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]

I'd like to make a home page using the new featured content widget, I was wondering if pagination could be added as an option to the widget to display all threads.

That would require custom development.

 

[Bonsai Coder2]

Great that there is a carousel, but it really should show the image rather than a large Avatar. Or at least have a choice.

Most of the featured content I want are articles written by me, and it just doesn't look right having all the images the same Avatar. As a portal especially it would be so much better with images drawn from the content.

I agree. I now have this widgit on my home/portal page and just a few customization tweaks would make it incredible.

First, the carousel should show the feature image you upload (versus Avatar of the author) or at least you should be given that option.

Second, you should be able to customize how that content is displayed in the carousel. For example, format the carousel so the the image is in the background, and your text is superimposed over the bottom of the image.

Finally, you should be able to format the carousel to display one, two, or three features at a time. I personally prefer to have ONE feature displayed, but constantly scroll through up to five features at a time.

Home Page

The most popular Bonsai Community in the WORLD!

www.bonsainut.com

 

[imno007]

I agree. I now have this widgit on my home/portal page and just a few customization tweaks would make it incredible.

First, the carousel should show the feature image you upload (versus Avatar of the author) or at least you should be given that option.

Second, you should be able to customize how that content is displayed in the carousel. For example, format the carousel so the the image is in the background, and your text is superimposed over the bottom of the image.

Finally, you should be able to format the carousel to display one, two, or three features at a time. I personally prefer to have ONE feature displayed, but constantly scroll through up to five features at a time.

Home Page

The most popular Bonsai Community in the WORLD!

www.bonsainut.com

You will likely have to be looking at addons for this kind of thing, or do it yourself if you can, rather than hoping XF will do it. Their core features tend to be released skeletal and dependent on others to flesh out. Just saying.

 

[ehd]

I'm still using (with 2.2.16)

Featured Threads 1.0.4
Feature and highlight specific threads and optionally use them as a portal / home page.
NixFifty Support

Can these featured threads be imported with 2.3?

 

[Paul B]

If you mean from a third party add-on, you will need to ask the author of the add-on whether they plan to implement code to do that.

 

[ehd]

Actually it is your add-on which has been altered a bit by your collegue.

 

[Paul B]

I sold that add-on a long time ago - I never developed it for XF2.

 

[ehd]

So yours and that from TH use different tables and it won't be compatible?
I fear that means custom work has to be done?

 

[Hristo Avramov]

All my featured threads appear with "THREAD" in the title, how to remove it?

 

[Deleted member 184953]

All my featured threads appear with "THREAD" in the title, how to remove it?

Not really the good place to ask this but : https://xenforo.com/community/threa...ured-content-widget-and-remove-thread.222942/

 

[Greenandgold]

Any way to use full size images in featured threads instead of cropped?

 

[LemmeSeeHim]

Is there a way to edit it where the carousel has featured images (or icons) instead of the OP's avatar? How about on the Standard Display Style having 3 featured threads in a row, instead of one thread displayed on top of 2 threads?

 

[MentaL]

Is there a way to edit it where the carousel has featured images (or icons) instead of the OP's avatar? How about on the Standard Display Style having 3 featured threads in a row, instead of one thread displayed on top of 2 threads?

[cXF] Enhanced Featured Content Carousel

Jul 18, 2024

Use default featured content carousel widget with some extra features.

• BassMan
• bassman carousel customizexf.com cxf featured content
• Add-ons [2.x]