News CP :: help me use it and Ill document it

[elsuertudo]

Hi everyone!

I have a Q about the News CP, hope a kind soul out there can answer me.

I pretty much have it set up, I know how to create the CP, create news entries, modify the default template (news.tmpl) but...

When I click the "read" link at the bottom of the teaser text it takes me nowhere.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the "archive" and "news article" fields you have to fill in inside the News CP configuration. What are those?

If I get some help I'm going to write some documentation about it and compare it with the old method my friends and I usually used before the News CP existed.

Thanks!

[Jensensen]

hi,

this might helpful: [x]

[elsuertudo]

Thanks for the link but I'm afraid thats where I got most of my initial instructions. I just can't figure out why its not showing me anything when I hit the "read" button. Since its a new feature I imagine very few people really know how it works...

Anyone else have any info on this?

[360fusion]

Is the read link not working or is it just taking you to a blank page?

Have you got text typed any text in the 'news' and 'article' text areas near the bottom of the news content part? try adding some text in there.

Have you selected a language in both the news content part and the news article?

Ben

[elsuertudo]

Hi Ben, thanks for your interest. It was your post on the subject that got me this far. Truly grateful.

Is the read link not working or is it just taking you to a blank page?
Well, if I just type any text in the 'news' and 'article' text areas, it redirects me to my homepage. However if I type the alias of the article that contains the News CP then I get a blank page. It tries to do this: index.php?sala-de-prensa&newsdetail=19991130-6_News-title-1

Have you got text typed any text in the 'news' and 'article' text areas near the bottom of the news content part? try adding some text in there.
Yup, got text. Do you understand what those text areas actually do?

Have you selected a language in both the news content part and the news article?
I have both language inputs with "en".

Thanks so much

[360fusion]

Not sure if this has anything to do with it but have you update the database. There may have been some changes lately. I know there was some errors if upgrading from previous versions, i think that has been fixed now.

I have added screen shots of my news cp and news article on this post http://forum.phpwcms.org/viewtopic.php? ... 63#p104863

Ben

[elsuertudo]

Hi Ben,

Thanks for the screenshots. At least they help me check that I have the News CP and the News Entries correct.

I think its more of a structural problem or something (articles and categories in the site structure). Any chance you could post a screenshot of the article that contains your News CP? It would also be very helpful if you could post an example of the URL its sends you to when you click on the "read" link.

Thanks again

PS: I dont think you can type anything you want in the News article text field inside the News CP config. I think you have to type the alias of the article that contains the News CP. For example your article is called "news" (so it probably has that alias) and you filled the text field with "news".

[360fusion]

Hi,

I have updated one of my personal sites and added an example news article, this site is based on a fresh install of 1.3.9 r182.

http://www.our-weddings.co.uk/news.phtml

Another thing i have found is the pagination doesn't work, well it doesn't work as i expected it to work. I expected it to create separate numbered pages with say 5 article teasers by selecting a max number of articles per page in the news cp. it doesn't.

[360fusion]

added more screen grabs

http://forum.phpwcms.org/viewtopic.php? ... 63#p104901

[elsuertudo]

Well, I just can't get it to work. Your URL looks like mine and everything else seems similar. Lets hope the creator himself drops by one day. If your looking for an alternative way to get a news section up and running I know how to do it. I imagine you probably do as well though. I'll keep playing around with it to see if I can figure anything out. Thanks for all the effort.

Andrés

[360fusion]

Feature request.

Just a couple of ideas i think could make the news section better

Limit characters for teaser
I would like the news teaser to automatically take the teaser text from the main news article/description if the teaser text area is left empty (which it does), but i would also like to be able to limit the amount of characters shown in the teaser with something in the template.

I say template rather than content part or news item page as i don't want to have a client have to enter the amount of characters every time they create an article.

I think the fewer option available for users to add when creating a news article the better.

Automatic author entry

The authors name could be entered automatically by using the login information of the person writing the news article.

Paginate articles

Not quite sure how this works at the moment but it should automatically add page numbers at the top when selected in the news cp without having to add any other code to template.