The October edition of the TownNews.com Bulletin is out!

The new Subscription Rule Profiles are a HUGE step up from the old way of doing things. We fit the use cases presented (multiple services controlling the same URLS, quickly dropping the paywall for a hurricane, etc.) almost exactly.

My only complaint is that when editing an existing Rule Profile, when you click to Add another URL that requires a subscription, the resulting dialog box doesn’t have anything checked.

It would be much more user friendly if the box pre-populated checkmarks for URLs you have already added as requiring a subscription under this specific rule profile. This would make it much easier to review your entire Rule Profile setup and make sure you have it completed as desired.

Hi Kevin!

Thanks so much for your feedback! We are very pleased that this is helpful to you, and we hope that it reduces many clicks and frustrations in your days to come. =)

As for your "review" idea (being able to see all of the URLs with checkboxes or something in order to ensure you have it completed as desired), I think this is very interesting and will bring it up with the Subscription Product Manager.

One idea in the meantime could be to use the exceptions instead of inclusions. So, for example, if you have subscription on every URL except search, user and calendar, you could do a rule of something like:

/* (by selecting the main root URL map)

And then exclusions of:

/search
/user
/calendar

Or something like that. Or if you have a lot of subURLs that have sections under them that don't have subscription, you could do the same thing. List your main inclusions:

/news/*
/sports/*
/columnists/*

And then exclusions of:

/news/legals/*
/sports/community/*

This may be easier even that a list of URLs with checkboxes, depending on how your rules are set up.

Note that if you use an "include by default" model, any new URL you create might automatically be included with subscription. (This could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending.)