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+1
Under review

Rotating Image Ads

Kevin M. Cox 9 years ago in BLOX CMS updated 9 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 9 years ago updated by Christine Masters 9 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 9 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 9 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 9 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 9 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Rich Griffin | Product Manager (Product Manager) 9 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.

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Looking to add a message board/forum to site

Jason Braverman 9 years ago updated by Nick 9 years ago 2

We're trying to figure out the best (and free) way to implement a message board feature on our prep sports website. Anyone using one? Any suggestions? Thanks!

+1
Under review

Ad-Free Subscriptions

Kevin M. Cox 9 years ago in BLOX CMS updated 9 years ago 14

Does Town News have an option that allows certain subscribers to have advertisements automatically removed from the site? I’d be interested in seeing this technology pursued.


This sort of arraignment could could give more of a “member” type feel for the customer relationship instead of simply that of “subscriber.”


For example from a recent E&P article:

The Salt Lake Tribune in Utah has developed a digital membership model that’s tiered: $4.99 a month provides subscribers with full digital access to the site, plus invitations the special events the publisher now hosts regularly. The other option is to pay $9.99 each month for an ad-free reading experience. More than 700 readers have signed on, the vast majority who have opted for digital reading unencumbered by advertising interruption.


Let me know what y’all think.

+1
Completed

More than 10 "similar topics" when you search community.townnews posts

Nick 9 years ago updated by Aaron Gillette (Marketing Director, TownNews) 9 years ago 3

Every time I have a question for this community I want to make sure someone else hasn't asked it before. I even did it for this question. /meta This may be beyond TownNews' ability to customize as I'm not sure about how UserEcho works. But when I search for something like "section tag" I know there have to be more than 10 results and I don't want to take away votes from another established topic by creating a new topic that could be exactly the same as a previous one.


So is this something that can be done?


I had another question/topic but I'll ask it another day. I decided today was the day I'd finally ask about more search results.

Answer

Hi Nick,


After some digging around in UserEcho's settings, I found that it is possible to change the number of "similar topics" displayed below the search box. It defaults to 10, but I've increased it to 20 for the time being. Let us know if this is more useful . . . increasing it beyond 20 started to make the page feel pretty unwieldy.


Aaron Gillette

Marketing director

TownNews.com

+2

display maps on all asset types

Jacki Gray 9 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

It would be great to display maps (defined by location information in the Other tab) on all asset types not just article assets. For example, here we have an image collection of a new temple opening in the area. It would be helpful to readers to see the location on the map.


http://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/news/local/photos-hindu-temple-opens-in-lower-makefield/collection_168812f2-50c4-11e6-813b-d38b9c063610.html

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Under review

Has anyone switched their entire site over to SSL yet?

Erica Smith 9 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Donald 9 years ago 3

We're getting ready to do this. Just looking to see if anyone else has, and what, if any, problems or complications they ran into.

+4

Remove/disable the CAPTCHA on a form

Donald 9 years ago in BLOX CMS updated 9 years ago 2

1. What problem(s) does this idea solve? Why do you need this idea implemented? Provide as many problems or use cases as possible.


A. Having the ability to remove or disable the CAPTCHA from internal forms would decrease from submission time and increase productivity.
Ex. https://www.thehawkeye.com/site/forms/news/content_request/


2. How often would you use this feature?
A. Several times per day.


3. How many people in your organization would use this feature?
Approximately 20 -- any editor, reporter, or photographer.

+4
Planned

FLEX needs more detailed front-end search options - specifically section searching

Nick 9 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Christine Masters 9 years ago 2

Currently I don't see any way to allow users to specify which sections to search. For instance, if someone wants to search for an obituary they can't go to our main site search and say "John Smith" and click something to limit the search results to obituaries.


I can send them to a different page like "/search/?c=obituaries" but usage of the internet trains us to look for a "Narrow my results down" area. I shouldn't have to redirect them to another search page.


It'd be nice to have at least the option to search news, sports and obits. Or you could get fancy and allow BLOX managers to map certain sections tags to custom search options. Like "Map local-news, state-news, national-news to News" and "Map obits to "Obituaries."

+1

​Town News ability to handle major traffic surge

Kevin M. Cox 9 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Aidian 9 years ago 2

I feel for the web staff at The Dallas Morning News. During the shootings last night their primary site just couldn’t take the load. (Their beta site remained online for those who knew about it and had the URL.)


It got me wondering, if one of our sites were exposed to the huge traffic surge from a major national event such as this, would it be able to handle the load?


I’m hoping y’all can share what sort of technology and procedures you have in place for a major spike in traffic. Can things scale automatically or does it require some manual intervention by Town News staff? To what level and how quickly can additional resources be thrown at a problem like this if needed?


Looking forward to any insight that can be shared.

+1

Feature request: Inline notes outside of body copy

Erica Smith 9 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

You can add inline notes to body copy. This works; text marked as a note does not appear in the body. But when text with an inline note is copied into any other field, the inline note shows up. Underlined. And it's not always visible outside unless you're looking at the HTML.


Feature request: No matter what field it's in, hide text that's marked as a note. (In HTML, <ins class="note">historic</ins> would hide the word historic.)