Forum Subject: College Newspaper Site Now Geeked!

Posted on: 11/15/02 12:35pm
By: Anonymous (bdefore)

Thanks much to the help of Dirk and Matt, I feel ready to announce the geeking of the University of Puget Sound's student-run newspaper website:

http://asups.ups.edu/trail[*1]

There are many elements, both internally and externally, which are tweaked from the initial GL 1.3.6 installation, including:

- sorting by either subject or issue (essentially each story is related to two separate and organizable topics)
- simplified login form
- selection of author from drop down menu while submitting (internal, so that a webmaster can select the author rather than having all articles attribute to the webmaster)
- pdf links (all of the recent stories have a link to the corresponding pdf of the newspaper)
- etc.

Some of the items I'd like to work more on:

- working with the php to automatically create a caption underneath each photograph ***
- getting LDAP authentication working so that students can log in with their email password
- converting the calendar to a better events tracking system

If anyone would like to know how I've done these items, or could suggest how to do some of my future projects, I'll gladly email with you: bdefore at ups.edu Go GL!

College Newspaper Site Now Geeked!

Posted on: 11/16/02 07:43am
By: muskrat

Hey, great job! I've been thinking about using GL for an online version of a student newspaper. I'm sponsoring a middle school (grades 6-8) newspaper and I thought it might be a way to get around some limitations we have in production -- like not much money to print much content. I like the link to the PDF version of the page. I also like the site design. It looks less like a blog and more like a newspaper. I guess a significant part of that is just getting rid of the right side boxes. I'd be interested in getting some of the changes you made, like the ability to put a different author in. How do your readers like it? What's the response?

College Newspaper Site Now Geeked!

Posted on: 11/16/02 08:12am
By: efarmboy

Nice job Buck - looks very clean and professional and a great community example of using Geeklog. At first, I was not sure how to see more details on the story. I know you want to keep the look clean and you have probally considered the <more> link at the bottom. Did you just not configure any blocks to appear on the right or hack in the restriction. I signed up but have not received my account information - may take more then 10 min Blaine

Author List, Right Blocks

Posted on: 11/16/02 12:17pm
By: Anonymous (bdefore)

Muskrat, You can turn off the right blocks rather quickly once you know where to look. Dirk helped me with this earlier at this link: http://www.geeklog.net/article.php?story=20021105222319669 I should note that I had to do both his suggestion and the hack that I spoke of in the initial post. The combination solved the problem for me, but in some themes perhaps Dirk's suggestion is all that is necessary. The author list is a little different. I had to modify the admin/story.php file with the following code: // buck was here - i adapted this code from the search.php: /* $result = DB_query("SELECT uid,username FROM {$_TABLES['users']} WHERE uid in ($inlist) ORDER by username"; $useroptions = ''; for ($i = 1; $i <= DB_numRows($result); $i++) { $A = DB_fetchArray($result); $useroptions .= '<option value="' . $A['uid'] . '">' . $A['username'] . '</option>'; } $searchform->set_var('author_option_list', $useroptions); $searchform->parse('author_form_element', 'authors', true); */ // to something like this: $authorlistresults = DB_query("SELECT uid,fullname FROM gl_users WHERE author='1' ORDER BY fullname"; $authorlistoptions = ''; for ($i = 1; $i <= DB_numRows($authorlistresults); $i++) { $Z = DB_fetchArray($authorlistresults); $authorlistoptions .= '<option value="' . $Z['uid'] . '"'; if($A['uid'] == $Z['uid']) { // buck: this adds the selected attribute to the one which the database already $authorlistoptions .= ' selected'; // lists as the author so that you don't have to reselect it every time!!! } $authorlistoptions .= '>' . $Z['fullname'] . '</option>'; } $story_templates->set_var('author_list', $authorlistoptions); // similarly for the pdf page number call (11/6/02) you'll also need to change storysubmit function below $pagenumoptions = ''; for ($i = 0; $i <= 32; $i++) { $pagenumoptions .= '<option value="' . $i . '"'; if($A['pagenumber'] == $i) { $pagenumoptions .= ' selected'; } $pagenumoptions .= '>' . $i . '</option>'; } $story_templates->set_var('page_number_list', $pagenumoptions); // similarly for the subject list $subjectlistresults = DB_query("SELECT id,name FROM gl_subjects ORDER BY id"; $subjectlistoptions = ''; for ($i = 1; $i <= DB_numRows($subjectlistresults); $i++) { $Z = DB_fetchArray($subjectlistresults); $subjectlistoptions .= '<option value="' . $Z['id'] . '"'; if($A['subject'] == $Z['id']) { // buck: this adds the selected attribute to the one which the database already $subjectlistoptions .= ' selected'; // lists as the author so that you don't have to reselect it every time!!! } $subjectlistoptions .= '>' . $Z['name'] . '</option>'; } $story_templates->set_var('subject_list', $subjectlistoptions); // that's all i changed This allows me not only to select the author, but also the subject (essentially my second topic characteristic) and the pdf page. You'll need to add these input calls to the theme you have selected, in the admin/story/storysubmit.thmtl i believe.... I also had to manually go into the stories table and add a few fields: author, subject, pagenum, etc. This may make upgrading to the next GL difficult, but as consolation you can add these fields as much as you like and increase the flexibility of your GL installation.

College Newspaper Site Now Geeked!

Posted on: 11/16/02 12:21pm
By: Anonymous (bdefore)

I just double checked the user creation. Seems to work fine locally... Could get back to me if you still don't have an account password?

College Newspaper Site Now Geeked!

Posted on: 11/16/02 12:55pm
By: Anonymous (Anonymous)

I got my login password about 5 min after posting. Blaine

College Newspaper Site Now Geeked!

Posted on: 01/31/03 11:03am
By: alinford

I really like your site. I have a couple of questions: 1. How did you do the 'Issues' thing? 2. It looks like you somehow set the order for your articles in each issue. How did you do that? Thanks