New Features for the Webzine NEFARIOUS - Tales Of Mystery

EE Techniques • By Robert K. Foster

We’ve added some new features to our webzine NEFARIOUS - Tales Of Mystery over the last few weeks that are of interest to web designers.

Events Calendar

There is now an Events Calendar that was built using the Expression Engine software. It allows easy entry of events, using the command console, for Members who belong to a specific group. Once events have been entered there is an “Events Today” function that only shows Events happening on today’s actual date. An “Upcoming Events” function lists up to seven, the number can be easily adjusted, events that happen after today’s date. There is also a full page listing of events which allows a person to select specific months or specific days to display. This full page has a traditional Calendar view showing the month specific to the selected list.

To see the system in action go to the Events page at http://www.nefarious-tales.com/index.php?/events/ or see the Table of Contents web page at http://www.nefarious-tales.com/index.php?/mystery/toc/ to see the “Upcoming Events” list about a third of the way down the page.

The Table of Contents will also list “Events Today” at the top of the page above the Feature Stories on those days when events are occuring. We also included the code to automatically generate links to MapQuest maps based on the information entered for an Event.

Banner Advertising

We have also developed and implemented using Expression Engine a full banner advertisement system on the NEFARIOUS site. This allows the administrator of the web site to easily add affiliate banners using the same interface as used for weblog entries. You simply copy and paste the necessary code for an affiliate banner into the required fields of a weblog entry for a weblog specifically designed for containing banner advertisements.

One added benefit is that text links can be automatically generated from the same data that is used for the Banner Ads. To see the text ads go to the Table of Contents web page at http://www.nefarious-tales.com/index.php?/mystery/toc/ about a third of the way down the page on the right.

The administrator of the site can also create lists that display Ads by category or by type of Ad. Currently there is no counter for number of impressions but Ads can be displayed for an exact length of time by using the entry expiration date in the weblog. This helps with affiliate banner ads that expire on a certain date and thus have no need to be displayed after that date.

Friday, March 23, 2007
Posted by Robert K. Foster on 03/23 at 02:16 PM
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