Welcome to the BLOX Digital (formerly TownNews) customer community! Connect with other BLOX Digital customers—and with us—to suggest features, share best practices and ask questions.
Though BLOX Digital 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.
Delay in sending newsletters
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?
Feature request: Setting default section tags by authors
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+
Feature request: Locking a block like an asset would be locked
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+
Feature request: Option to turn on/off photo titles in vertical collections
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+
Feature Request: Add Publications within batch edit functions
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.
<Body> tag in FLEX?
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.
Ability to add notes to user profiles
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?
styling Twitter list in horizontal format
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
Feature Request: Display email vs Login email
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.
Webinar | Announcing the new and improved BLOX Business Directory
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?
Can the sticky ad be displayed on all pages?
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?
Feature request: "Wikipedia" style revision history
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.
Short Link Make in Town News
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."
Registered users / subscription - hitting paywall even though all settings show user should be allowed through
I have a reader who - despite being a registered user and having been logged in on her phone, continues to hit our paywall, even though there is no reason she should be doing so.
We have tried to duplicate the issue on multiple devices and cannot do so.
I know that the paywall operates using cookies.Can anyone think of what might be happening in this isolated case? Phone is an iPhone6.
I assume that when she hits the paywall, she can log in and see content. But, each time she comes back, she has to log in again?
If so:
- It is unlikely to be a "remember me" issue since your site has "force enabled for all user" for the "remember me" setting.
- It is very likely she is in private browsing mode. In this situation the browser doesn't store cookies so it will not remember you between settings. (We see this complaint especially from iPhone users.)
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203036
If she can't log in at all, then:
- There is probably something wrong with her account or her subscription purchase. Our Customer Support staff can help troubleshoot the issue.
Let me know if this helps! =)
Christine
Reporter profiles on print and web
In some of our sites, the bylines and taglines for authors differ between the print version and the web version. For example, the print byline in TCMS might by "BY JON DOE / Community News" but the desired byline for the web could be "By Jon Doe of the Community News staff."
Taglines are frequently even more different. A print tagline might be "Contact Jon Doe at jdoe@communitynews.com" while the web tagline might be "Jon Doe may be reached at jdoe@communitynews.com or 800-293-9576. Follow him @jondoe."
Those are simplistic examples. Some of our actual cases are even more different. Our desire would be to have the author field -- which would be the same in both TCMS and BLOX be the key for allowing these to automatically be different in the two channels, even though TCMS would carry the print version over to BLOX.
The idea would be that when an asset arrived in BLOX, the author field (if populated) would automatically place information from the "content" portion of the BLOX user profile into the byline and tagline fields, replacing what came over from TCMS.
This would occur on every bylined, staff-written story in our largest newspaper every day. The time saved would be measured in man hours every day. There's no reason that this work should have to be done manually.
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