Archive for October, 2008


Thursday, October 30th, 2008
  1. Create a page outside of the main website and install the News Article module.  For the purposes of this explanation the page is named “News Articles Main.”  Also install the Latest News, and Archive modules if you are using those.
  2. Create categories that correspond to the pages where you want News Article capability, for instance “News”,  “Features”, etc.  Do this under Admin Options.  See 2nd screen shot below.
  3. Create pages, “News”,  “Features”, etc.,  corresponding to the categories you’ve set up.
  4. On each of these pages, add modules via the Use Existing Module radio buttons at the top of the Module area in the control panel.
    DNN Add Existing Module

    DNN Add Existing Module

  5. Select the page “News Articles Main” from the Page: dropdown.
  6. Choose the News Article Module from the Module: dropdown.
  7. Click the Admin Options hyperlink on the second line last item of the text menu at the top of the module.

    Ventrian News Articles Admin Options

    Ventrian News Articles Admin Options

  8. Click the Main Options button and go to the Filters section.  Set the filter for the page / category that you are working with.  For instance if you are setting up the “Features” page, set the filter to the “Features” category.  Only the articles created using the category “Features” will show up on this page after this step.
  9. Repeat step 8  for the filters on Latest Articles, and Archives if you are using those modules as well.
  10. Repeat steps 2 through 10 for each page / category you have created.
  11. All articles will be created on the page “News Articles Main” which was created outside the site and will show up on the proper pages within the site based on the category they are assigned to.





Tuesday, October 28th, 2008

See DNN – Custom CSS Stylesheet for FCK Editor for how to set up a customized style sheet. To avoid having to maintain redundant style sheets between your skin.css and your FCK Editor style sheet, place a reference to your FCK Editor style sheets at the top of the portal.css file stored at the root of your portal.

@import url("fckeditor.css");

Write all the styles that are relevant to your html/text module areas into the FCK Editor style sheet not your skin.css. Your customized stylesheet will be available to FCK Editor as well as your document and you’ll only have to maintain your styles in one file.

 





Tuesday, October 28th, 2008

Use of the formatting tools in FCK Editor isn’t recommended since it loads documents down with unwanted tags. One alternative: preparing your data with a style sheet in a program like Dreamweaver, can quickly grow old. Switching back and forth between several applications repeatedly while editing, along with the lack of WYSIWYG in the editor makes this method cumbersome.

The good news is you can synch stylesheets between your skin and/or container .css and the .css used in FCK Editor. With a little setup, you’ll have the same display in and out of the editor window and your style dropdown list will be populated with your styles, not the generic FCK Editor styles.

The FCK Editor requires the creation of a .css and a .xml file to properly display styles. To reproduce your skin and/or container styles in FCK Editor:

  1. Create a.css file with the styles you need and give it the name of your choice.
  2. Create a .xml file describing the styles you want to show in the dropdown list.
    • Here’s an example of a simple .xml that would show styles for H1, H2, H3, H4 and pagetitle in FCK Editor’s style dropdown list. The element= is the HTML tag to be used, the Style name is the label appearing in the drop down list, for <span> or <div> the attributes name=”class” value=”#your style name#” must be included.<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″ ?>
      <Styles>
      <Style name=”Heading H1″ element=“H1″ />
      <Style name=”Heading H2″ element=”H2″ />
      <Style name=”Heading H3″ element=”H3″ />
      <Style name=”Heading H4″ element=”H4″ />
      <Style name=”pagetitle” element=”span”>
      <Attribute name=”class” value=”pagetitle” />
      </Style>
      </Styles>
  3. Once these files are created drop them in the root of your portal.
  4. In your DNN environment – open the FCK Editor by clicking to edit a text area you have setup.
  5. Click on the link below the text entry area called show custom editor options.
  6. Set the type to “Portal”
  7. Click open the “List of available styles for the editor” area and use these settings:
    1. Style list generation mode: URL
    2. Custom xml file: Root, your xml file
    3. List of available styles for the editor

      List of available styles for the editor

  8. Click open the “Editor area CSS” area and use these settings:
    1. Style list generation mode: URL
    2. Custom css file: Root, your css file
    3. Editor area CSS

      Editor area CSS

  9. At the bottom of the screen, make sure the dropdown is set to Portal and Apply the custom settings.
  10. You should now have WYSIWYG display in your FCK Editing area and your own styles should be populating the style dropdown list in FCK Editor there.