XF 2.3 Featuring content

While the first few 'Have you seen...?' posts for XenForo 2.3 have focused on mostly aesthetic or performance changes, today we are taking the opportunity to talk about one of the first new major pieces of functionality we've been working on. Every release cycle we like to focus on at least one significant feature related to content discovery and 2.3 is no different with the introduction of what we are calling Featured content.

"But wait, don't we already have featured resources?"

Indeed we do but the ability to feature resources is now joined by threads, media items, and practically any content type you fine developers out there add support for or, naturally, content types we may add ourselves in the future.

Let's take a look at the process of featuring a thread!

The first question I expect some of you will have is "am I able to automatically feature threads?". And the answer is, yes! When editing any forum, under the "Advanced options" for each forum, there is now a new checkbox that enables you to do just that:

If you have a forum that acts somewhat as a latest news/article style forum, having the ability to automatically feature all threads created in that forum will enable you to more easily showcase important threads to your members.

Similar settings can be found in resource categories and media categories:

You can, of course, be much more selective about which content you would like to feature. But, first, let's look at the permissions surrounding that.

As you might expect, these permissions can be granted on a per-node/category basis as well, allowing you to delegate the featuring permissions to any moderator in control of any forum.

When a moderator is granted permission to feature content, they will find the link to do that typically in the "More options..." menu along with other moderation related options:

You will then be presented with a confirmation overlay. At this point, featuring the content really is as simple as clicking "Feature":

But, before it is featured, you might want to make a few changes. Clicking "Customize" will expand the overlay to reveal a few more options:

While these options are automatically inferred from the content when featuring by default, you can, if you wish, choose a different title, a custom snippet and even upload a custom cover image for the featured item.

If you need to make changes to any of these settings at any time, you can do so by following the same process as when you added the featured content, this time by clicking the "Manage feature" option in the "More options..." menu.

From here you can modify the title, snippet or feature image at any time. You can, of course, also unfeature the content too.

Content is ordered by the date each item was featured. In order to fine tune the ordering, you can simply modify the featured date.

In terms of displaying featured content, there is a number of options available. The most prevalent and default view of featured content is via a new tab on the "What's new" pages.

This is formatted very similarly to the "preview" style of the article forums, displaying a prominent title and image.

The list can also be filtered by specific content types:

The other methods of displaying featured content is, of course, done via widgets. So let's take a look at the new "Featured content" widget:

When adding a widget in the usual way, these are the options you are presented with. Pictured above are the typical settings for displaying featured resources in a carousel as we do in XFRM 2.2 on the resource overview page.

The options surrounding "context" here mean that widgets can use page context that is available in some widget positions in order to filter the results. For example, if you add the widget to a forum or thread related widget position, with the context options enabled in the widget you will only see featured threads in that specific forum.

The display styles should be very familiar at this point as they mirror similar settings for other widgets. But here's a visual overview:

Simple​

Perfect for smaller spaces, such as sidebars:

Standard​

Best suited for wider spaces, and would be perfect for use on a page node or similar to make your own portal style page:

Carousel​

This is display which is best used to showcase a number of items of content in a relatively small space, it automatically cycles through the content making it a little more visually striking:

That's all for this week! Please tell us below how you'll be using Featured content when you upgrade to XenForo 2.3 in the near future.

Unfortunately, there's no tl;dr video this week due to a little bit of an incident at @Kier HQ.

Stay tuned for next week where we'll be showcasing even more new functionality coming soon in XenForo 2.3.

 

[Paul B]

 

[digitalpoint]

I assume it's abstracted out somehow? Like a trait you can apply to certain content types or something? I definitely have a use for this with some custom content types.

 

[BassMan]

Nice addition! Thank you.

 

[Chris D]

I assume it's abstracted out somehow? Like a trait you can apply to certain content types or something? I definitely have a use for this with some custom content types.

Same as any other content type handler we have, really. If you've ever added support for alerts, reactions, any of our usual handlers, the process will be similar.

 

[CedricV]

FINALLY!

 

[James]

Okay this looks great but can we actually have the full article about Brogan now?? Cmon!

 

[Chris D]

@Paul B has confirmed he is happy to hold an AMA style discussion in his DMs.

 

[Paul B]

The only DMs you'll get from me are these ...

 

[imno007]

Okay this looks great but can we actually have the full article about Brogan now?? Cmon!

I just want confirmation on the Jason Statham rumor

 

[Chris D]

"Rumor". Sure.

 

[lantek]

Very nice work - a useful addition!

 

[Kevin]

I'm curious if the 'Home' tab shown but not clicked holds any to-be-revealed surprises.

Well, this certainly answers my curiosity question from the first 2.3 HYS.

EDIT: NM

 

[Chris D]

I’m not sure it does. It’s just because there is a home page URL defined.

 

[Bionic Rooster]

The next 007

 

[Kevin]

I’m not sure it does. It’s just because there is a home page URL defined.

 

[Chris D]

This site has a home tab. Many forums do. Or you can create a custom one called home pointing to somewhere if you wanted

 

[Kevin]

This site has a home tab. Many forums do. Or you can create a custom one called home pointing to somewhere if you wanted

Or, you know, you could just give a direct answer as to whether there are any 'Home' page stuff coming or nothing new is coming.

 

[Chris D]

There isn't. What more do you all need? Home page functionality is really something XF has had for years, enhanced over the last few with features like article forums and this.

Anything on your forum can already be your index page, you can construct a home page out of widgets and the page node system, the navigation tab system can point to a specific forum, such as an article forum, which can be your home page.

Perhaps a more specific suggestion is warranted but I don't currently see much more to do in that area.

 

[Frode789]

Nice to see the feature content ability across the board regardless of content type, solid improvement vs XF 2.2 capabilities.

Shame that I still see what seems to be the same old What's New page though with divided content behind tabs :\ I was really hoping for a revamped page.