What I am referring to are different places to view the article by category or author(s), so one section could be formatted in a certain way, the other in another surrounded by different modules.  Some examples would be to have certain ads for one view section and the would display a different set of ads...that or just simply color changes based on article categories...

Thanks,
Steve

I agree that another module would not be necessary.
We would need to add the Default View option to NA and
Extend the view options for Latest Articles.

These seem like pretty reasonable evolutionary enhancements to this CMS.

I think in the mix of all this we have made the concept a little more complicated.  NA does what it does now.  LA gets all of the display functionality (e.g. Templates, Listing of Articles, Detail View of articles).  Right now, LA is great for displaying article lists but not really as a place to view articles.

This is really important to me for two reasons:  1) Being able to view articles in the appropriate area of the site, 2) being able to use templates on the LA module.

To give you an idea of how this is effecting me now.  Have an NA module setup to manage articles on a site.  These articldes are viewable in a member's area as well as the public site.  I deal with securiy by checking the secure box on the articles.

On the private part of the site I have several different "sections" based on types or categories of information.  I use LA to show only the subjects I wish to show.  But when they click on view, they are taken to the NA module which is on a non-members-only page because of DNN security and the skin does not match the section they started in, nor does the URL, or menu structure.  This has always been very confusing to the user and admins.

It also can become a bit of a security (DNN security) issue as well.  So, if you have one central library of articles and use LA wherever you want to display a subset or all of those articles, and the article detail is displayed in that spot (with the option to Launch links or not) then you can have any security you want as well as any skin and url.

And as someone else mentioned, if you can have an option to select an LA or NA to display the article in, then you could place another LA for display purposes only on the perfect skin, popup, whatever and the original LA will send you there.

You really don't need a new module for each thing, LA, NA, display, etc.  Maybe it is just LA and NA and the LA module has an option of displaying detail or just does it is being sent the parameters of an article from another LA module.

I always try to not use the Articles module from Efficion as an examplie but this is the ONE function I have have always wished was in the NA module.  Articles allowed you to drop it anywhere you wanted and filter what showed. They didn't have an article manager module, you just entered stuff at any module and based on the categories it appeared where you wanted it to.  And it viewed in the same module you saw the listing in.

Sorry for the long post.

Dax

This is what I was trying to explain in my post...I failed miserably - thanks Dax! :)

Steve

If we go for the LA being the view module, then an optional ability to set a default home view would be a very important option.  It would only be an option.  The module could still function as an aggregator, or Navigation module showing a filtered list of articles.

One question I have for everyone.

If we had two LA modules on a page.  One showing a filtered list of articles, and the other setup as a view module defaulting to content from a specific module.  Would it work for people to set the view module as the target when clicking on articles from the first la module?

If the admin set the default home view to be a specific article then that would be the default home view.

This would basically be saying that this is being used as a view module.

If the admin left the module to show the article listing then the default home would go to that view.

In this case this could be considered a list module and possibly a view module. 
If it is not targeted to open in another LA module then it opens in its own space so it is both.

If it is targeted to open in a separate module it is acting as a list module only.

That is my take on it.

I think you have it right.  You would never put two LA modules on the same page for the sake of listing and then viewing the detail of a list item clicked in one la module to display in another on the same page.  The listing would be replaced by the detail of what they clicked in the same module in the same skin (with other modules next to it, unless they clicked launch links which would then use the admin skin and only display the LA module).

I would think you could have more then one LA on a page but the purpose would not be to interact, just to list different info and display the detail in the same module.  (Maybe latest entries in different categories that you want in different panes).

So something added to this that I had not brought up is the displaying the detail of an article in LA (meaning no listing just straight to the article).  I mentioned that would be a good step for using NA as a CMS as well.  But another concept would be to have a URL that always has the latest article.  So you would have the option of showing a listing in LA or an article in LA.  If you select the latter then you can specify a specific article or use criteria like we do in listing of filtering by date, category, etc.  Sort of like doing a listing as LA does not, but saying only display 1 article and in this new case we would be showing the detail, not the listing.

Dax

the article manager as a "separate" module is better than the current set up.

but at least for us the new structure should:
- allow for a single place where article detail is viewed (one unique url per article) not matter where from you have clicked on the article link
- keep the current urls in tack (the ones that google has indexed already)
- when you click update in article create...it currently takes you to the article detail for instant view of your article..this should continue to work
- right now authors can click on the edit button from article detail/list view etc (if you have placed the edit token) and it takes you to the article create screen - this should continue to work