While working on a new template for Pligg I was trying to come up with the best way to manage articles that would appear on top of the homepage to feature select stories. I originally was thinking that I could use the "Groups" feature for Pligg, or even create a "Featured" category. Then I thought that those methods would not allow me to appropriately label my news and were not the best way to handle the featured news articles that I wanted on the homepage. That's when I turned to CMStheme's Featurify module, which allows admins to manually set up images that link to news article and rotate those images somewhere in your template. A few hours later I had created a "Featured" module for Pligg.

How it works
The first thing you will need to do is upload and install the module. Then add a snippet of code to the template file where you want the featured news to appear. You can do this by adding the following line to a .tpl file:

{$featured}

I suggest that you place it on your homepage by placing it in index_center.tpl and wrapping it with the following code so that it only shows up on the homepage and not the second, third, etc. pages.

{if $pagename == 'index' && count($templatelite.get) == 0}{$featured}{/if}

The Featured module has a nearly identical admin interface to the Featurify module. Admins can log in to the admin area and then navigate to a page where it displays your current featured news items. If you want to remove a news item you can easily edit or delete it, or if you don't have any you can click on the button to "Add Featured News". See the attached screenshots for examples.

The module is set to only grab the latest 4 news items from your Featured News list. The most recent item will be used to display the first news article with a larger image, while the second, third and fourth most recent article appear with a smaller thumbnail.

The template file used for this module ( /modules/featured/templates/featured.tpl ) has been designed to work with the new Arthemia Pligg template. If you are using another template you will want to customize this file to make it look better in your own template. You can also make some small tweaks to the file to change how many stories you want to appear, how many characters the smaller stories get in their descriptions before being cut off and other cosmetic changes.

Lastly, make sure that you CHMOD 0777 the /modules/featured/phpthumb/cache/ directory to ensure that thumbnails are able to be added to that folder.

Credits
CMStheme for his Featurify module.
phpthumb for generating and caching image thumbnails

[LPH]

Unfortunately, I had to disable this module. It was working great for several weeks but today the black box problem showed up. Everything I tried failed to get it to work. CHMOD cache didn't work. Deleting cache, etc.

Maybe this will get updated some day....

[wesamly]

Thanks a lot, great module indeed.

[ckabusk]

How do you link News ID to the page that doesn't have ID number? For Instance, I want it to link to "About us" page, it doesn't come with vote system and all.

Thanks.

[ckabusk]

Hello developer? Could you help me with that? How do you make it linkable to any pages rather than using NEWS ID only?

[67895123]

Originally Posted by Yankidank

I've moved your posts to the appropriate thread for the Featured module, the template is unrelated to the problems you are experiencing with this module.

Sorry, but I don't have enough time to support this module so its up to you or others to figure out a solution to your problem. I had tested this module on 3 servers before releasing this version and it worked fine on those. I'm not going to dedicate more of my time making sure that it runs on every possible server in every language.

OK, I fixed it myself.
If you have same ploblem, try this


First,

Open

modules\featured\templates\featured.tpl

go to line 24 and change

<a href="{$featured[featured].link_url}"><img style="border:1px solid #ccc;padding:2px;" src="{$my_pligg_base}/modules/featured/phpthumb/phpThumb.php?src={$my_base_url}{$my_pligg_base}%2fmodules%2ffeatured%2ffeatured.php%3fid%3d{$featured[featured].featured_id}&w=300" alt=""></a> 

to

<a href="{$featured[featured].link_url}"><img style="border:1px solid #ccc;padding:2px;" src="{$my_pligg_base}/modules/featured/phpthumb/phpThumb.php?src=http%3a%2f%2fwww.YOR_DOMAIN_NAME.com%2fmodules%2ffeatured%2ffeatured.php%3fid%3d{$featured[featured].featured_id}&w=300" alt=""></a> 

if you install in sub folder
ex. http://www.YOR_DOMAIN_NAME.com/YOUR_FOLDER try this

<a href="{$featured[featured].link_url}"><img style="border:1px solid #ccc;padding:2px;" src="{$my_pligg_base}/modules/featured/phpthumb/phpThumb.php?src=http%3a%2f%2fwww.YOR_DOMAIN_NAME.com%2fYOUR_FOLDER%2fmodules%2ffeatured%2ffeatured.php%3fid%3d{$featured[featured].featured_id}&w=300" alt=""></a> 

Go to line 37,
Change this

<img class="left" src="{$my_pligg_base}/modules/featured/phpthumb/phpThumb.php?src={$my_base_url}{$my_pligg_base}%2fmodules%2ffeatured%2ffeatured.php%3fid%3d{$featured[featured].featured_id}&w=100" alt=""> 

to

<img class="left" src="{$my_pligg_base}/modules/featured/phpthumb/phpThumb.php?src=http%3a%2f%2fwww.YOR_DOMAIN_NAME.com%2fmodules%2ffeatured%2ffeatured.php%3fid%3d{$featured[featured].featured_id}&w=100" alt=""> 

if you install in sub folder

<img class="left" src="{$my_pligg_base}/modules/featured/phpthumb/phpThumb.php?src=http%3a%2f%2fwww.YOR_DOMAIN_NAME.com%2fYOUR_FOLDER%2fmodules%2ffeatured%2ffeatured.php%3fid%3d{$featured[featured].featured_id}&w=100" alt=""> 

Save and upload


Ps. Don't for get to change
YOR_DOMAIN_NAME
YOUR_FOLDER

--
Techaker - Your Source for Technolgy News and Networking

[icdeals]

I have the same image problem everyone is having. Is there an easy way I can bypass uploading a new image, and just link the image that already exists on the site? I really need this feature, I actually re-did my site just to use this template and feature.

Can anyone help me?

[princevio]

Any one can development module for home page, i mean the custom home page content placement like upcoming, top, category boxex and other thingns.

Thanks

[chuckroast]

Originally Posted by princevio

Any one can development module for home page, i mean the custom home page content placement like upcoming, top, category boxex and other thingns.

Thanks

Please stop adding your link to every post you make. This is against the forum rules.

[FallenAngel]

I think,

Right now only the God user can add featured news, I think this task should be given to the admin users.

The God user who is responsible for overall configuration
The admin users should have the task of manageing the news but no access to the module configurstion.

Question.
I would like to add the management of the featured news in the "Manage" if the featured news is enabled,
and not under the "Module".

We can put it under the module only for enabling and disabling this feature, but the day to day management should be under the "Module" drop down menu (right next to Group Management)

Any idea how to do this?

Thanks

[FallenAngel]

I have installed both, looking for a way of puting them together, any idea will be appreciated.

thanks