Welcome!
.....back to the third Editors and Publishers Newsletter and to the DigiTV Wiki.
If you haven't been here before, the Wiki is a sort of encyclopaedia of all things DigiTV. It's a resource freely available to you and contains useful information such as:
- Business cases
- Training material
- How to link to plugins
- Marketing material
- Useful CMS guides
- Quick Reference guides
- Logo and image guidelines ....and much more
So do feel free to browse or use the search facility to find information that is useful to you. It is your resource so do let us know if you have any ideas for additions or improvements.
What's in this edition...
This month is rather different as the DigiTV technical team have made a major new release of the Looking Local software. New releases are being made all to improve the service all the time, but this release is larger than usual. So we have decided to dedicate this newsletter just to telling you about this release.
We have made a separate communication to the IT community detailing the technical implications of this release already. So we aim to make these release notes as easy to read and as non-technical as possible. Let me know if they are not!
If you want to look at the full release notes click here.
We will start with the first three changes that have the most impact on Editors and Publishers.
More text and links on screens
Sky Virgin and the 'Netgem' preview can all now take additional text and links on screens. It is really important to remember to QA all your content using the Preview facility in the CMS.
- "Content" and "Content with Image", "Submenu" and "Submenu with Image" screens now fit 10 links, 12 lines of text*, or 10 short paragraphs**
- "Home" screens now fit 8 lines of text, or 7 short paragraphs.
* Normal text = continuous text, or text blocks separated by single carriage returns.
** Paragraphs = text blocks separated by empty lines (double carriage returns). Obviously if a paragraph takes up more than one line, you won't fit 10 of them on a content screen, etc.
Possible Action: You might like to check existing content as text that goes over multiple screens may now fit on fewer.
Sky 'numbers only' form attribute
In the CMS you can specify an attribute on a form field which means that a customer can only enter numbers via their remote control on Sky. This is particularly useful when asking someone to enter a phone number or other numerical only data. We discovered a bug in the CMS which meant that this attribute was being lost on publication of the form.
Possible Action: You should redraft, reset the property, save and publish any form where you want this attribute to be used.
Form e-mails are easier to read
Form e-mails look more like screens on the live service, with the inclusion of static text form fields and the use of the field label rather than name/hint text.
No action required
Current e-mail format
your name: Miss Emma Smith
house name or number: 602
street or road name: Cokefield Terrace
town / village: Hilcote
full postcode: DE66 5ZZ
daytime telephone number: 07999 999999
more details of the request: details on events in area and ways 2 contact council on public transport issues and the lack of it
New e-mail format
Please provide your personal details
Name: Miss Emma Smith
Hse name / No: 602
Street / Road: Cokefield Terrace
Town / Village: Hilcote
Postcode: DE66 5ZZ
Tel: 07999 999999
Email:
Please give details about your request.
Details: details on events in area and ways 2 contact council on public transport issues and the lack of it
Images in plugins
You have been able to add images to your microsite for some time, but now we have now made it possible for developers to use images within plugins.
Why is this useful? Well, in Wychavons Choice Based Lettings plugin developed by Abritas it allows the customer to look at pictures of the property before bidding. Avon & Somerset Police have developed several plugins utilising images from 'News' items to a 'Wanted'. Here are some examples.
New plugins are being developed all the time so do take a look at what everyone is doing. Do feel free to contact me if you want to discuss any aspect of plugin development.
More space on plugin screens
The increase in content which is available to you as an editor is also now available to plugin developers.
More versatility for plugin developers
Plugin developers also now have more flexibility on how they present data and fields within their plugins. This makes their life easier and enables you to consider more compelling plugins, which are easier to use and implement.
