Widget Tag
++TOPNEWS++
What It Does
The ++TOPNEWS++ widget displays links to the site's top news articles on main section pages and subsection index pages. These links are the most recent articles from the section you designate as the top news section.
The articles listed in the ++TOPNEWS++ widget are the same as those listed in the ++HOMEPAGENEWS++ widget, but the links may have a different display format depending on your site's widget settings.
The ++TOPNEWS++ and ++HOMEPAGENEWS++ widgets allow you to separate and highlight content you consider "news" from the regular flow and display of other articles. Many sites make a distinction between their "normal" articles and their "news" articles. For example, newspaper sites often separate late-breaking wire stories from their daily feature articles. Marketing sites often separate their latest company news from the product and services pages that make up the bulk of their sites.
Why make the distinction? For two primary reasons:
- Publication schedule. News articles are often published more frequently than other articles on the site. If news articles were displayed in the same pool with "normal" articles, then news articles would frequently push those other articles off the homepage or main section pages. By separating news from the other articles on your site, news articles can be updated frequently while leaving the rest of the site's articles in place.
- It's just a different kind of content. Particularly for marketing sites, company or organization news is not the main reason that visitors come to your site. People want to know about your products and services first. Separating your company or organization news allows you to display it apart from that primary content, perhaps in a lower-priority section of your page (at the right or bottom of the page, for example).
You use the widget editor to tell Big Medium what you consider news by selecting a single subsection of your site and designating that subsection the "top news section." This section might be a "corporate news" or "press releases" subsection of a company's "About Us" section; a section of the site dedicated to linking to interesting articles across the web; or a section of the site that displays breaking news about your industry or area of interest.
See "Customizing This Widget" below for information on selecting your top news section.
Separating news from other articles
To prevent these news articles from being displayed with other articles on the homepage or main section pages, go to the news section's settings page in the section editor and adjust the section's visibility settings. Check the "Don't show section's articles on homepage" and/or "Don't show section's articles on main section page" option. These options will prevent the section's articles from appearing on the homepage and main pages with "normal" articles, limiting their display only to the ++TOPNEWS++ and ++HOMEPAGENEWS++ widgets. For more information, see the section settings help page.
The Markup Results
The ++TOPNEWS++ markup takes one of two forms, depending on the following "Layout and design method" and "Page header" settings in your site's widget settings.
- Strict HTML or XHTML, or the CSS layout option is selected. The
++TOPNEWS++widget is generated as a series of block elements. Each link is in its own<div>tag. - Non-strict HTML or XHTML. With non-strict markup, the
++TOPNEWS++widget is an inline element that is not enclosed by an HTML tag. Each link is separated by two<br>tags.
In both types of layout, if you have thumbnail images enabled for the type of link format used by the ++TOPNEWS++ widget (long-format or short-format, depending on your widget settings), you may encounter an alignment problem for html that follows the ++TOPNEWS++ widget.
The alignment problem occurs when the text of the last link in the list is not long enough to "clear" a right-aligned or left-aligned thumbnail image. As a result, any html following the widget will try to flow around the thumbnail image, creating an effect you may not want. To address this, it is recommended that you follow the ++TOPNEWS++ widget with a <div> block like so:
++TOPNEWS++
<div style="clear:both"> </div>
Templates Using This Widget
You may use this widget in page template except the homepage template (use the ++HOMEPAGENEWS++ widget on the homepage).
Customizing This Widget
Users with webmaster or administrator accounts can 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 ++TOPNEWS++ widget:
- Top News: Number of news articles. This setting is located in the "Article Counts" section of the site's widget settings and determines the number of article links that appear in both the
++TOPNEWS++and++HOMEPAGENEWS++widgets. - Top news links (HOMENEWS, TOPNEWS): Use long-format links on homepage. Checking this option in the "Link Formats" section tells Big Medium to use long-format links in the
++TOPNEWS++widget. Otherwise, short-format links (just the linked headline) are used. - Long-format links If you use long-format links for the
++TOPNEWS++widget, adjusting the order and content of long-format links in the "Link Formats" section will adjust the appearance of each article link in the++TOPNEWS++widget. See below for instructions on changing the order and content of long-format links. - Subsection containing top news articles This setting in the "News and Tips" panel indicates the section from which Big Medium should draw news articles. If your news section does not include subsections, select the top-level section that is your news section.
- Display edit icon/link alongside links to articles. This setting in the "One-Click Editing" panel of the widget settings adds the one-click editing link to all widgets that display links to articles, including
++TOPNEWS++. The format of the link (icon, brief text, or both icon and brief text) can also be set in the "One-Click Editing" panel.
Changing the Order and Style of Long-Format Links
Users with webmaster or administrator settings may customize the appearance of long-format links in the "Link Format" section of the site's widget settings.
Long-format links are built from the elements indicated in the selection of pulldown menus listed under "Long-format links." The first pulldown menu shows the first element of a long-format link, the second pulldown menu shows the second element, and so on. You may choose any of these elements and put them in any order by changing the selections in the pulldown menus.
There are three types of selections available in these pulldown menus:
- Content. The types of content available to include in a long-format link are: headline/link, article description, publish date, byline and section.
- Separators. Separators are elements included to create space or other dividers between the content elements in a long-format link. They include: spaces, colons, periods and line breaks.
- Blanks. The first line of each pulldown menu is blank. Selecting a blank pulldown does not include anything in the link.
You can include thumbnail images as part of long-format links by selecting the "Include thumbnail image with long-format links" option and selecting the left, right or center alignment from the "Alignment of thumbnail image" setting. The height and width attributes of thumbnail images may be set in the "Image Sizes" panel of the site's widget settings.
The date format used in long-format links is selected in the "Date Formats" section of the widget settings.
Styles
The article links in the ++TOPNEWS++ widget are displayed in the "Headline Links" style. If the widget uses the long-format link presentation, the article description is presented in the "Default Body Text" style, the date is presented in the "Promo Dates" style, the byline is presented in the "Promo Bylines" style, and the section is presented in the "Section Links" style.
Need more help?
For further assistance and documentation, visit the website of Global Moxie, the developer behind Big Medium.