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5:22 pm
November 5, 2009 |
William P. Davis
| | Veazie, Maine | | | Admin | posts 65 |
| | I thought about this on Election Day when the front page changed several times: Would a plugin that manages different versions of the front page be useful? For example, you could have a version of the front page for breaking news, or a version of the front page that highlights a particular article, etc. You could change front pages from the admin panel or on the publication of an article, like so: 
What do you guys think. Would this be useful? | |
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7:11 pm
November 5, 2009 |
Daniel Bachhuber
| | | | | Admin | posts 102 |
| | I think a publication with multiple versions of their front page would be sweet. The issue probably isn't so much with the ability to quickly switch page templates, but rather with having those page templates to switch to. How do you foresee addressing that? | |
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7:17 pm
November 5, 2009 |
William P. Davis
| | Veazie, Maine | | | Admin | posts 65 |
| | The plugin would come with a few pre-defined templates, and users would enter other front page templates ahead of time. So, for example, on Election Day we had the new front page predefined, but we still had to copy it in. I would also let users preview the front page before they post the article. Does this answer your question? | |
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9:31 pm
November 5, 2009 |
Andrew Spittle
| | Walla Walla, WA | | | Moderator | posts 49 |
| | I definitely think this could be useful. I have multiple templates for our homepage but I know that unless things are easily updated through the Dashboard they will never be changed once I leave. A plugin like you're describing would be sweet. And to counter Daniel's point, I think that if people knew it'd be easy to switch templates they may be more inclined to write them. Just my two cents on that. | Andrew – andrew@copress.org – CoPress Hosting Director – http://www.andrewspittle.net |
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12:03 am
November 9, 2009 |
arobinsonwku
| | | | | Member | posts 32 |
| | I agree that this would be a great feature. I think there are numerous events that could benefit from a different homepage…everything from breaking news to homecoming to elections. I know there are some plug-ins that will add banner marquees. If there was a way to have them designed and then change on the fly like you all discussed, I think it would be extremely beneficial. |
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2:04 pm
November 10, 2009 |
Andrew_Vazzano
| | | | | New Member | posts 1 |
| | It's something I've thought about, especially since (I think) we're going with the Gazette template. Let's say breaking news happens and we want it to be the featured story…but we don't have an image to associate with that story yet. What do we do? We've discussed just making an image of the headline to run as a placeholder for the news story. That…or just getting a box to run above the scrolling images, a la what CNN used to do. | GM / Publisher of QUChronicle.com (soon to be a CoPress creation!) |
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6:36 pm
November 10, 2009 |
sbressler
| | | | | Member | posts 15 |
| | Post edited 11:36 pm – November 10, 2009 by sbressler
Post edited 11:38 pm – November 10, 2009 by sbressler
Post edited 11:38 pm – November 10, 2009 by sbressler
Post edited 5:17 am – November 11, 2009 by sbressler
I've actually made a plugin to control my newspaper's homepage (www.studlife.com). A picture is worth a thousand words, so here are some screenshots: Autocompletion for selecting stories:
http://www.studlife.com/wp-con…..mplete.png Fill out all the details for a new story:
http://www.studlife.com/wp-con…..-story.png Warnings appear if certain fields will be too long:
http://www.studlife.com/wp-con…..o-long.png Display of the stories that will appear in the three sections on the homepage:
http://www.studlife.com/wp-con…..tories.png Stories can be dragged and dropped in different homepage sections, or reordered within a section:
http://www.studlife.com/wp-con…..tories.png The new layout of the homepage can be previewed before any changes go live. Note the "Breaking News" story, the 4 "swaps" stories, and the 4 "text" stories, which are the stories on the homepage the plugin controls:
http://www.studlife.com/wp-con…..opress.png |
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12:05 am
December 8, 2009 |
BradArendt
| | | | | Member | posts 7 |
| | I really like this idea. We are doing a special BCS bowl page which is working for us but would be nice to just switch our main site over if we had this option. There are many times a year when I can think such changes would be appropriate…. 1. Elections (as mentioned) 2. Big sporting events 3. Back to school (we do a preview issue, would be nice to customize site before first day of classes for a week) 4. Finals (everyone needs a break during finals and if our website reflects a more "stress free" fun, even if just themed, I think would be attractive to students) 5. Breaking news (as mentioned) 6. Campus crisis. The Va Tech shootings has put many colleges into "warning" mode when major things on campus happen. Why should we, as the source for information on campus, be left out or relegated to just a "breaking news" mode. I envision being able to show this to administrators and saying "hey, we can help get the word out when big things emergency events happen on campus." Perhaps we become a partner in getting the message out. Yes, you give up some editorial control but we are talking about safety and really highlighting "pay attention people" type of messages. I just see it bigger than a standard breaking news – maybe a "mega" breaking news template. 2012?  7. Just simple theming could add some fun and change up the look a little bit for things like holidays. We will often do this in print but not online because it just takes – or has taken – more work. A changing option like this would actually make it easier than in print. 8. Graduation Probably more, and might get out of hand but wow, lots of options at the click of a mouse. |
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