <body> tag in FLEX? I need to implement some code right after the body tag and I can't find it anywhere.

If you're like me you get dozens of tech support calls every week. People needing help logging in, subscribing, navigating the website, etc. For a while now I've wanted the ability to add notes to a user's profile.

There are tons of times people call and say they spoke with me last month, last year, yesterday about X, Y and Z and I have no memory of the conversation because of the sheer number of calls I get. So it would be nice to have a place to jot some quick notes, hidden to the user of course. Maybe a date field and a field for text.

It would also help the user's experience that we actually do remember the conversation.

Would anyone else use a feature like this? Is there a BLOX workaround way to do this that doesn't involve a spreadsheet or text document?

Hi, is there a way to horizontally display a Twitter list and do it responsively?  For large formats, we would probably look for 5 or 6 tweets, then switch to a vertical feed for mobile formats

We have some users who have signed up for BLOX with their personal email address, but have since gone on to be staff (from volunteers) so they then get their own site-branded email.

We are unable to change their email address since the system spits out that they need a static address for login purposes. We could make an entirely new user account, but there's too many articles to change over.

It would be great to be able to add/change the profile "display" email address to be different than the login one, so emails can go to a work address rather than a personal one.

New features and exciting improvements make it even easier for your site to be a one-stop source for business info in your community. At our November customer webinar, Phil Pracht, product manager for BLOX Business Directory, will show you how to:

• Easily create enhanced business profiles with the simplified Storefront setup in BLOX CMS.
• Leverage your business directory to power Local Niche Guides for new advertising possibilities.
• Save time and money with new automated enhancements for simplified directory updates.
• Take advantage of TownNews.com’s new partnership with Guarantee Digital for complete fulfillment packages.
• . . . and much more!

Ready to see the new and improved BLOX Business Directory?

I've tested the new sticky ad on an asset and it works great. But we'd like the position on ALL pages. Is this in the works? And can they be stackable?

1) Wikipedia-style revisions would allow users to see the actual changes made between two versions of the same asset. Text would be highlighted that was deleted, added or changed, with an area for specific notes (if needed) for why the changes happened. User information could be seen when hovering over the changes to see who actually did the edit.

2) It's difficult to see currently what the actual changes or revisions have been made to an asset.

3) This feature would be used all the time by every staff member. Allows us to keep track of every change and why the change was made. Would especially be useful on long-form articles where what was changed or changes that need to be highlighted were missed.

4) All users would benefit from this feature. Our head editors and copyrighters would benefit most from it.

You can clearly see the previous asset text on the left, and the right is the current (or latest selected) with the changes that were made to the asset. It could be even further clarified by highlighting with different colours.

Red = delete

Green = added

Orange = changes (ie: spelling)

Currently, if a staff member who did the edits is not around, we have to open up several of the previous revisons and compare them. By having the changes in one window and side-by-side, it's easier to see past changes and plan for future ones.

On WordPress, it offers users the means to grab a short link for the purposes of social media cleanliness, right there in WordPress. With Town News, we have to go to bitly or some other outside provider to get a short link. Why not add a short-link maker within the system, as it doesn't seem to require much programming to do? It could say "Get short link."