The Article List Component creates a panel on a page of your site where visitors will find a list of all the news posted by the administrator. Only the title, the author, and the short story are displayed on the Article List panel, but the full story may be accessed by pressing on the Title or Read More links.
Adding the Article List Component
To place the Article List component to a page and configure its settings:
1. In Page view, select NOF News> Article List from the Custom Components panel.
2. Draw a box on the Layout to indicate where you want to position the Article List Component.
The NOF News dialog appears.
3. If you have not created a Component Suite, create a new one by typing a name for the suite in the New name field. To include the component as part of an existing suite, click the Existing radio button and select the component suite where you want to add the News Component.
4. From the Profile drop-down list, select the settings profile that you want to use for the component. If you have not created a settings profile, the default profile will be used.
5. Click OK. The NOF News dialog box appears.
Customizing the Article List Component
The Article List dialog contains three tabs: Design, Settings,andGeneral.
Click the Design tab to customize the appearance of your News Article List page by choosing a style from the Style drop-down list.
The default theme is the SiteStyle theme that is used for the current Active SiteStyle. When selected, a preview for this theme is only available from the Style view. A short description of the selected style and a preview image of the additional themes will be displayed in the dialog box:
Click the Settings tab to configure the Article List page settings. Here, we have three sections: Labels and Links, Date Settings, and View Full Article.
On the Label and Links section, you may set the appearance of the List Article panel differently:
Title. Here you may change the text for the title bar of the Article List panel.
Show only. If not enabled, all the articles will be displayed on one single page. If you enable the check box, you will be able to set how many articles you want to be displayed at once in the Article List panel.
Link article headline to the full article page. If enabled, then pressing the title of the article on the Article List panel can access either the full article page or the full article in a pop-up window.
Show a link to the full article page: If you want another link to the Full Article, check this option and another link will be displayed under the Short Message.
Link Label. Here you have to type the text of the link that will redirect the site visitor to the full article. This link may read as: Read More… ; Details.. , Further.. etc.
With the Date and Time options, you may add new information to the pages that include the News Components. The Date and Time settings will apply to all the News Components. It is necessary to change the settings for only one of the News Components.
On the Date and Time section, you can set:
Show Date and Time of each article. If you enable this checkbox, the date and time are displayed with the news when it is posted.
Date Format. If you choose to show the date, you can also choose a format for the date from the first drop-down list:
- MM/DD/YYYY – month/day/year
- DD/MM/YYYY – day/month/year
Time Format.If you choose to show the time, you can also choose a format for the time on the second drop-down list, but you can also choose not to show the time by selecting None:
- HH:MM:SS AM/ PM – hour:minute:second
- HH:MM:SS – hour:minute:second
Time Zone. Here you can set what time you want to use. You may use your server time zone or any other time zone from the drop-down list.
On the View Full Article section, you can choose where you want the full article to be displayed. You have two options:
Show the Full article in a Pop-up window means that you won’t need to place the Full Article component on any page of your Web site. The full article will appear in a pop-up window that will take the settings and style that are set for the Article List component.
Show the Full article on an existing page means that you will have to choose the page that contains the full article, but it is necessary to select the page with the Full Article component on it. This page may be customized differently.
On the General tab, you can configure the general settings for the Article List component:
On the General tab, you will find the same fields as in the Admin General tab. If you have already filled in these fields in the Admin Component (or in any other News Components), the information will become available in the Article List Component.
Click the General tab to configure the general settings for the Article List page.
Click the Publish scripts in debug mode check box to view in-depth troubleshooting information should the component not function properly when published.
Select the language (English or German) of your component script.
In the Database settings field, specify the flat file database to which you want to store the news articles. The default file is news.csv.
Click the Wizard button to launch the DB Creation Wizard.
Using the DB Creation Wizard
The DB Creation Wizard will assist you during the process of setting up flat file databases. Use the Database Creation Wizard to identify the location of the flat file database and to choose a publishing profile.
In the dialog that appears when clicking the Wizard button on the component’s General tab, you may select a remote publishing profile from the "Publishing Profile” drop-down list.
The button, displayed to the right of the “Publishing profile” drop-down list, displays the possible actions or status:
Connect: Clicking on the Connect button will establish a connection to the hosting server listed in the Publishing Profiles.
Connecting: When the connection to the Publishing Profile is being established.
Disconnect: When the connection is canceled.
Selecting Cancel or switching publishing profiles while connecting to the server will cancel the connection process.
When NetObjects Fusion connects, the dialog window will display the Folder Tree structure of the website.
The “Path to Database” field displays the relative path to the flat file database; this path is relative to the folder where the site is published.
The Auto Generate feature can be used to create a path that is two folder levels deep from the selected folder tree, and clicking the Auto Generate button also creates the flat file database. The unexplored folders will be grey-out.
To create a new folder, in which to place the flat file database:
In the Folder Tree, select the directory, under which you want to create the new folder.
Right-click on that folder.
Click on the New Folder menu. The Input dialog appears.
Type the name of the new folder.
Click OK.
To change the name of the flat file database:
In the Folder Tree, select the folder on which you want to create the flat file database.
In the Name field, type a name for the csv file.
Click on the Create Data.. button.
Enter the Server (IP) address and Port of the server that will be used to send/receive emails. The server (IP) address is not mandatory. If you leave this field blank, PHP will use the SMTP server address specified in the php.ini file on the server, while ASP will use the default windows SMTP server. Consult your host provider or site administrator to obtain this information.
In the E-mail field, enter the email address that will be used if the component sends an email to the site administrator.
In the From field, enter the email address that will appear in the From field when an email will be sent by this component. This email address must have the right format; otherwise, the email sent by the component cannot be delivered by your provider’s email SMTP server.
To save the Article List component settings as a profile that you can apply to additional NOF News added to your site, click Save Profile.
Click OK to close the Article List dialog.
On the published site, the Article List component will display the following panel that contains the list of the posted articles.