Widget Tag

++SPOTLIGHTIMAGE++

What It Does

On the homepage and main section pages, the ++SPOTLIGHTIMAGE++ widget displays the spotlight image of the featured "spotlight" article for the entire site (in the case of the homepage) or for the section (in the case of main section pages). The spotlight article is the featured article for the site or section, the content that you want to highlight most on the page. The image links to the article page of the spotlight article. See the ++SPOTLIGHT++ entry for details on how Big Medium selects the spotlight article.

On article pages, the ++SPOTLIGHTIMAGE++ widget displays the article's spotlight image. Unlike on the homepage and main section pages, the ++SPOTLIGHTIMAGE++ does not link to another page when displayed on article pages.

The Markup Results

The ++SPOTLIGHTIMAGE++ widget is an inline element that is not contained by any HTML block tags. It is an <img> tag enclosed in an <a> tag.

On the homepage and main-section pages, the alignment attribute of the image is determined by the "Alignment of spotlight image" setting in the "Link Formats" panel of the site's widget settings (on article pages, the image is unaligned). The height and width attributes are established in the "Image Sizes" panel of the site's widget settings.

Templates Using This Widget

You can use the ++SPOTLIGHTIMAGE++ widget in the homepage template, main section templates and article templates. (Use the ++INDEX++ widget to display links on subsection index pages, which do not have spotlight articles).

Customizing This Widget

Users with webmaster or administrator accounts may customize this widget in the site's widget editor. To get there, click the "Widget Settings" link in the left-column menu of the Big Medium control panel. The following settings affect the ++SPOTLIGHTIMAGE++ widget:

• Require spotlight image to display spotlight article. This setting is located in the "Link Formats" section of the site's widget settings. If you select this option, an article will be displayed as a spotlight on the homepage or main section page only if it has a spotlight image loaded from its article edit page.
• Alignment of spotlight image. This setting is located in the "Link Formats" section of the site's widget settings and determines whether the spotlight image appears above the link text, to the left, or to the right. Note that this applies only to homepage and main-section pages; on article pages, the spotlight image is not aligned.
• Spotlight image. These settings in the "Image Size" panel of the site's widget settings allow you to specify the height, width and maximum file size of all spotlight images on your site.

You can prevent a main section from generating spotlight articles on its main section page by selecting the "Don't generate a spotlight article for this section" option in the section's Section Editor settings. You can also prevent an individual article from appearing in the spotlight article slot by going to the display preferences on the article's edit page and selecting the "Don't build link to article in homepage spotlight" or "Don't build link to article in main section spotlight" settings.

For information about preventing news articles from appearing in the ++SPOTLIGHTIMAGE++ widget, see the ++HOMEPAGENEWS++ and ++TOPNEWS++ entries.

Styles

No styles are used in the ++SPOTLIGHTIMAGE++ widget.

Need more help?

For further assistance and documentation, visit the website of Global Moxie, the developer behind Big Medium.