News Box Manager v3.0.0 [Support Thread]

[lat9]

Download: https://www.zen-cart.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=2264

v3.0.0 (and later) of News Box Manager builds on the previous versions of the plugin, adding the following features for Zen Cart 1.5.6 and later:

1. Enables the creation of up to four (4) different types of 'news', each separately manageable.
   
   1. Separate admin tools for each type, enables different admin profiles to manage each news type.
   2. An additional tool enables the management of all news types.
   3. Two (2) storefront sideboxes are now provided, enabling different news types to be displayed in different locations.
   
   
2. Uses the zc156 admin's bootstrap support for its admin-tool displays.
   
   1. Adds search and sort controls to the admin-level tools, making it easier to manage your news articles.
   2. Adds controls to the admin's article-listing, enabling you to make a copy of an article and/or to move an article to a different news-type.
   
   
3. Changes the storefront news_archive and more_news pages to be all_articles and article, respectively.
   
   1. Previous pages' header-processing remains to redirect access to those pages (permanently) to their new homes!
   
   
4. Watches for admin-level language-addition and -removal actions, adjusting the articles' news-content accordingly.

Additional changes:

1. An article must have non-blank title and content in all the store's languages (previously only one language was required).
   
   1. On installation, any article found to have a blank title or content in any of the store's languages is disabled.
   
   
2. Due to the significant changes to the various language files, the German language files have been removed from the distribution.

Early adopters can view pre-release versions of the plugin's documentation and files on its GitHub repository: https://github.com/lat9/news_box_manager_v3

[Elemi]

Thank you - I'm going to try this out with the Westminster_New template :-)

[lat9]

I've just submitted v3.0.1 to the Zen Cart moderators for review and will post back here when it's available for download.

This release contains changes associated with the following GitHub issues:

#9: Correct PHP error on 'news_archive' redirect. Already included in the initial v3.0.0 download.
#10: Correct MySQL error on initial install.

[lat9]

I've just submitted v3.0.1 to the Zen Cart moderators for review and will post back here when it's available for download.

This release contains changes associated with the following GitHub issues:

#9: Correct PHP error on 'news_archive' redirect. Already included in the initial Zen Cart v3.0.0 download.
#10: Correct MySQL error on initial install.

Now available for download (thanks to the Zen Cart moderators for the quick acceptance).

[shags38]

Hi Cindy - I just love this plugin - many thanks for creating it!!

just a couple of things;

1. article title doesn't show as bold (see image below) - on hover it does go blue for link - .css indicates it should be bold - how to adjust?

2. in includes/languages/english/extra_definitions/news_box_manager_defines.php ..... can I replace the BOX_HEADING_NEWS_BOX', 'Latest News' text with an image? I have created the image but not sure how to make it render - tried replacing the text with a link to the image but it wouldn't work for me, likely wrong code.

I also tried adding a row in the stylesheet_news_box_manager.css with a background image in lieu of the above - but again it didn't render

#newsscrollbox ol { margin: 0; padding: 0; list-style-position: inside; }

#moreNewsDefault .news_header { font-weight: bold; padding-right: 0.3em; }
#moreNewsDefault .newsContent { padding: 0.3em 0; }

#news-table { display: table; border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%; margin: 0.8em 0; }
.image-row { display: table-row; border: 1px solid #00BFFF; background-image: url(/images/latestnews.png); background-repeat: no-repeat; width: 100%; height: 75px; }
.news-row { display: table-row; border: 1px solid #00BFFF; }
.news-heading { font-weight: bold; }
.news-cell { display: table-cell; padding: 0.5em; border: 1px solid #00BFFF; }

If you can assist that would be great - if I should be posting this in another thread for assistance then please say so

cheers, Mike

Attachment 18760

[lat9]

Mike, a link to the site (via PM if you desire) would help me help you for these styling/page-layout type questions.

[Ingar]

Great, perfecto! Thanks a lot. No, it wasn't partial installation. I had only set of files connected to an old database, just updated the file and uploded those two missing ones, matter of minutes, press the button, and voila. What means "non-blank "News Title" and "News Content" in ALL of your store's languages". Do I obliged to publish news in all of my 3 languages? Hire translator? They are all busy these days reading "Transcript".

[gernot]

Hello,
I've tried to install this add-on, v3.0.2, for the first time on my test site, hopefully according to the instructions (I did not have a tpl_index_default.php file yet, so all the files in the add-on could be copied as-is, I merely ensured they had correct ownership and permissions on my linux system).

The problem is that the DB initialization did not seem to work, so although the Admin menus for the add-on all appear fine, and I have the ability to create articles, which I did: a single Type 1 article in both English and Japanese (my two site languages). Unfortunately, when I activate the sidebox for New Type 1 in order to actually display on storefront, I get a "An error appeared, please refresh page" type of error in the location where the sidebox should appear.

Interestingly, no debug log is produced. However, when I set strict debugging, the on-page warning turns into the very clear indication that the DB tables were not created as expected:

1146 Table 'zencartshoptest.TABLE_BOX_NEWS_CONTENT' doesn't exist
in:
[SELECT nc.news_title, nc.news_content, n.* FROM TABLE_BOX_NEWS_CONTENT nc INNER JOIN TABLE_BOX_NEWS n ON n.box_news_id = nc.box_news_id AND nc.languages_id = 3 WHERE n.news_status = 1 AND now() >= n.news_start_date AND (n.news_end_date IS NULL OR now() <= n.news_end_date) ORDER BY n.news_start_date DESC, n.box_news_id DESC LIMIT 5]

Obviously, something went wrong, but I am unsure what best to do to fix the situation.
I also noticed that there was a file in the add-on not listed in the HTML instructions:

YOUR_ADMIN/includes/classes/observers/NewsBoxManagerAdminObserver.php

and that there was no observer in my ADMIN/classes directory yet, so that meant the new addition of a directory in my ADMIN folder.

Any other information required, please ask. I will wait before uninstalling and trying to re-install.

[gernot]

Hi lat9,
I did a comparison of the files described in the docs folder of the add-on for News Box Manager v3.0.2, and what files are actually included.
I think the main problem might be an incorrectly-named definition file? Not sure about the mismatch of the various files, so will wait for confirmation.

As listed in docs
(I marked as OK if the described files were actually there)
OK: /includes/classes/observers/auto.news_box_manager_metatags.php
Does not exist---wrong Name?: /includes/extra_datafiles/news_box_manager_file_database_names.php
OK: /includes/languages/english/all_articles.php
OK: /includes/languages/english/article.php
OK: /includes/languages/english/extra_definitions/news_box_manager_defines.php
OK: /includes/modules/news_box_format.php
OK: /includes/modules/pages/all_articles/header_php.php
OK: /includes/modules/pages/article/header_php.php
OK: /includes/modules/pages/more_news/header_php.php
OK: /includes/modules/pages/news_archive/header_php.php
OK: /includes/modules/sideboxes/news_box_sidebox.php
OK: /includes/templates/template_default/sideboxes/tpl_news_box_sidebox.php
Does not exist: /includes/templates/template_default/sideboxes/tpl_news_box_sidebox2.php
OK: /includes/templates/template_default/templates/tpl_modules_news_box_format.php
OK: /includes/templates/template_default/templates/tpl_all_articles_default.php
OK: /includes/templates/template_default/templates/tpl_article.php
OK: /includes/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/css/stylesheet_news_box_manager.css
OK: /includes/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/templates/tpl_index_default.php
OK: /YOUR_ADMIN/news_box_manager.php
OK: /YOUR_ADMIN/includes/auto_loaders/config.news_box_manager.php
OK: /YOUR_ADMIN/includes/extra_datafiles/news_box_manager_file_database_names.php
OK: /YOUR_ADMIN/includes/extra_datafiles/news_box_manager_sanitization.php
OK: /YOUR_ADMIN/includes/init_includes/init_news_box_manager_admin.php
OK: /YOUR_ADMIN/includes/languages/english/news_box_manager.php
OK: /YOUR_ADMIN/includes/languages/english/extra_definitions/news_box_manager_menu_name.php

Files existing but not described in docs:
/YOUR_ADMIN/news_box_manager1.php
/YOUR_ADMIN/news_box_manager2.php
/YOUR_ADMIN/news_box_manager3.php
/YOUR_ADMIN/news_box_manager4.php
/YOUR_ADMIN/includes/classes/observers/NewsBoxManagerAdminObserver.php
/YOUR_ADMIN/includes/functions/news_box_manager_functions.php
/YOUR_ADMIN/includes/init_includes/init_news_box_manager_install.pph
/YOUR_ADMIN/includes/init_includes/init_news_box_manager_update.php
Possibly wrong name?: /includes/extra_datafiles/news_box_file_database_names.php
/includes/modules/sideboxes/news_box_sidebox2.php
/includes/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/jscript/jscript_sidebox_slider.js

[lat9]

@gernot, thanks for pointing out the issues with the documentation. I'll be getting that updated.

Since there are no core-file overwrites in the plugin, you can safely copy all the files from the plugin's distribution to apply those updates.

That TABLE_BOX_NEWS_CONTENT value is defined in the admin's /extra_datafiles module.