AMS

[Robert9]

How much i love it!
I have thought about many hours how to create my news addon for xf1; now i use your articles for xf2 and i found a lot of my ideas and functions again.

Some more i will write down after knowing the addon better.

For now i really would like where i can set the name of the first page?
It looks like i have done this somewhere, but i cant change it now. I can change only the name of page two.

Is a hint for me, please?

Is it possible that you use the phrase overview here as title for the first page at the TOC?
Please this is really important to have a title for every page. Probably you have done this, and i just dont fiond it. So i go and search ...

<a class="blockLink {{ (!$articlePage && !$isFullView) ? 'is-selected' : '' }}" href="{{ link('ams', $article) }}">{{ phrase('overview') }}</a>

Ok, there is no name for the first page; this is a very, very important feature.
Imagine you want to have

1. Lala
2. lala
3. Lala

or

Page 1
Page 2
Page 3


or

The beginning
The journey
The result


To use this wonderful feature, it is needed to set up this also for the first page, please.


--- edit ---

to make things perfect it seems to me that there is another thing needed:

Because you show the pages two times (pulldown and sidebar);
you can:

1. Shot the text in the pulldown
2. Have two fields (really short for pulldown), longer for sidebar
3. Have page 1,2,3 for pulldown and title for sidebar.


Have i said that i really love it?

 

[Robert9]

And one more question, please.
To make nice articles you use headlines for example. The snippet just dont care about any bbocde or new line; is there any option to change the beaviour for that or set up that a bold and a newline should be used?

 

[Robert9]

More feedback:

1. The edit should be always in the overview also (i will try to add it with the template);



2. I can set a cover image. How can i unset this image?



3. Then i dont understand the field

Description
Optional: Provide a very brief description of your article

Where can i see this text? In the templates i can find meta_desc and cat_desc, but not articles_desc? So there should be something like if article.desc then show, lese show snippet, right?


4. To get rid of the image in the preview, i need to use a one pixel blank image?
There should be an option not to use it, it think.

5. In my language we never break a line in the middle of a word. Probably this is solvable by css, i guess.

6. At the beginning of many sites, there are not really much articles, so neither categories needed. Can i get rid of them at all? I have not tried now. But it would be nice to have a trigger: "dont show cats".


7. As written above the title for page one is also needed, either in table pages or in the main table. As an alternative, but dirty it can be added to the normal title by ||Short_title.
Maybe better than add another field while we dont use this so often.

This is my title||Short for page 1 => explode ...

or as a custom field? Depends it the value is everyhwere to show, especially in the TOC.


8. In many addons the custom fields are not fetched for the lists, only for the article itself (resource, thread); with a custom text field an bbcode i could substitute the snippet, but probably the customs are not fetched here? Then it would be anyway better to have a description field in the article table with bbcode to have the choice what we do.

9. To add a custom field with "self placement" means there is no field in the form, so i have to manually add it also for input?

10. When i walk trough the pages here:
Articles
The page is reloaded and i am at the top; this is not very nice; maybe ajax should load content or cheap solution an anchor? #news

11. Unfortunately i miss the upload of an icon like in RM or Articles TH; because this means that the picture i use in the list is always shown also at the article or the gallery.

I know this is more work, but the icon should be optional always there, also just "nothing".
A layout with a break is nothing wrong.


After using it one hour i still love many features, but there are some problems. The most important to me:

1. TOC needs also a title for the first page
2. Preview in list needs at least newline and bold as a feature.
3. if i dont want a picture in article view (or others), there should be no picture (option to choose none, template if, then
4. the cats should be optional, without many articles, it steals only space.
5. I dont see how to use the optional description field

 

[Bob]

If you have suggestions, please post them individually in the AMS suggestions forum. Each suggestion is considered individually and tracked individually (this is the same policy that XenForo itself has).

I would also prefer that if you have questions, that you please also ask them in individual threads. Obviously, you can group multiple questions about a single feature together (like a thread asking about AMS Pages for example), just not several different questions about several different features in a single question thread.

Also, I appreciate any feedback (positive or negative), however, that does not mean that something will change. If something is designed a specific way, its probably going to stay that way (at least in the MAJOR version (the 1st point version of the addon).

Thank you.

 

[Bob]

How much i love it!
I have thought about many hours how to create my news addon for xf1; now i use your articles for xf2 and i found a lot of my ideas and functions again.

Some more i will write down after knowing the addon better.

For now i really would like where i can set the name of the first page?
It looks like i have done this somewhere, but i cant change it now. I can change only the name of page two.

Is a hint for me, please?

Is it possible that you use the phrase overview here as title for the first page at the TOC?
Please this is really important to have a title for every page. Probably you have done this, and i just dont fiond it. So i go and search ...

<a class="blockLink {{ (!$articlePage && !$isFullView) ? 'is-selected' : '' }}" href="{{ link('ams', $article) }}">{{ phrase('overview') }}</a>

Ok, there is no name for the first page; this is a very, very important feature.
Imagine you want to have

1. Lala
2. lala
3. Lala

or

Page 1
Page 2
Page 3


or

The beginning
The journey
The result


To use this wonderful feature, it is needed to set up this also for the first page, please.


--- edit ---

to make things perfect it seems to me that there is another thing needed:

Because you show the pages two times (pulldown and sidebar);
you can:

1. Shot the text in the pulldown
2. Have two fields (really short for pulldown), longer for sidebar
3. Have page 1,2,3 for pulldown and title for sidebar.


Have i said that i really love it?

There is nothing built in to add a custom title for the first page of an article that has additional pages added to it. You'd have to post a suggestion for it (which I think is a good suggestion, so its something that would have a decent shot at getting implemented at some point).

 

[Bob]

And one more question, please.
To make nice articles you use headlines for example. The snippet just dont care about any bbocde or new line; is there any option to change the beaviour for that or set up that a bold and a newline should be used?

I have no clue what you are even asking about here. Post some DETAILS like what specific PAGE you are talking about (AMS Index, AMS Category page, AMS Article Page, AMS Author Page, AMS Series Index, AMS Series page etc etc etc) or if you are talking about a specific Layout Type (List View layout, Grid View layout, Article view layout) or some other BLOCK or WIDGET. Maybe post some screen shots about what you are talking about.

 

[Bob]

The edit should be always in the overview also (i will try to add it with the template);

It IS. Its below the content as well as in the tools dropdown.

 

[Bob]

2. I can set a cover image. How can i unset this image?

You can't. The system is designed that if there are any image attachments uploaded to the article, then the first one that is uploaded will be set as the cover image, unless there is already an image attachment that has been set as the Cover image. You can also set a different uploaded attachment as the cover image. The Cover Image in AMS is mainly used for display on List View layout and Grid View layout. They are also use to replace the Avatar of the Article Author in other results (like search results and find new). If its the large cover image that you are curious about, you CAN disable the display of the large Cover Image on a per article basis (the option is also located on the Article edit form).



On LIST pages (List View and Grid View layouts), If an Article has a Cover Image, it will use that. If the the article does not have a cover image, it will check to see if the Category has a Category Image and it will use that for the Article Cover Image. If neither of those are available, then it uses the Authors Avatar.

 

[Bob]

3. Then i dont understand the field

Description
Optional: Provide a very brief description of your article

Where can i see this text? In the templates i can find meta_desc and cat_desc, but not articles_desc? So there should be something like if article.desc then show, lese show snippet, right?

In certain areas, if there is a short description added, it will display the short description instead of displaying a snippet of the article text. If its not being displayed in specific places that you'd like it to be displayed (or expect it to be displayed), then post a suggestion.

 

[Bob]

4. To get rid of the image in the preview, i need to use a one pixel blank image?
There should be an option not to use it, it think.

Can you please post an Screen Shot of what you are talking about? I don't know if you are talking about one or all of the 3 layout types on listing pages, the optional display of the Large Cover image above the Article (which can be disabled), or something else.

 

[Bob]

5. In my language we never break a line in the middle of a word. Probably this is solvable by css, i guess.

What is this in reference too? You make a statement and don't include any details.

 

[Bob]

6. At the beginning of many sites, there are not really much articles, so neither categories needed. Can i get rid of them at all? I have not tried now. But it would be nice to have a trigger: "dont show cats".

The addon requires at least 1 category since the base architecture is a hierarchical category system. The only thing you could do would be to edit templates and remove any reference to Categories and you'd probably also want to remove the Category Navigation blocks (from AMS index and AMS Category). The Breadcrumb is going to include the Category tho (only way to remove that would be to modify programming code).

IIRC, there is at least one thread at XF.com that asked how to do this for the XenForo Resource Manager and the solutions provided would be basically the same. Just some template tweaking.

 

[Bob]

7. As written above the title for page one is also needed, either in table pages or in the main table. As an alternative, but dirty it can be added to the normal title by ||Short_title.
Maybe better than add another field while we dont use this so often.

This is my title||Short for page 1 => explode ...

or as a custom field? Depends it the value is everyhwere to show, especially in the TOC.

Already explained this above. When you have time, please post a suggestion for it.

 

[Bob]

8. In many addons the custom fields are not fetched for the lists, only for the article itself (resource, thread); with a custom text field an bbcode i could substitute the snippet, but probably the customs are not fetched here? Then it would be anyway better to have a description field in the article table with bbcode to have the choice what we do.

Article fields data is included with the Article on Listing Pages (AMS Index, AMS Category pages etc), so yes, you can customize the Layout macros to display custom field data.

 

[Bob]

9. To add a custom field with "self placement" means there is no field in the form, so i have to manually add it also for input?

No. Self Placement fields still have INPUTS on the Article Create and Article Edit forms, they just do not have a designated display location that is handled by the system. These are meant for CUSTOMIZATION purposes.

Some use cases for self placement fields are to use within if statements to turn things ON and OFF. Other use cases is to display the content in specific locations that are not included within the addon.

There is another use case, but I won't talk about it right now because the feature that they are used with is not yet implemented.

Self Placement fields is one of the more popular customization features.

 

[Bob]

10. When i walk trough the pages here:
Articles
The page is reloaded and i am at the top; this is not very nice; maybe ajax should load content or cheap solution an anchor? #news

Core XF, XFRM and XFMG all do this as well. Its probably more pronounced if you are using the Featured Articles Grid above the article listing, but if you go here Resources it is also reloaded an at the top, its just that the way the Resource Manager displays Featured Resources is different (shorter) so its not as pronounced.

With that said, feel free to start a suggestion thread asking for a pagination anchor (there might already be one).

 

[Bob]

11. Unfortunately i miss the upload of an icon like in RM or Articles TH; because this means that the picture i use in the list is always shown also at the article or the gallery.

You could edit the macro for the specific layout type so that it displays the Article Authors Avatar. I know a few sites that have done that. Its a simple edit.

As for the cover image displaying on the article itself, that is OPTIONAL. That can be turned on/off on a per article basis.

Not sure what you mean by "or the gallery" as the entire purpose of the gallery is to display any uploaded image attachments (altho, there is an AMS option 'Image gallery location' and one of the option settings is "No gallery". This comes in handy if you are uploading images only for use as embedding into the article.

 

[Bob]

After using it one hour i still love many features, but there are some problems. The most important to me:

1. TOC needs also a title for the first page
2. Preview in list needs at least newline and bold as a feature.
3. if i dont want a picture in article view (or others), there should be no picture (option to choose none, template if, then
4. the cats should be optional, without many articles, it steals only space.
5. I dont see how to use the optional description field

1. Already covered this. Post a suggestion.

2. There are 3 different layout types (List View, Grid View and Article View). There are all different. If you have any suggestions, you need to specific the specific layout type.

3. When you say "article view" are you talking about the LAYOUT TYPE named "Article view" or are you talking about when VIEWING an Article itself? You are being a bit vague.

4. This addon (just like XFRM) is a hierarchical category based architecture. Its required to have at least 1 category. As mentioned above, you could do some light customization via template edits, whoever, there won't be any logic built into the addon to make it a categoryless addon.

5. As mentioned above, if you would like to see the description data replace article snippets in specific locations, feel free to start a suggestion thread and list each specific location.