Matt Marlor
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| 2/01/2006 12:18 AM |
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Hi Scott,
On my current ASP/PHP based site, I have setup some functionality that I believe would be useful to carry over into a DNN/NewsArticles based site.
Essentially what this functionality does is to do a distinct "LIKE" search against selected tables, using the article name as its criteria. This has a maximum result set of 20 and is ordered by relevancy.
So if I write an article on (for example) "Thomas the Tank Engine derails", I will then have a section underneath the article that looks like:
Related Pages for "Thomas the Tank Engine derails"
- 8 Dec 2005 - Matt M - Thomas the Tank Engine maintenance at poor levels :: Rank 80
- 6 Jul 2005 - Matt M - Budget for railways at lowest levels ever :: Rank 68
- 5 Aug 2005 - Bob - re: Thomas' carriages in disgusting state :: Rank 50
- 4 Aug 2005 - Albert - Did you know?? :: Rank 20
- 3 Mar 2005 - Matt M - Fat controller issues profit warning :: Rank 10
- 2 Mar 2005 - Thomas - Help!! :: Rank 8
The article/forum topics are hyperlinked to take the user to those pages when clicked.
I have found that this is an effective way to help users with research, along with moving them through the site rather than clicking to different areas.
From what I have seen of the DNN Search capabilities, it seems as though this could work very effectively for NewsArticles. Essentially anything which implemented the ISearchable interface could then be a result in this related pages functionality.
I will put a feedback in regarding this as well, however hopefully this will give you a good idea of what I'm talking about.
This is different from my other feedback requesting ActiveForums integration - the discussion link is also on my pages and is another great way to keep users clicking and interacting in a community.
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Scott McCulloch
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| 2/09/2006 4:45 PM |
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This is a great idea, I never really liked the manual way of linking articles as when the library of articles builds up it becomes difficult to search and authors don't bother.
What do others think about this idea?
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Scott McCulloch
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Mariette Knap
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| 2/10/2006 3:06 AM |
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| This is a great idea! If it is possible to include related articles from the Microsoft knowledge base I am even more happy..... |
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 Mariëtte Knap
www.smallbizserver.net |
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Scott McCulloch
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| 2/10/2006 4:01 AM |
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Heh the MS KB would probably be a custom add-on  |
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Scott McCulloch
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Barry Sweeney
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| 2/10/2006 5:05 AM |
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| Yes please, that would be really cool 8) |
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Mariette Knap
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| 2/10/2006 5:09 AM |
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Posted By smcculloch on 2/10/2006 4:01 AM Heh the MS KB would probably be a custom add-on
You will be a hero if you can make that |
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Mariëtte Knap
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Robert Axford
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| 2/11/2006 12:22 AM |
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Absolutely!
I'm all for any and every means of pulling site content out to the fore. It's a vital part of making pages truly useful to readers.
However, Scott.. building this would probably require the creation of the second module for article details? Presumably in order to get the related items displayed alongside the article details. I certainly see this as another good reason to work on such a details page module.
rob |
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Scott McCulloch
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| 2/12/2006 1:53 PM |
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It is more likely to be an additional token to the template, e.g. [RELATEDARTICLES] that would open up another template file and do the replacements as necessary. e.g. related.item.html.
Have you thought about customizing the details template like I mentioned in the other thread rob? You have complete control over the html. |
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Scott McCulloch
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Robert Axford
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| 2/13/2006 12:41 AM |
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Hi, yup, I've made up completely different set of templates for the module.
I sent you the site link in a private message. It was to go along with a thread in the simple gallery forum. Did you get that?.. a camera related site.... with test articles in place at the moment.
Rob |
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Scott McCulloch
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| 2/13/2006 2:27 PM |
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Posted By robax on 2/13/2006 12:41 AM
Hi, yup, I've made up completely different set of templates for the module.
I sent you the site link in a private message. It was to go along with a thread in the simple gallery forum. Did you get that?.. a camera related site.... with test articles in place at the moment.
Rob
Yep, I checked out the site, it looks great. On the details page you want ads embedded right? Why not put them in the template? |
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Scott McCulloch
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Robert Axford
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| 2/13/2006 2:40 PM |
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The google ads were the trigger for realising this was an issue, but the primary motivator is in providing a useful experience for the audience and this issue definitely degrades that across the many modules that are affected.
I'll try and bring it up somewhere on the 50 or so forums the core team has now spread the DNN implementer experience across.
I'll let you know what happens.
Rob |
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Matt Marlor
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| 2/16/2006 9:56 PM |
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| Glad you like it Scott; eager to see if you'll include it :-) |
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GlenWin
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| 10/23/2006 3:12 AM |
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Posted By smcculloch on 2/12/2006 1:53 PM It is more likely to be an additional token to the template, e.g. that would open up another template file and do the replacements as necessary. e.g. related.item.html.
Have you thought about customizing the details template like I mentioned in the other thread rob? You have complete control over the html.
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Scott McCulloch
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| 10/23/2006 4:26 AM |
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| This functionality is not available yet, basically, there are 2 tokens, [RELATEDARTICLES] (using like) and [RELATEDARTICLESBYAUTHOR] (shows the recent articles from an author) |
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Scott McCulloch
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Kevin Rimlinger
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| 10/23/2006 5:42 AM |
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| Might I suggest that the token be [RELATEDARTICLES:XXX] where XXX is the maximum number of related articles to retrieve. |
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http://www.homeofficeblues.com |
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Matt Marlor
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| 10/23/2006 6:37 PM |
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| Sounds like a good idea ... would save picking an arbitrary value or adding another option to the settings ... |
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Danny Tam
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| 10/23/2006 11:53 PM |
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I think this idea would be good, but I'd rather have a more robust method of finding relevance with articles. Not all articles titles would directly feature keywords relating to the topic. Some examples of this would be articles with titles that impose a question.
For example, 'Do you suffer from headaches?' could be a logical title for an article promoting a product such as Tylenol, however, Tylenol is not directly written in the title itself.
It would be a good idea if this can be used, as well, as a tags system where an administrator could write additional keywords that may be useful. |
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Scott McCulloch
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| 10/24/2006 12:56 AM |
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Hmm, getting a little confused now, we have the author one sorted out, something like:-
[AUTHORARTICLES:XXX]
But for the keyword one, it's a little more difficult, the current choices are:-
* Use search keywords to find similar (using DNN search) (not everyone has search turned on too)
* Use a like on title and description using the title of the current article.
* Allow author to choose articles?
* Display other articles in the same category? |
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Scott McCulloch
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Matt Marlor
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| 10/24/2006 1:02 AM |
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I think this idea would be good, but I'd rather have a more robust method of finding relevance with articles. Not all articles titles would directly feature keywords relating to the topic. Some examples of this would be articles with titles that impose a question.
For example, 'Do you suffer from headaches?' could be a logical title for an article promoting a product such as Tylenol, however, Tylenol is not directly written in the title itself.
It would be a good idea if this can be used, as well, as a tags system where an administrator could write additional keywords that may be useful.
It's reasonable to assume that the LIKE would be applied against both the title and the body of articles, and probably then ordered by date. This would mean that both title and body would be searched for 'Do you suffer from headaches?'. It's reasonable to think that other articles referencing Tylenol will be able to match against headaches ('Tylenol proven to cure headaches').
It probably would still be useful to some (such as yourself) to have additional keywords - but I'd like to have the option to turn it off so that authors can't enter them, and admins can choose whether or not to. |
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Matt Marlor
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| 10/24/2006 1:11 AM |
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Posted By smcculloch on 10/24/2006 12:56 AM
Hmm, getting a little confused now, we have the author one sorted out, something like:-
[AUTHORARTICLES:XXX]
But for the keyword one, it's a little more difficult, the current choices are:-
* Use search keywords to find similar (using DNN search) (not everyone has search turned on too)
* Use a like on title and description using the title of the current article.
* Allow author to choose articles?
* Display other articles in the same category?
DNN Search might not be a bad option - you could do a check as to whether or not it's turned on, and grey it out if it's not. I would only be using the title of the current article as the keywords.
If LIKE, I'd prefer it search on title and body (more meaningful results), although perhaps on all 3 would be better. There's a cost, but that would be why you would think before turning it on?
I don't like the author choosing articles - too much overhead once you have more than a few authors who may not be aware of the purpose of such an option, and going back to change would be a nightmare for an admin.
Other articles in the same category ... perhaps, but would you still do a LIKE?
What I had implemented on my old site was a LIKE against title, description, and body. It worked pretty smoothly provided you limited it to (for eg.) TOP 10 or so - you would definitely want to do [RELATEDARTICLES:XXX]. However the advantage of DNN Search, if it doesn't break on a given site, is that it would give access to related results from other modules - don't know how the results would be returned to you but might be difficult to format consistently? |
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