Add-On Releases - DnP AJAX Custom News Link - Offer the best news to your forum visitors

What was the last time you were so excited to write an awesome topic for your forum then hopelessly watched it faded away and nobody cares? How about having some great threads, unique information that's only available on your forum, and you want all visitors instantly pay attention to them ? Think you would make announcements everywhere about those topics, then expect someone to click on the links? Maybe that isn't so good and professional at all. Even worse, you have to bump your own thread to get others attention. DnP Custom News may have a solution for you.

What does this little MOD do ?

As the matter of fact, topics in forum are displayed by some formatted orders. Either it is arranged by newest first, oldest first, or last replies, etc...at some point these topics will not be visible in the view of members anymore. Especially, for new visitors to your forum since they have no clue whether yours is a good forum or just a random half-dead community with nothing interesting. How could you show them how great your forum is, what information it has and what kind of fun can be found there? What you need is a manual list that looks automatic, absolutely informative and interactive, totally content-rich to the guests and even search engines. DnP Custom News Link allows you to place your best topics and urls into an article block that appears on your forum home index and makes it looks like a section of online newspaper homepage. This way, it is almost guaranteed you will freshen up your forum look and feel, attract more members to articles or threads that give best of your forum! Even better, DnP Custom News Link supports AJAX for instant page change without refreshing the whole forum index page.

Screenshots of different configurations

Demo

Right on the forum homepage of DnP Network?

Feature Summary

+ Multipaging support.
+ Lightweight AJAX / SEO Friendly pages and links.
+ Three types of news : Image, Video, Article.
+ Option to track views.
+ Consume single query for fastest load.
+ Topic Thumbnail.
+ Topic Description. BBcode supported.
+ All settings and News manager under AdminCP.
+ Links are SEO.
+ Different style is not yet implemented in this version.
+ Able to act as a vB Advanced CMPS Module

Installation for normal forum without vB Advanced CMPS :

1. Upload all files and folders from the package to your forum_root folder, except product-dnp-custom-news-install.xml.
2. Use Product Manager to install product-dnp-custom-news-install.xml
3. Open your FORUMHOME template (or any templates that are used together for forum home index) , then place

PHP Code:

$dnp_news_output 


to anywhere you would want DnP Custom News block to appear.



Installation for vB Advanced CMPS :

Example of how DnP News block blends in along with other columns on a vBA CMPS page

1. Upload all files and folders from the package to your forum_root , then upload dnp_news.php one more time into forum_root/modules folder, except product-dnp-custom-news-install.xml.
2. Use Product Manager to install product-dnp-custom-news-install.xml
3. Go to Style Manager ? Add New Template of your currently in-use style. Input
   
   Title : dnp_vba_news_output
   Template content : $dnp_news_output
   
   
4. Go to vBa CMPS ? Add Module ? PHP File Module. Input the following information :
   
   Module Title : DnP vBa CMPS Custom News Link
   Active : Yes
   File to Include : dnp_news.php
   Module Parent : None
   Templates Used : dnp_vba_news_output
   Use Module Wrapper Template : No
   Leave everything else by default.
5. Save and load module to your CMPS page. Go to Plugin Manager and disable DnP Custom News : global_start

Management :
Now you can go to AdminCP to post some news link or configure the Dnp Custom News block

Enjoy and have fun, if you like this little MOD give it a mark and rating.
Feedbacks are very welcome in order to improve the MOD functions and features.

[Original Source : http://www.silveryhat.com/delynie/f139/dnp-ajax-custom-news-link-modification-7086.html]

Update :
Upload all files and folders in the package to your forum_root folder (or forum_root/modules if used vBa CMPS). Use Product Manager to install product-dnp-custom-news-install.xml to upgrade your current version.

History Log :
v1.3

1. Fix a minor bug
2. Add support for vB Advanced CMPS

v1.2

1. Cache Template fix. Performance optimized
2. Add List Order (Newest first, Oldest first, Views, Random).

v1.1

1. Improve AJAX Compability.
2. Add Collapsible feature.
3. New option to hide description and thumbnail for small news.

v1.0

1. Initial Release.

[ProFifaLeagues]

Nice easy install and working well!

[silveryhat]

Thanks everyone for the positive feedback.

Regards some of the questions you guys have :

Originally Posted by DefenceTalk

vBSEO compatible or does the mod have its own?

AJAX links to switch page are SEO friendly.

Originally Posted by derandechser

Very good!!
Would it be possible to decide which Link is a "Big News" Link?
Anyway, very cool!
Greets,
Peter

Big News block contains the latest links, you can only set more than 1 link for big news but not define a specific one to be in it, for the current version.

Originally Posted by Sador

This looks... kinda awesome. But I get the feeling it would make the top of your forum very busy, with less room to notice the forums itself. Is it possible to somehow choose how big this box is, so it takes less room?

Also, how easy or hard is it to add links and images the way you did? Is inline editing perhaps going to be added later on?

Thanks in advance, it looks like a really nice mod.

You can customize how many links to show per page, how many big news, how many per row,etc... , all can be done via AdminCP

[concepts]

I do not like the MOST current setup.. I do like the layout of the other latest news blocks.. I would just like those two only to be displayed without the most current block, so the text is not centered, only justified.

[Cedric_FP]

This looks great. I plan to use it immediately.

A possible addition would be to add tabbed features that can act as categories for the news.

Example:

Tab 1 (Sports) | Tab 2 (Lifestyle) | Tab 3 (Career)

And clicking each tab brings up different "featured" manually chosen threads.

EDIT: Also, where can I find the templates so that I might edit the look of the block? All I can see is dnp_news.

EDIT #2: Or do I need to edit the php file for customization?

EDIT #3: Specifically, I want to have 3 "BIG NEWS" aligned horizontally rather than vertically, and then have the small news come under the big news.

EDIT #3: Also better if we can define which big news are showed - sort of like a "Featured" section.

Also - a bug - the ajax page control doesn't seem to be loading properly. It loads the entire dnp_news.php file for me which means that the forums disappear.

[silveryhat]

Originally Posted by concepts

I do not like the MOST current setup.. I do like the layout of the other latest news blocks.. I would just like those two only to be displayed without the most current block, so the text is not centered, only justified.

I'm not sure I got the picture of what you mean, do you have a screenshot or drawing of how it should look like in your opinion?

Originally Posted by Cedric_FP

This looks great. I plan to use it immediately.

A possible addition would be to add tabbed features that can act as categories for the news.

Example:

Tab 1 (Sports) | Tab 2 (Lifestyle) | Tab 3 (Career)

And clicking each tab brings up different "featured" manually chosen threads.

EDIT: Also, where can I find the templates so that I might edit the look of the block? All I can see is dnp_news.

EDIT #2: Or do I need to edit the php file for customization?

EDIT #3: Specifically, I want to have 3 "BIG NEWS" aligned horizontally rather than vertically, and then have the small news come under the big news.

EDIT #3: Also better if we can define which big news are showed - sort of like a "Featured" section.


Also - a bug - the ajax page control doesn't seem to be loading properly. It loads the entire dnp_news.php file for me which means that the forums disappear.

Yes I have thought of category when I first code it, but it comes to be too unecessary so I dropped it. The reason is, if there is category for news link, members will be confused where they can actually find the topic and also, it brings more work to the admin if he has to create all the categories in this MOD corresponding to those current ones on the forum.
dnp_news is the cached main template, child templates are built-in until later, when I can add more style and layout for the MOD like your good idea in #3.

# 3 If we are to decide which link to be in the big news, we have to define different big news for every page the news block spans, and I don't think everyone would like to do that.

About the bug of ajax loading, verify all files have been uploaded and your server is ajax compatible because the ajax engine is pulled from DnP Instant! Musicbox and it's known bug-free.

[animcentral]

Originally Posted by silveryhat

Any comment or suggestion would be welcome

here: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=223427

[silveryhat]

Originally Posted by animcentral

here: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=223427

I totally see your point there

[Cedric_FP]

Originally Posted by silveryhat

I'm not sure I got the picture of what you mean, do you have a screenshot or drawing of how it should look like in your opinion?



Yes I have thought of category when I first code it, but it comes to be too unecessary so I dropped it. The reason is, if there is category for news link, members will be confused where they can actually find the topic and also, it brings more work to the admin if he has to create all the categories in this MOD corresponding to those current ones on the forum.
dnp_news is the cached main template, child templates are built-in until later, when I can add more style and layout for the MOD like your good idea in #3.

Yes I understand that it would create a lot more work for the admin of the forum, not to mention yourself.

# 3 If we are to decide which link to be in the big news, we have to define different big news for every page the news block spans, and I don't think everyone would like to do that.

Couldn't there only be big news on page 1, and the other pages just have small news?

Apologies if that is a stupid question - I actually know very little about coding AJAX and how the plugin works in general. Though it is running very well over at my site and I have managed to configure it to nearly the way I want it by editing the php file.

About the bug of ajax loading, verify all files have been uploaded and your server is ajax compatible because the ajax engine is pulled from DnP Instant! Musicbox and it's known bug-free.

I see. I'll verify and try again - server definitely supports AJAX so it must be that I'm missing a file. Will let you know Thanks for the help.

[bada_bing]

How can I get this block to show up on vbportal rather then vbulliten home

[emath]

suggestion and a request :

1. it would be very helpful if instead of inputing name thread and url and everything, just to define one or two forums which the "DnP AJAX Custom News Link" system will take the first new threads from there !

2. i have a request, how do i make it capable with VBADVANCED ? i tried to put the "$dnp_news_output" code in the "adv_portal" template, though, nothing happends, why is that ?

regards,
imiviortal.