Re: [Dave] New Error

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:05:27 -0700

FYI to the Interactive Tools folks. I was hosting a CMS Builder site on Hostmonster and suddenly it stopped working one day, years after installation (ie. no one had done any admin work for a long time).

The error message I was getting was

Warning: require_once(/home2/bridget4/public_html/writetruth/idara/lib/viewer_functions.php) 
[function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in 
/home3/bridget4/public_html/writetruth/index.php on line 2

Fatal error: require_once() [function.require]: Failed opening required 
'/home2/bridget4/public_html/writetruth/idara/lib/viewer_functions.php' 
(include_path='.:/usr/lib64/php:/usr/lib/php') in /home3/bridget4/public_html/writetruth/index.php
 on line 2

On looking at the paths in directories, I realized that Hostmonster had changed the name of '/home2/bridget4/' to '/home3/bridget4/".

Once I went through all my viewers and changed the second line from home2 to home3, it all just started working again.

Choosing which article template is used for an article posted in multiple categories

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:26:16 -0800

What factors determine which article template AM2 chooses for an article posted in multiple categories?

I thought that AM2 used the template for the *first* category selected when multiple categories were selected.

One site I maintain appears to be defying that assumption! :-)

There are different publishing rules for different categories of the website but none are citing the same category (ie. an overlap).

What factors may cause this to happen?

Re: [Dave] Notice: Announce your new Article Manager websites here!

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:42:29 -0800

You can actually do those things you asked about in CMS Builder. But you are one of the top AM2 pros in the community and switching will be hard. It's like me switching from a programming language I know to one I don't. I have to go from 100 miles an hour down to 5 for a while.

Haha! Yeah, for sure the change is a big part of it. I've only done one or maybe two sites in CMS Builder, as opposed to Article Manager which I've done probably 15+ or so at this stage. I definitely need to play with CMS Builder, and not during a client project, you're absolutely right.

Thanks for the info. I look forwards to reading the FAQ later. Yes, AM2 with all of its "open up the heart of the software" did make it more complicated at some levels even if more customizable. I can totally see how that might have driven a few people away even if the AM nerds liked it. :-)

Thanks Dave!

Nigel

Re: [Dave] Notice: Announce your new Article Manager websites here!

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 10:08:58 -0800

I'm not sure people are going to want to post portfolio pieces in a forum that begins with the phrased "Discontinued Products".

It seems that was no effort made by Interactive Tools to inform developers who've been using/promoting this software since the early 2000s that their CMS of choice was about to become abandonware.

I found out when coming to the site to see what AM2 was retailing for these days. And to find out that only previous customers were able to buy AM2 makes it clear that no further updates are planned for the product beyond the current version.

It also seems clear that CMS builder has less functionality than Article Manager in key areas one would expect from a CMS.

For example, let's say on a homepage there were 5 headlines from a category in an HTML box. After a couple of updates, which involved longer headlines than normal, the user may wish to reduce the number of headlines to 4, in order that the HTML box doesn't leave white space on the other side of the page.

Can this be done by changing a simple value somewhere in the backend? It doesn't seem like it. It seems as if the code on the page would have to be changed. This is not a user-friendly, non-technical content management feature. If a client can't change the number of headlines without messing with page code, then we're back on dependence on the designer.

The Template add-ons that come with CMS Builder are only industry based. Realty, Auto and Listings? What about News sites? What about Visual Portfolio sites?

Why are basic functions such as backup and low disk space alert sold as Add-ons?

I am not sure why Article Manager was abandoned. Drupal is a clunky CMS that has all kinds of weird bugs that make article management frustrating. Wordpress is slick but configuring categories to do different things is not easy. There is still a niche that remains unfilled.

Article Manager just needed a few more key features to get it to the level where it had no competition. Specifically:

1. Offering alternative field types in the MyPlaceholders section of Admin (so instead of pasting text/HTML, one could upload a file that appears where the placeholder is put).

2. Having slightly clearer/centralized/indexed help available to navigate some of the harder-to-grasp issues like placeholder conflicts in the Publishing section.

3. Having at least one set of sample templates configured to work with common multimedia 3rd party plugins such as Slideshow Pro, Lightbox, the JW Player to make setup of sites even faster. Having a Google News XML sitemap pre-configured.

4. Building backup-to-hard-drive features into the admin interface so developers are less at the mercy of bad hosts, of which there are no shortage.

Compared to Article Manager, CMS Builder seems to be aimed at making it easy for a client to update a very basic website, but this trade-off doesn't allow for as much configuration at the developer end and appears to leave the client dependent on the developer for simple issues such as changing the number of headlines in a list.

Don't get me wrong. There are many worthwhile things about CMS Builder. It seems clear however, that it does not have and does not appear to be heading towards the customization depth of Article Manager 2, which your company developed for an entire decade! :-)

Unwanted image rotation when adding portrait-oriented images via Image Gallery

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 17:52:03 -0700

I am using AM2's Image Gallery feature to feed a Flash slideshow and a printable page (which embeds the same images one after another on a clean template).

For some reason, images in Portrait orientation (longer height than width) are being turned 90 degrees to the left by AM2. Landscape loads just fine.

Perl image module(s) detected on the server are:
GD v2.44
ImageMagick v6.2.4

Any ideas why? Is this something AM is doing? My world is turned around! :-)

Re: [ross] How does one generate a list of subcategories in a category?

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:26:17 -0700

When you say it isn't working, what is happening instead of what you actually want to be happening?

Nothing is appearing on the page. There is one parent category and there is one child category. I tried both default category menu templates (ie. including the alternate one) to publish a file with nothing there.

Attachment below includes the settings for the publishing rule that generates the page. The result, which does not list the child category, can be seen here: http://mizna.org/engine/test/yes.shtml

Re: [Donna] How does one generate a list of subcategories in a category?

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:07:09 -0700

Hey Donna,

This totally isn't working. Pretty much what I want to do is publish a page that lists subcategories of the category with the following info:

Subcategory name
Subcategory image
Blurb
Links to subcategory index page

Another way of putting it is that I'm trying to publish a set of subcategories so it visually looks like an article list with summaries and summary images. Then people click on those and go to the category. Don't think I've tried this before. :-)

Here's the code I used in the template:


$category.name$

$category.image$ 

alt="$category.name$" border=1 align=left hspace=10 vspace=7 
style="border-color:#000000;"/>
$category.blurb$   
MORE >>

and attached is a PDF of the rule that is publishing the categories (subcategory-pub-rule.pdf), the category Admin interface (category-page.pdf), and a sample subcategory (subcategory-page.pdf). On the page, the test category is not showing up.

This has got to be simple. :-)

Re: [Donna] How does one generate a list of subcategories in a category?

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:11:54 -0700

Yes, this makes total sense.

One section of this site I am working on reproduces a journal. I have a main Journal category and each journal is going to be a subcategory, so there's an easy way of just listing stuff from a single issue.

So the journal's index page needs to list all the subcategories (along with a cat image of the cover and a cat field with blurb) but not list the articles inside it. So people come to the Journal section, and see a list of the various issues that are online but not the articles in them until they click on a specific journal.

This current site has really stretched me. I managed to integrate Slideshow Pro into the AM2 system, using AM2's image gallery feature. The article page publishes an embedded flash thing with a FlashVars link to a second instance of the article page that uses the image gallery to publish an XML file. On the printable page version, the images appear listed on the page so that works as well. But all fun stuff!

How does one generate a list of subcategories in a category?

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:38:53 -0700

How does one generate a list of subcategories in a category?

I know the answer to this is going to be easy, as one of the menu templates probably does that, and can therefore be modified. :-)

Re: [Donna] Using Category Number to trigger a templateIf

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 11:44:41 -0700

There were no category field names harmed in this implementation of Article Manager. :-)

I see what's happening now. This templateIf is happening in the Article List cells so the value is not changing depending whether the article is appearing on a parent or subcategory. The result is that the same thing happens on both pages.

What I'm trying to do is have the subcategory name (to the right of the date) appear on the Parent page: http://imeu.net/news/palestine-photos.shtml

But not on any of the subcategory index pages, eg. http://imeu.net/news/photos-politics.shtml

As I'm doing this within the article list cells, all references to parent category/category number are the same value no matter what index page the article is appearing on, the parent or the subcategory.

So, what I need is some way that the article cell knows it's appearing on the parent index page listing and not on its own index page (where of course you don't want the subcategory name to be appearing by every single article).

I could do it with two templates, but I'm trying to minimize template splitting these days. Any ideas? :-)

Re: [Donna] Using Category Number to trigger a templateIf

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 10:51:00 -0700

That's what I did, and the placeholder list had $categorynums$ listed, not even $categorynum$...!

Thanks for this, I gave it a shot but with no joy.

was what I used, but it didn't work. :-(

Using Category Number to trigger a templateIf

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 16:58:11 -0700

On one site, I have a Parent Category and several Subcategories, all published from the same Publishing Rule, using the "publish multiple index files including subcategories" option, using the same articleLists template.

I am trying to get Subcategory names to show ONLY on the Parent Category Index page, not on the Subcategory Index pages where they are redundant.

The Parent Category Number is 12 yet neither of these options listed below works. Have I got the Placeholder, $categorynums$, wrong? That was the Placeholder that turned up producing the number 12 when I added the "Show All Placeholders" command to the template:

Insert Content Here

Insert Content Here

Saint Paul Almanac

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:20:34 -0700

The Saint Paul Almanac is the only guidebook to Minnesota's capital city, St. Paul, as well as an experiment in democratic publishinga literary campfire around which the diverse Saint Paul community gathers to share our stories. Read local residents' reviews of our ma-and-pa restaurants and our corner bars. Grab a copy of the Almanac and come with us to explore St. Paul's festivals, parades, and exhibits. Celebrate our small-town manners and our big-city ways. Sample our poetry, fiction, trivia and recipes! St. Paul is as much a state of mind as a place. Come on in!

http://saintpaulalmanac.com/

[unknown placeholder $published.relatedLinks$]

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 13:26:07 -0700

I was trying to get a list of "More from this Section" links under an article text and got the following error message:

[unknown placeholder $published.relatedLinks$]

Shouldn't $published.relatedLinks$ result in the list of links from that section being included in the page?

This worked though:

Re: [Donna] Something weird happening with break tags appearing before images without there being any in templates

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:50:15 -0700

No, that's the totally weird thing, this is a text only, but auto format, input field. WYSIWYG has been disabled and everything pasted into it is ASCII.

That's why I'm looking at the templates and, not finding it there, am totally confused, because it's not just weird WYSIWYG code and doesn't seem to be coming from the templates.

I'll file a support request. Thanks for your reply! :-)

Nigel

Something weird happening with break tags appearing before images without there being any in templates

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 10:27:34 -0700

I'm having an issue that a
is only appearing if I leave one line break (not one, in which case it's fine) after the end of a paragraph and before the image tag, eg. if this is the end of the paragraph and the image tag is put here...
***image1***

...it would cause a BR CLEAR=ALL to appear above the image tag, thus making the whole wrapping fail on the next paragraph.

So this is happening entirely depending on whether I add a line break. If I do it like this, it doesn't happen, eg. if this is the end of the paragraph...***image1***

...this is fine.

There are zero BR CLEAR=ALL tags in either the article or the embedded media templates, plus, it's only appearing if there is one line break before the image, not if it's happening on the same line. It's consistently happening.

I am not talking about the wrap text option in uploaded images. This is not originating from that. The wrap option adds a
note, not a BR CLEAR=ALL and it adds it after the added image, where it should be happening.

Is there somewhere else that I can track the source of this down? I don't understand how a BR CLEAR=ALL could just be appearing depending on whether an image is on the same line or the one under it. The CMS should be just inserting one regular line break tag, ie.
or
per carriage return/line break.

It should (and has been) possible to put as many line breaks as you want between images. This is only happening in this installation of AM2. Is there a config file somewhere telling it to add the BR CLEAR=ALL under certain conditions?

Thanks!

Nigel

Re: [Donna] Existing filename error message

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:25:41 -0700

Now I'm scared to delete it! :-)

Even if I backed it up, I'd probably only find if there was a problem after a few weeks of new additions. :-)

So why can't I just hide the field from the Article Editor? Is it hard coded as a necessary user field somewhere? Being able to edit and resave existing articles seems to break at that point.

Nigel

Re: [ross] Existing filename error message

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:35:29 -0700

What's doing it is the hidden checkbox in the Filename field of the Article table.

Can I delete that field safely? I'm using article numbers as naming conventions. Or does the program somehow use it nonetheless?

Existing filename error message

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 11:48:19 -0700

I want the program to take care of naming files, and nothing to appear in the user's Article Editor. Here's the error message:

Please select another filename, an existing file has the same name that this article will be published as.
Existing file: /home/public_html/directory-name/00111.shtml

All that happened was that I went in to edit an existing article. The settings for the filename field are as follows.

All of these are checked:
Hidden - don't automatically display field (for hardcoded or internal fields)
Not Editable - field value can't be changed by user (only by program)
System Field - program field with restricted field editor access

Beyond that, it says that All Content Is Valid and filename is a text field.

So why the error message? Basically I can't modify anything.

The naming convention set in Publishing Rules is "00" "" so I'm not actually using the filename field but rather publishing articles according to artNum values.

Can I just delete the filename field?

Actually I think it's the article number field that's causing the problem. Same deal, all are checked.

Are there other reasons for this error? I've tried doing it a few different ways but it only happens when I try to hide the redundant "filename" field from the user's view in the Article Editor.

Re: [Donna] Possible to have articles auto publish at a future date?

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 12:34:34 -0800

:-)

How about with templateIfs that only publish an article/article reference if its publish date is prior to today's date?

Presumably that would only work if templateIfs can do greater thans, and dates were stored as YYYYMMDD or YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.

Technically that's not the same as autopublishing because you'd have to login and do a republish all to activate it, but is what I am describing even possible?

Thanks Donna!

Possible to have articles auto publish at a future date?

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 08:37:07 -0800

Is it possible to have articles auto publish at a future date in Article Manager 2?

Re: [Dave] Printable pages?

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 14:06:40 -0800

That's super easy, thanks so much Dave!

Here's the site by the way, it's 100% on CMS Builder.
http://victorkattan.com

Features? The right column that is visible on pages apart from the homepage is a section editor to allow for the client to update it.

Love that blockquote style!

Nigel

Printable pages?

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 14:01:42 -0800

I searched the CMS Builder documentation and forum for "printable pages" but didn't find anything.

Obviously this is probably easy, but I'm not the PHP guy. :-)

Can this be done in CMS Builder?

Thanks,

Nigel

Re: [Dave] How to adjust Tiny MCE's "Large" and "Small" image resize defaults

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:36:55 -0800

Dave, isn't that just for the images that CMS Builder itself uploads?

I mean the Image upload function in the WYSIWYG.

The CMS Builder uploader is different right? It's Tiny MCE?

How to adjust Tiny MCE's "Large" and "Small" image resize defaults

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:27:47 -0800

CMS Builder has a WYSIWYG interface called Tiny MCE. It can upload images.

How does one adjust Tiny MCE's "Large" and "Small" image-resize defaults that appear under images in the Image Gallery, after you have uploaded an image via the WYSIWYG editor?

I want to be able to constrict "Large" images to the content table width of 500 pixels so nothing in the design gets pushed out.

Also, so the client doesn't have to do any in-house resizing but can upload something large and have it resized to 500 pixels wide.

I also want to have Tiny MCE create a 300 pixel wide image for the "Small" option, to generate images that can be nested in text.

Thanks in advance! :-)

Nigel