The evolution of CTA Featured Threads & Portal. What's next?

[Paul B]

I'll make it an option.

Don't forget that the fixed height layout is optional.
Should you choose to do so, you can have fluid heights, based on the amount of content.

 

[Martok]

I'll make it an option.

Thanks.

Don't forget that the fixed height layout is optional.
Should you choose to do so, you can have fluid heights, based on the amount of content.

I know it can be fluid but for the FT blocks on the forum view etc (on the portal page I do use fluid) I much prefer a fixed height, I think it looks better. I may look at fluid as a possibility for the archive page though.

 

[Paul B]

I originally had the height fluid for the archive page but I think I prefer a fixed height and uniform layout, which is more in keeping with the thread list, which is essentially what this is.

For the home page, the fluid layout makes more sense as it's all about the content.

 

[sami simo]

Next!

View attachment 91120

Nice Idea, is it possible to make the featured thread tab the first tab to appear in profile page?

 

[Paul B]

I got the impression earlier that there may be limits when running to thousands of permanently featured threads. If not then that's great.

Wouldn't some kind of archive system be a solution instead? I'd say it pretty important (vital) to keep a history of promoted content for SEO, etc.

That would be ideal, assuming the performance of the landing page wasn't affected by how many threads were in the archive.

We might have 10,000 users hammering our landing page where 100 threads were displayed (5x20 pages or whatever) but then I expect we'd rarely get a significant number of users hitting the archive (which would contain many thousands of threads).

Does that sound like something you think would work? I assume it's just the archive would have it's own query independent from the portal and that'd be it?

Just to follow up on this, I have just automatically featured every thread on my dev install.

The home page still only has 20 threads showing (5 x 4 pages).
Logged in:


Guest:


The archive page has 5,847 threads showing (20 x 293 pages).
Logged in:




Guest:





Home page - less than 0.1 second
Archive page 1 - just over 0.5 second
Archive page 293 - just over 1.5 second

This is pulling almost 6,000 threads from something like 40 forums, with 20 user groups and various other custom permissions.

Considering that is respecting permissions (hence there are less threads available for guests), I think that is more than acceptable.

I believe this to be a far better implementation than having thousands of threads on the landing/portal page and allows the portal to be more of a true portal - you could even limit it to a single page for example.

 

[RobParker]

Excellent, thanks

 

[Paul B]

New position counter added to each list item.

Enabling ads to be inserted between each one, just as with posts.

<xen:if is="{$archivedFeaturedThread.position} % {$xenOptions.ctaFtFeaturedThreadsArchive.perPage} == 1">
    This message appears below item 2 only, on each page.
</xen:if>

<xen:if is="{$archivedFeaturedThread.position} == 2">
    This message appears below item 3 only, on the first page.
</xen:if>

Page 1


Page 2

 

[Paul B]

Ad templates inside the blocks now too.

 

[Paul B]

Just in case it wasn't already clear, it is also possible to insert ads in or between specific entries on the portal page.

 

[Paul B]

The default icon which has until now been used for automatically featured threads, can now be set for any featured thread, when manually featuring or updating.


Likewise, the default icon can be removed for any featured thread, whether manually or automatically featured, when manually updating.


The heirarchy is as follows: uploaded icon -> default icon -> avatar

If there is no path set in the SPs for the default icon, then the avatar will be used.

 

[Paul B]

I have rolled out the latest Alpha to my live site.

As you can see, the new position counter enables me to insert ads between the blocks on the portal page: http://cliptheapex.com/ and the archive page: http://cliptheapex.com/threads/featured-archive

 

[Bram]

Not liking the archive direction very much. So far I have kept all my featured threads featured for ever and now this means all entries will manually have to be updated?

Why not just keep all articles on the frontpage in one stream with one or two latest entries standing out (optionally)? This would also mean we can remove the slider that Google considers as a blocking script, and still have that frontpage look.

Imo, this is not how a portal should work as the archive is now more or less hidden under an extra tab that nobody will click to read through lots of older content.

I do very much like the ad position under the firs post.

Brogan do you have any news about the much needed rss feature? Is it possible to let me know if you are considering implementing it otherwise I need to find a coder to make it happen for our site.

 

[Paul B]

You don't have to use the archive.
Carry on using it as you have if you wish, it's entirely optional.

 

[Paul B]

Why not just keep all articles on the frontpage in one stream with one or two latest entries standing out (optionally)?

That can be done with CSS using the new position counter.

This would also mean we can remove the slider that Google considers as a blocking script

That can be disabled if that's the case, either globally or per style.
You can even make it not available to guests if Google is complaining about it.

 

[Bram]

I am strongly considering it as you loose quite a lot of google insight points. Noticed that the slider with the fading option enabled costs less.

But fully disabling takes away much of the beautiful look and feel of the portal. Maybe considering an option to show two or four threads side by side at the top instead as you see on some magazine styled sites?

 

[Paul B]

Maybe considering an option to show two or four threads side by side at the top instead as you see on some magazine styled sites?

Again, that can be done with CSS.
I'm not going to introduce all different kinds of layouts as it would be impossible to please everyone.

Personally I wouldn't want that layout as I think it would detract from the threads, especially on fixed width sites, and remove the whole point of the portal.

 

[Paul B]

Brogan do you have any news about the much needed rss feature?

Something like this?



I will just add that I find it odd that you were willing to pay someone else to develop this but it never crossed your mind to consider paying the original developer.

Personally I think the RSS feature is useless but I have wasted my weekend developing it for what appears to be a handful of people at most.

 

[Bram]

@Brogan that's fantastic!!

but it never crossed your mind to consider paying the original developer.

To be honest Brogan I have purchased multiple instances of the Portal mod and I paid for the base package and nothing else. I never expected feature updates apart from bug fixing, but it's your own decision to add more features and ask the customers for suggestions. So I don't find that comment very fair.

Never said that I didn't want to pay the original developer either so please name your price. No need to portrait me like some cheap ass.

 

[Paul B]

Preview of the RSS feed for the portal page: http://support.cliptheapex.com/threads/featured/index.rss

 

[CMGDevel]

Please add the ability to promote from Better Blogs.