Tricked Out News Mod needs some feedback

Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2009 4:22 pm

I've been working on a tricked out news module and it needs some feedback on how if functions, bugs and suggestions. A quick list of mods are:

NukeSEO Social Bookmarking
Avatar in News Comment
News in Two Columns
PDF export of news
Image link for Send to Friend added.
Image link for Printer Friendly added.
Image link for PDF Printer added.
and a few other changes.

The only file to edit is the .htaccess for the ShortLinks. Everything else just uploads to the website. No database changes. Works with all themes I tested it on.

You can see it at Only registered users can see links on this board! Get registered or login! and download it there too.

Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2009 10:40 pm

Export to pdf generates some notices. Which inpart causes the pdf to fail because of "FPDF error: Some data has already been output, can't send PDF file".

I believe jestrella had this problem with Content Plus. Not sure how he fixed it.

Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2009 11:11 pm

Would be nice if it was an option to have the news in two rows, ie go back to one row if you want. I know that was probably not what you intended, but I think that would be a good option to have.

Also not sure the download you have available is the latest version because when I click on a topic icon it takes me to the category page fine. The thing is that none of the social booking marking stuff etc is there.

All three of your blocks have these notices.
Notice: Undefined variable: content in /raven/blocks/block-Bookmark_Links.php on line 17
Notice: Undefined index: HTTPS in /raven/blocks/block-Bookmark_Links.php on line 20

For the first one you can just do something like this

Code:

if(!isset($content)) $content = '';

Don't quote me on this, but I don't think $_SERVER['HTTPS'] is an official variable. So I don't think you can count on it being defined. If you want to keep it then maybe something like this
if( isset($_SERVER['HTTPS']) && $_SERVER['HTTPS']=='on'){

Get this when viewign a comment in an articles above the avatar.
Notice: Undefined variable: anonymousname in /raven/modules/News/comments.php on line 652

Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2009 11:23 pm

Also check your pages with this.

http://validator.w3.org/

There is a table problem with the index. It may have to do with an odd number of news items, but I didn't try.

Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2009 11:24 pm

I forgot to add. Nice job I like the way it is looking!

Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 5:29 am

Thank you for your info. I plan on adding the If, else to the 2 column mod after I get the bugs out. Some people like 2 columns some don't. I am thinking about a config script to control the way it works.

The PDF errors you got, were they from my site or one you installed it on? I have not had the errors you mentioned. I will do some more testing on it later today and do a fresh install on another test site to see if something is wrong with the download. Thank you again.

Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 6:21 am

All my testing was on my site. You need to turn error reporting on with notices and you will see the pdf thing.

Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 7:38 am

Well that gives me some work to do. Laughing

Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 3:37 pm

OK... I fixed the Undefined variable in comments.php,Social Bookmarking blocks errors and I added a config file to control the number for news items to display in a row. You can do 1, 2 or 3 if you feel froggy. The width percent has to be adjusted in the config also.

Code:

<?php


//Controls news in 2 column mod.











$newsrows ='2';      //Controls the number of news articles in a row. 1,2 or even 3


$newspercent ='50%';     //Controls the width of the items. 1 must = 100%, 2 = 50%, 3 = 33%





?>

basic but it works.

Anyone that downloaded it should reinstall the updated package.

http://trickedoutnews.com

I am also keeping a changelog in my forums until it gets more complete.

Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 5:26 pm

You should only provide files that are edited. Not the entire module. The reason being if there are any changes within RN in regards to news your mod becomes incompatible guaranteed.

Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 5:28 pm

10-4

I have also noticed some issues with certain themes causing XHTML errors with the social bookmarking. That will be the next issue to address.

Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 6:39 pm

Your print PDF does not print HTML. All I can say is to look at how it is done in Content Plus. It also uses fpdf. It is a slightly older version, but the concept should be the same.

Also I think when you hit Print to PDF it should open a new tab not use the same one.

Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 7:02 pm

TY for you input. I'm gonna tackle the PDF after I get the theme bugs worked out. I had to do an if else to include a closing tag if the variable is set for 2 columns and not if it is set for 1 to get it to work without errors on the 3 custom RN themes. I need to test that fix with other themes to see if it works with them and the PDF will be next. I was just thinking about doing like you said and do what he did with Content Plus for PDF.

Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 11:00 pm

Will be testing your mod Tomorrow morning... Is getting late here and today was a marathonic college day... Laughing

Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2009 5:15 am

I'm gonna release another tester in a few hours. I believe it will address a lot of theme related issues. I need to try it on a fresh install so I can make sure it works right. I've changed so many things on my test sites I can't be sure if the fixes are working or if I have mangled something else up and it is working by luck.... TY.

Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2009 6:03 am

Test version .03 has been released at http://trickedoutnews.com

Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2009 9:15 am

Something i would really like to see in a future News mod, might not be in this precise moment, is to take out the special News right block ant integrate it into the content itself, so we can use standard right block (if we want to of course), another thing i would like to see is to remove the interdependence between News Mod and themes... Themes should only be used for presentation purposes.

With error reporting turned ON (E_ALL), you'd get the _CATEGORY constant already defined warning when adding a new story... Will keep posting any other anomalies... Keep it up man... This is gonna ROCK!!!

Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2009 10:27 am

A fix for that is to comment out the News/admin/language/lang-xxx.php line 85

Code:

if (!defined(_CATEGORY)) {define('_CATEGORY','Category'); }

to

Code:

//if (!defined(_CATEGORY)) {define('_CATEGORY','Category'); }

Seems not to effect any other news related admin functions. I will test it and include that in .04 Thank you....

Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2009 10:30 am

That would be a neat idea. Have all the rating and related links and options moved to the article itself. Hmmmmm... I better finish what I started first, but that would be a nice feature if and when I ever get the bugs out of this thing.

Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2009 10:46 am

Yeah of course... don't loose focus... ROTFL

Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2009 11:05 am

Maybe have both versions one with the block one without or an option to turn it off.

Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2009 11:20 am

Probably an option would be best. That way a person could decide to us it or not, like the 1, 2 or 3 columns display. Config files are great things.
Speaking of that, the 3 columns looks neat with fisubice.

Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2009 2:29 pm

Ok. I think I have most done. The pdf has no more errors and the submit news fix seems to work. V .04 is on the site. I also added the ability to turn Social Bookmarks display in index on or off through the config file. I really appreciate the help guys. I still need to get the PDF to print html correctly and figure out why PDF is working slowly. A few other small things and it should be done.

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Any other bug reports would be useful and thanks again.

Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2009 4:05 am

Seems to work great, this was long awaited.. I noticed some of the html like &nbsp tags in the pdf but other than that it's perfect, to me anyways. I was wondering though some of the "add to" links have html in them and also two forward slashes after the site url, is that a bug or? The forward slashes could just be a problem on my end, doesn't really affect anything though. Pdfs seem to load pretty fast for me, I love it. I have to say, thank you, this is an awesome addition.

Only thing Im going to do is set cell spacing/padding to 1, other than that it works great. Umm test the speed here if you want, for the pdfs:
http://www.horror-code.com/article-printpdf-3.html

Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2009 5:03 am

I'm working on the html format in the PDF now. I might have it working in a day or so. Thank you for the feed back. I like the look of your site. Hot girls on video are a great way to start the morning. Laughing