Description
Purpose
When you create or edit a forum, media gallery, blog, or wiki post, you have the option to select the "Make this page featured" check box. On wiki and media gallery pages, this is located at the bottom of the page. On forum posts it is on the Options tab. For blog posts, it is on the Advanced Options tab.
Selecting this option makes this content available for you to use with the Featured Content widget on a group page, application page, or dashboard.
Additionally to making content featured, you can upload an image to display with the content (or remove the image when you edit the content). Note that this upload has to occur from images already loaded onto the site for your user ID (such as Admin's files). To load these images, you would use the Add User File widget or use the option in the configuration dialog to upload a file.
Uploading or selecting the image here will add it to the featured content item.
Limitation
You need to have content marked for being featured in order for the widget to appear.
Where it works
This widget works on site home pages, group home pages, application pages, and post pages.
Configuration
- Navigate to Control Panel Dashboard > System Administration > Site Administration > Widget Studio > Enable/Disable widgets.
- If it is not already in Allowed widgets, move the widget from the Not Allowed widgets column to the Allowed widgets column.
- Click Edit Page, select and place the Featured Content widget.
- Click Configure on the widget menu bar. The configuration dialog appears.
You can make the following changes:
- Widget Title - The title of the widget.
- Layout - Selects the layout of content and associated images (see below).
- Large excerpt size - If a featured item's text is too large to display in the featured content area, an excerpt is generated based on the number of characters specified in the excerpt size. The "Large excerpt size" is used for the most recent featured item or when there are only two featured items.
- Small excerpt size - This excerpt size is used when there are more than two featured posts. It is used for all posts except for the most recent.
Additional configuration options
Layouts
Wide (two-column) layout
By default, the Featured Content List widget appears on the Telligent Enterprise home page and is configured using the wide (two-column) layout. This layout is ideal for placing the widget in a content region where it will take up the entire width of a page.
Medium (two-column, minimal space) layout
This layout is ideal for placing the Featured Content Widget in a region on a page that does not take up the entire width of the page.
This layout is ideal for placing the Featured Content widget in a left- or right-sidebar region of a page.
The difference between the two width formats is in how they position media or pictures in relation to the excerpt. With the wide format, images or media are positioned at the left of the excerpt and the text flows down and beneath the media. With the medium format, the image is displayed on top and the excerpt is rendered beneath it.
Excerpt size settings
Minimum setting of an excerpt size
If you set excerpt size to 0 (zero), this does not completely hide the excerpt. The 0 setting is not directly supported. (It would be a special case supported to not show any excerpt for this setting to work.)
When you try to use a 0 setting, the widget attempts to truncate the text as 0 characters, but Telligent Enterprise does not break words - so the widget looks for the next word boundary starting at position 0 (which would then be after the first word) and thus renders words.
When you configure large excerpt size, bear in mind that Telligent Enterprise may adjust the number of words or physical size in the excerpt to achieve a more balanced layout. As an example, if you configure large excerpt size to be 50 characters and have a total of four featured posts, the excerpt size of the primary featured item is increased to fill the empty space caused on its left by the height of the three posts on the right.
The final excerpt size also takes into account the size of any attachment in the primary featured item.
While it is possible to set two different excerpt size options in Sidebar mode, this is not a useful configuration because all featured content uses the same excerpt size.