agoldstraw
User
Aug 27, 2002, 1:08 AM
Post #3 of 6
(3521 views)
Shortcut
|
Hi Pat - thanks for the compliments!
You home page with thumbnails and summaries:
1. Are you using the syndicate.js ?
No - this is a separate static index.html page, with SSI calls into the individual index templates (which as you've guessed are heavily modified to just bare-bones structures). The front page is put together using Dreamweaver and the SSI calls for each section are stored as DW library items, so they can just be dragged on to the front page as needed.
2. Are you uploading separate thumbnails then modified the template to include the thumbnail next to the summary ?
All we do is to produce a separate thumbnail image, then use an ***image*** placeholder in the summary field to call it.
3. How about the article top left with the regular size pic "Museum mistery"
This is a modified template with a direct call to ***image1*** which IT kindly suggested some time ago - can't remember off the top of my head the command - moderators? The only downside is you DO need to make sure that ***image1*** exists, otherwise you get a broken image. The shorter headline for the index as opposed to the main story is done using a custom field call - we call ours "alt headline".
4. How about the "More Stories" on the right of everypage. did you just get rid of the headlines and midified the template to display certain articles with summaries ?
We modified the "cat_headlines" templates and each one is called in with an SSI. We also used the category editor to show only one of each headline.
6. And how about the your top news story wich the headline uses larger fonts "Horror as car crashes into telegraph pole"
This is a separate category. Basically most of our sections have four categories associated with them - Lead, General, Pic and Other. The "General" stories are used as the "base" index, then the lead, picture and others (small stories bottom left) are brought in as includes on this page.
6. How about your lower category menus... are tose hard coded or are you suing $template_calls$
See above.
7. How about your SEARCH, did you just get rid of the advance features ? It says site search, but is only searching AM... right ?
Yes, it does only search AM (we have some static pages but not many), and yes the advanced search link was dropped. It will re-appear again soon pointing to our "Archive search" (thanks to AM's new features!)
Hope I've made that clear - it's a bit early here yet so I'm not at my brightest!
Best wishes,
Aidan
--
Aidan Goldstraw
Head of Internet Development
Express & Star
Wolverhampton, England
http://www.expressandstar.com
|
with tons of questions. Hope you would share a few tips with the board ? 
index.shtml