The power of the news module

[Vlob]

With a bit of creativity a news module is the answer to a lot of questions, it can be used for all sorts of pages. I have expanded the news module quite a bit and am curious of what kind of extra options people would prefer of need in the news module.

I have added ten optional fields (titles for the fields can be set in the settings page, if in the settings page a title is empty, the corresponding field will not show in the modify_post

I have added two upload fields for images, images will automatically be saved in three formats for easy use as thumbnail, mobile image or big image)

I have added two extra date fields (event date) to make it possible a news module can function as an event calendar

I have added an extra short text field to give clients the opportunity to have a different intro text on the any news


Plans:
- tags
- multi photo upload with title, short description per image, main image select, position/order, rotate option (for these ffknn exif-data rotated photos) and some other functions

(I have done both options some time ago but have to combine it into the new version)

Any thoughts and ideas?

As soon as those things are functioning I can share the expanded mofo

[crnogorac081]

Hi Vlob,
Here are my suggestions:

1. news categories and subcategories (like category tree) and also option for multiple categories with option to select main category from category tree?

2. my personal opinion is that news module should be tool module type, where you can manage all this and that module page type should only attach and display selected group (and its subcategories) with editable output (using some template engine)

3.because of seo, i believe news link should be somehow under pages db table , do that you have link page2/nees_category5/news_title-{id}. The links are nicer than /posts/news... (All news even under different pages are under /posts/ )

Cheers
Ivan

[Vlob]

>> news categories and subcategories
cool idea!

>> news module should be tool module type
hmmm, I prefer to have an extended settings page on each news module page but i do think it is an interesting idea

>> yeah, I hate the /posts/ thing too but honestly I never thought of changing that, let's look in to that soon


Meanwhile I managed to add a tags option, I copied the groups files en db-tables and worked my way through the files to get the drag n drop positioning stuff and the paginator working. my plan is to add an option where in each post a list of all tags is shown and you can check every suitable tag.
(did a similair addition to bakery last year)
With the tags I see more than one extra feature:

for instance:

- you can display specifics easily: for instance you have a newspage for a local newspaper covering news in x-amount cities -> cities as tags -> tag the appropriate cities -> [TAGS] will display all checked tags.

- a filter option: put the tags in a dropdown and select the needed tag -> only postst with the selected tag will remain

- show links to news items with matching tags underneath the item detail page


etc etc ...

(this might even be a better solution that categories and subcategories ....)

[Vlob]

update:
Tags are working: https://streamable.com/1zs3nf

[CodeALot]

I appreciate every effort to expand the possibilities of WB, but eh... Have you ever seen OneForAll?

[Vlob]

Hi mr. CodeALot,

>>
 Have you ever seen OneForAll?
<<

Nope but I will look into that right away, I have been away for a few years and just now picking up things again...
Never heard of that module but you make me curious, downloading it as we speak

thanks

[hgs]

In German we say to OFA
"Eierlegendewollmich sau"
So an animal which satisfies all needs

[Vlob]

I must say that I am utterly flabbergasted.

I will need some time to find my way and discover all of it but damn, this is a mighty fukkr indeed!

Meanwhile I still think the newsmodule benefits from my expanded features and can have his place beside the OFA giant ...

[CodeALot]

In German we say to OFA
"Eierlegendewollmich sau"
So an animal which satisfies all needs

It most certainly does. I never use the News-module anymore. All of my websites run on several instances of OFA. That module actually saved WebsiteBaker for me. (And the extremely well-coded modules from Ruud of course

[crnogorac081]

Hi Vlob,

You can post your current progress for news module here on forum, maybe someone continues to work on that..

[Vlob]

I will,
This week will leave me no time for anything ales than the reguler billable work stuff but I will get back here asap

[Zeppo]

Hello Vlob,

I would be very interested on the news module.
I am looking for a function to integrate pictures more easily in news.