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0

​Blacklist domains from being used for reader registration

Kevin M. Cox 8 years ago in BLOX CMS updated 8 years ago 2

I can’t find it so I assume there is no way for me to blacklist certain domains from being used to create user accounts?


If that is correct, I’d like to add it as a feature request please.


It hasn’t turned into a huge hassle for us yet, but so far today we’ve gotten three new accounts created with @dispostable.com email addresses simply to spam the comments.


Having an option to blacklist these potentially problematic domains would be nice.


Let me know what y’all think.

0

Hi-DPI/Retina ads?

ShorthornAdam 8 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

I am curious if anything's in the works for high-resolution ads. Our site looks great on Retina Macs and hi-DPI phones and tablets but the masthead logo and the ads look fuzzy since they are still at 72 ppi. Maybe have the ability to upload something proportionally larger (2-3x) in the same spots (like a 900x750 would be allowed in a 300x250 spot and smashed to fit)?

0
Under review

The ability to see users' passwords

Nick 8 years ago in BLOX CMS updated 8 years ago 11

I can't tell you how many times I've had a back and forth between a subscriber about their password magically changing and they don't have access anymore. If this is via email it could take a day or two to resolve the issue. And most people I talk to assume I can see their password anyway.


So as long as no credit card information can be viewed is it possible to allow certain level admins to view the password? It would make life so much easier and our customers so much happier for us to look it up and say:


"I can't log in because my password is wrong"

"Your password is '123456'"

Answer
Christine Masters 8 years ago

I think our preference would be that if someone calls because they can't log in, you reset their password. This can be done in the admin in the user account area. So, they can call and say they don't know their password, you change it to 123456, and then tell them that (or help them reset it themselves which teaches them to do it in the future). And then recommend they log in and change it. This way you don't get access to their original password (which could be used in other places).

+2

Visual guide to which URLs have page customizations in the admin

Brice Bertels 8 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

Child URLs inherit their parent's page customizations. That's great. You set your default page customizations at the top level, it propagates down through the entire URL tree.


But you can change them, you can override the parent's behavior and have a child have different settings.


But after a few customizations, it becomes unclear which URLs have a disinherited set of settings and which are using the defaults. Obviously, clicking through each URL and checking doesn't scale particularly well.

0
Under review

Importing photo captions in RSS syndication imports

Aidian 8 years ago in BLOX CMS updated 8 years ago 7

Have any of you folks had issues importing captions along with photos in RSS syndication imports to your sites? If so how have you dealt with it.


I'm importing photos via the media:rss standard but the photos don't have EXIF data, so I need solution for importing caption & other metadata - hopefully one that doesn't involve writing a script to embed metadata to every image.


Can't imagine we're the first newsroom to have this issue...


Thanks!

+1

Would be nice for InDesign/template stylings to not affect the byline & taglines style on web

Nick 9 years ago in BLOX Total CMS updated by Kevin M. Cox 8 years ago 3

For example, the tagline in TCMS(before it hits the page) is:

Reporter John Smith writes about education and other local topics. Contact him at name@foofoo.com, on Facebook or at 555-1234.


And the byline is:
By JOHN SMITH
The Brunswick News


But when it is placed on the page the template styling/snippets alter that to fit on multiple lines. So when it hits web it looks like...

Reporter John

Smith

writes about education and other local topics. Contact him at name@foofoo.com, on Facebook or at 555-1234.


And the byline looks like:

By JOHN SMITH The Brunswick News


So something in the design templates is overwriting what's in the asset. I understand why from a page layout standpoint. But this doesn't make sense from a web standpoint. It should allow the template to edit the design on the printed page but leave the web version unaltered.


Basically, the bylines and taglines should look the same online as they do in the users' accounts. The InDesign templates shouldn't alter this.

+3

Tracking author's page views by story

pcrawford 8 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Jay Allred 8 years ago 1

We track our reporter's page views very carefully to tell what is resonating with readers. However, there is no way to create a report that gives all articles by a specific author with the page views for that article.

And BLOX does not seem to pass author data to Google Analytics as far as I can tell.

BLOX analytics does track page views by ARTICLE. And BLOX analytics does track page views by AUTHOR, but it does not marry the two and give you page vierws by article, by author.

The data is there. We deperately need a report that breaks it out. It is causing us 5 hours a month running and building this report.

When a reporter says "how did I do this month" I need to say, here are all your aticles broken down by page view.



+2
Under review

Form word-count not accurate

Nick 9 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Julie Stricker 8 years ago 10
I had someone try to submit a letter to the editor with our online form. It told him underneath the body box that he had 4 words left but when he tried to submit the form it wouldn't let him because it said he had too many words.

I tried it and it said I had 5 words left but it submitted with no errors. I seem to recall we had this issue before but I can't remember if we ever resolved it. I've searched my BLOX help tickets and didn't see anything.

Has anyone else seen this error?
+1
Planned

Add the ability to search for/locate an asset by UUID in CMS

tucson news 8 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Christine Masters 8 years ago 2

1) What problem(s) does this idea solve?


When you already have the URL of a live story, looking up the asset in CMS to edit it by its title is slow and cumbersome. The UUID is already part of the URL but it currently isn't possible to find assets by UUID to edit them on the CMS side of things.

2) Why do you need this idea implemented? Provide as many problems or use cases as possible.


To streamline asset lookups in CMS.


If the external ID were available in View Source in Flex, that feature could also be handy for asset lookups in Total CMS.

3) How often would you use this feature?


All the time.


4) How many people in your organization would use this feature?

The 10-12 folks who are comfortable with URL manipulation.

Answer
Christine Masters 8 years ago

I have a feature request in for an "advanced search" in editorial, to be able to give you more user-friendly search options that are easily discoverable through the UI. I think that will help resolve this ticket.


As Robert mentioned, for now you can type uuid:<uuid> in the search box. For example:


uuid: be7cb1b9-ecfd-55c1-8e97-d09a252a4a7b


And that works. But, as we see here, that's tough to figure out with no external help. :) Thanks!

0
Answered

​Clarification on Banner Advertisement End Dates

Kevin M. Cox 8 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Christine Masters 8 years ago 3

I’m looking for some clarification on End Dates for banner ads based on some inconsistencies in this example.


Image 182


So how is it supposed to work:


1. Does the ad server through the entire date of the End Date? Meaning all the way until 11:59 PM on the End Date.


2. Or does it stop serving as soon as the date is reached? Meaning 12:00 AM as soon as the date flips to the End Date?


In the example screenshot, this ad still shows as Enabled (as opposed to Expired) in the main window. However the Performance area under the Other tab lists the ad as expired.


It appears that #1 is the correct behavior since this ad is still racking up impressions, but I just wanted to confirm. If so it looks like there is a simple bug in the Performance area that is reporting the ad as expired a day early.


Thanks.

Answer
Christine Masters 8 years ago

Thanks! I've submitted this as a bug ticket.

+1
Under review

Rotating Image Ads

Kevin M. Cox 8 years ago in BLOX CMS updated 8 years ago 5

We’ve got a customer who would like to have an online advertisement rotate between multiple images randomly. It doesn’t look like there is a way to do this currently in the Marketplace / Banner Ads module. Am I missing something simple?


To be clear, we're not looking for an animated ad that rotates in place. We're looking for logic that will pick between two static image ads and randomly display one or the other at page load.


If not we’d like to make a feature request for this functionality. This way we can keep everything as one ad with the same pool of impressions, ad positions and other options.


We’re getting more and more requests for this type of thing now that we’ve stopped allowing Flash ads on the site.


What do y’all think?

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Answered

Flex

Maunette Loeks 8 years ago updated by Christine Masters 8 years ago 3

Recently, someone in our group mentioned they had gotten a list of sites on the four FLEX templates for easy comparison.

Wondering if anyone has that list to share? Thanks!

Answer
Christine Masters 8 years ago

At the top of this doc, there is a link to previews of the various grids on Flex. Let me know if this is what you mean! :)


http://help.bloxcms.com/html_e17abd1e-d998-11e5-b1be-73c249ed5555.html

+1

Google Search to negatively rank sites with ad interstitials

Christine Masters 8 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

I just wanted to make sure everyone on the community site saw this news:


http://venturebeat.com/2016/08/23/google-search-removes-mobile-friendly-label-will-start-negatively-ranking-mobile-interstitials-in-2017/


It looks like ads that do not overlap content (such as a push-down expandable ad) would not be affected, so could be an alternative. Those of you doing popups may want to consider switching to another ad type.


Let me know if you have any thoughts or ideas on how TownNews.com can help with this. Thanks!

0

Option for page curl to auto-expand

Nick 8 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

The expandable(pencil) ad has several options for auto-expanding. Page curl doesn't have anything like that. Could we get an auto-expand option for page curl?

0
Answered

Is BLOX set up to handle monthly recurring PRINT subscriptions?

Nick 8 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Rich Griffin | Product Manager (Product Manager) 8 years ago 1

Our current circulation software can't do monthly recurring transactions. No clue why not. I don't deal with that software. So they've come to me to see if BLOX can handle recurring transactions.


Is it as simple as creating an online subscription service with no URL access? I've looked at our forms manager where people can purchase print subscriptions initially but I didn't see anything to have it auto-renew.