0203778988191331<custom:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-710042" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2025-11-13T18:58:03ZA few accessibility issues were found in supportive text regions including A-Z Indexes, Anchor Link pages, Document Lists, and more.Minor color contrast issues addressed in this CSS update12<h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Issue:</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">A few color contrast issues were identified in the following elements:</p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>Sectional letter headings on the A-Z index page</li> <li>Article spotlight metadata on flex rows using the extended brand colors</li> <li>Back to Top anchor links on the A-Z index pages</li> <li>Document List Item metadata</li> <li>Document List sort buttons when set to current or in hover and focus states</li> <li>Inline multimedia metadata</li> <li>Quiz - button hover state inheriting the wrong color</li> </ul> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Impact:</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The core.css file in relation to the following page types:</p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>A-Z Index pages (page template)</li> <li>Flex Layouts Pages (both main and internal page templates)</li> <li>Anchor Link pages (page template)</li> <li>Document Highlights (static) (component template)_</li> <li>Document List pages</li> <li>Multimedia Item - Inline With Text (component template)</li> <li>Quiz - content type</li> </ul> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Fixes and changes:</h3> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>content.azindex.less: the node .a-z-list h2 { } color property was updated to the HEX value of #555.</li> <li>content.article.less: <ul> <li>branches have been added to provide additional formatting conditions to the metadata when other branding background colors are used on Flex Layout pages.</li> <li>fixes for .active, :hover, and :focus states on sort buttons, additionally the rounded corner issue has been remediated on the left buttons.</li> </ul> </li> <li>content.list.anchors.less: anchor links now formatted to use MN Blue (#003865) and have had their underline formatting restored]</li> <li>content.document-list.less: the metadata text color has been updated to #666666</li> <li>content.gallery.less: metadata text color for inline media updated to #333333</li> <li>content.quiz.css: #answer button fixed with a hover and focus state of #ffffff</li> </ul> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Action required:</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Agencies should republish their core.css assembly to pick up these changes.  The quiz CSS page assembly has been re-published for you.</p>Michael Tangen7100422777212025-11-13T19:29:05Z7898878991191331<custom:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-710025" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2025-10-27T18:07:58ZWe've addressed a few minor accessibility issues in document list pages where icon-based links were missing text equivalents and some minor functionality improvements in Document List - DataGrids.Minor accessibility and functionality updates for document list pages and quiz content12<h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Issue:</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Accessibility and functionality issues were found in three templates, two of the document list component templates and the quiz component template:</p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>The default sort order does not properly populate on Document List - DataGrid, hard-coded to "asc".</li> <li>Document Lists that use a file extension-based thumbnail are missing text inside their links, creating a minor accessibility issue for non-sighted users.</li> <li>Home Icon on the Quiz page is missing descriptive text for screen reader users.</li> </ul> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Impact:</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The following component template building blocks have been updated:</p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>Document List - DataGrid (component template building block)</li> <li>Document List (component template building block)</li> <li>Quiz (component template building block)</li> </ul> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Fixes and changes:</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Issues with missing descriptive text have been remedied and the default sort order for DataGrid based Document Lists has been resolved to honor the sort order in the list configuration component.</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Action required:</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Users are strongly recommended to republish any pages using the following content types:</p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>Document List - DataGrid</li> <li>Document List</li> <li>Quiz</li> </ul>Michael Tangen7100252777212025-10-27T18:08:14Z7898878991<custom:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-710009" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2025-10-17T17:58:03ZSites and pages using this page template and its associated assets have been converted.The antiquated page template "Home Landing Page" is finally retired12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">A handful of pages in various sites within Tridion had still been using the antiquated page template "Home Landing Page" along with some of its related component templates.  We've gone through each of the pages and updated them to use the Flex Layout page templates while keeping any customized styling in place.  This page template and its associated assets have all been removed from the system as well as any references to them on Showcase.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">No action is required from any of our users.</p>Michael Tangen7100092777212025-10-17T18:49:27Z7898878991<custom:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-710006" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2025-10-10T17:58:03ZBusiness hours now display in the template and additional CSS hooks provided for formatting options.A minor fix and update to the Location page template12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Within the SDL Tridion Sites content management system, we've identified a small bug in the Location page template. Any data that you may have entered in the Business Hours field does not display on the page.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">We've taken this opportunity to not only fix this issue, but to add additional improvements to the page type and allow for greater formatting control. These additional improvements include:</p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>Telephone numbers are now clickable "tel" links, allowing mobile users to tap the phone number and place a call using their mobile device. <br /></li> <li>The Business Hours field is now a multi-line, rich text field, allowing you to display your business hours on more than one line along with basic formatting (bold, italics, and underline). <br /></li> <li>Each line of the location details (located adjacent to the photograph) is now encapsulated with tags and specific class names, allowing CSS developers to apply formatting to any of the location details. For example, one can create custom CSS that applies custom formatting to your Business Hours to make it stand apart from the other location details.</li> </ul> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">No action is required of you, but you may wish to republish any pages using the Location page template that include business hours in your location details.</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Issue:</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">the business hours field is not displaying on the location page type</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Impact:</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">all location pages in Tridion</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Fixes and changes:</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Changes to the BusinessHours field in the Location schema:</p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>Checked Enable for inline editing</li> <li>Height of text area: 2 rows</li> <li>Allow Rich Text Formatting: <ul> <li>Bold, Italics, Underline, Insert Character, Current Element, Source, Preview</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Changes to Location component template building block:</p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>Added in the missing Business Hours field into the template underneath the email link</li> <li>Each data element in the location info (location name, address, address2, city state zip, telephone, email, business hours, and directions button) now have class names that can be "hooked" into for specific CSS formatting</li> <li>Telephone numbers are now formatted with a tel: link, allowing mobile users to press and call that number on their device.</li> </ul> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Notes about the change:</p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>The change in the schema will not affect any existing data users may have in their location components.</li> <li>The business hours field will now allow users to use <strong><em>basic</em></strong> rich text formatting, including bold, italics, and underline, along with special characters. No other HTML allowed.</li> </ul> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Actions users need to take:</h3> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>Users do not need to take any action unless they wish to ensure their business hours display and/or if they wish to take advantage of the formattable regions within the location details.</li> </ul> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The HTML and CSS structure of the location information:</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><code>&lt;div class="location-address margin-bottom"&gt; <br /></code> <code>&lt;div class="address"&gt;</code><code><br /></code><code>&lt;div class="location-name"&gt;</code><code>MNIT Central</code><code>&lt;/div&gt; <br /></code> <code>&lt;div class="location-address-1"&gt;</code><code>Harold E. Stassen State Office Building</code><code>&lt;/div&gt; <br /></code> <code>&lt;div class="location-address-2"&gt;</code><code>600 Robert Street N.</code><code>&lt;/div&gt; <br /></code> <code>&lt;div class="location-city-state-zip"&gt;</code><code>Saint Paul, MN 55101</code><code>&lt;/div&gt; <br /></code> <code>&lt;div class="location-phone"&gt;</code><code>&lt;a href="tel:651-297-1111"&gt;</code><code>651-297-1111</code><code>&lt;/a&gt;</code><code>&lt;/div&gt; <br /></code> <code>&lt;div class="location-email"&gt;</code><code>&lt;a href="mailto:user@state.mn.us"&gt;user</code><code>@state.mn.us</code><code>&lt;/a&gt;</code><code>&lt;/div&gt;</code><code><br /> &lt;/div&gt; <br /></code> <code>&lt;div class="business-hours"&gt; <br /></code> <code>Business Hours:&lt;br&gt; <br /></code> <code>&lt;span class="hours"&gt; <br /></code> <code>{{ your business hours content here }} <br /></code> <code>&lt;/span&gt; <br /></code> <code>&lt;/div&gt; <br /></code> <code>&lt;div class="directions"&gt; <br /></code> <code>&lt;a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/directions?to=44.953631,-93.09672#map=18/44.953631/-93.09672"</code><code>target="_blank" class="location-directions-link"&gt;</code><code>&lt;span class="fa fa-car"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;</code><code>Get directions</code><code>&lt;/a&gt;</code><code>&lt;/div&gt;</code></p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><code>&lt;/div&gt;</code></p>Michael Tangen7100062777212025-10-17T18:49:27Z7898878991<custom:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-710005" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2025-08-12T17:58:03ZThis patch is all behind-the-scenes updates that will not impact users visually or by way of functionality.Minor changes to the Internal General Content template and the top nav JavaScript12<h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Internal General Content page template building block</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><span style="font-size: 11px;">Changing the evaluation statement for both General Content and search-related component templates included in the page assemblies.</span></p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Top navigation JavaScript (part of the core.js package)</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">In the top navigation, the following element has been moved outside the UL tag but still within the nav tag:</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><code>&lt;div tabindex="0" class="sr-only"&gt; Menu help: you can navigate through the menu using your arrow keys or tab/shift-tab key. Use the spacebar to toggle and move to sub-menus.&lt;/div&gt;</code></p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">File affected: layout.navigation.top.js.</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Action items for our customers</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Customers do <strong>NOT</strong> need to republish their pages or the core.js file. The MNIT Web Team will republish everyone's core.js file. If any customers have a localized version of their layout.navigation.top.js file, they will <strong><em>not</em></strong> receive this update.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The change is primarily targeted towards internal general content pages that include the use of a variety of search components/templates. This change expands the accepted search templates on the page to allow for any component template that relates to search.</p>Michael Tangen7100052777212025-10-17T18:49:26Z78988191331<custom:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-710003" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2025-07-22T17:58:03ZIn this patch we've updated all of the page templates and a number of the component templates to address some accessibility issues that have arisen as WCAG continues to evolve.Accessibility improvements in templates12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">In response to newer web content accessibility standards, all page and component templates are being updated to address a few issues and provide further accessibility improvements. These changes include:</p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>removing unnecessary tab-index attributes from content regions,</li> <li>adding the "main" role attribute to content regions lacking a proper region tag,</li> <li>moving the id="content" attribute to the first main content region on the page,</li> <li>updated aria-label and role attributes on search-related form tags and on all nav regions,</li> </ul> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">There are no visual or functionality changes to the templating, so you will notice no change in appearance. All of the changes are in the HTML markup and directly benefit users that rely on assistive technology.</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">To receive this update</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><strong><em>You do not need to republish your entire site all at once</em></strong>. As you re-publish your pages, these updates will automatically be pushed out. We recommend republishing your pages individually or in small batches as not to overwhelm the system or clog up the queue for other normal publish requests.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><strong>DO</strong> <strong>NOT</strong> <strong>REPUBLISH YOUR SITE FROM THE</strong> <strong><em>ROOT</em></strong> <strong>DIRECTORY OR ANY STRUCTURE GROUPS.</strong> When you publish structure groups (the purple folders), the publish actions take <strong><em>much</em></strong> longer and hold up the queue. Additionally, if you publish structure groups, you may be unknowingly publishing out pages you wish to remain unpublished. Always publish single pages or groups of pages in the same structure group.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">You may also wish to schedule some of these publish actions after hours. To schedule a publish action:</p> <ol xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>Select the page(s) you wish to publish, then click Publish (or right-click Publish),</li> <li>Choose "Publish Content Later" from the Publish Settings tab,</li> <li>Choose a date and time <strong>after</strong> business hours,</li> <li>Then click the publish button.</li> </ol> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><strong>What else should be re-published?</strong></p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">You will also need to republish your header, navigation, subsite navigation, and footer components. Please be sure to republish your subsite header, navigation, and footer components.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><strong>What about dynamic components like articles and press releases?</strong></p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">You do not need to republish your articles, press releases, documents, or other dynamic list components. You will, however, want to republish those pages that serve up your dynamic content.</p>Michael Tangen7100032777212025-10-17T18:49:24Z7898878991<custom:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-710002" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2025-05-29T17:58:03ZThis fix resolves various styling issues related to the background color of various objects in and out of focused states.CSS formatting fixes for search results pages12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">This fix resolves various styling issues related to the background color of various objects in and out of focused states.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Files updated:</p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>content.search.less</li> <li>layout.page.less</li> </ul>Michael Tangen7100022777212025-10-17T18:49:23Z7898878991<custom:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-710000" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2025-05-23T17:58:03ZThis patch fixes an issue with the home link in the breadcrumb navigation as well as establish some additional padding for the breadcrumb.Fixes for breadcrumb bugs12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">This fix addresses a bug in the breadcrumb navigation where the home link either incorrectly sets to very root of site or renders as a JavaScript object.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Files updated:</p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>layout.page.less  // added margin to each breadcrumb &lt;li&gt; tag</li> <li>layout.navigation.left.js. // added in code to grab context URL to properly set up the home link </li> </ul>Michael Tangen7100002777212025-10-17T18:49:23Z7898878991<custom:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-709998" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2025-05-13T17:58:03ZFixes issue where first level structure groups are hidden for the sake of creating a small menu on the left-hand side (e.g. putting something like "About Us" on the left nav but keeping it out of the top nav. Fixes for the top navigation JavaScript addressing orphaned menus12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Fixes issue where first level structure groups are hidden for the sake of creating a small menu on the left-hand side (e.g. putting something like "About Us" on the left nav but keeping it out of the top nav. </p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">File updated:  layout.navigation.top.js</p>Michael Tangen7099982777212025-10-17T18:49:24Z7898878991<custom:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-709999" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2025-05-13T17:58:03ZAn update to shim in FontAwesome version 6 social media and brand icons into our current version of FontAwesome, permitting us to update icons like the new X.com icon.Newly updated social media icons for your footer12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">This update is a pretty significant change for the footers of Tridion websites.  In addition to the changeover from Twitter to X, the footer now supports other social media platforms and has removed older, antiquated platforms no longer available.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">This update shims in social media icons from FontAwesome 6 into our present version 4.7.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Files updated:</p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>fa.custom.less. // new icons and loading in brands font</li> <li>layout.page.less // adjusting heading size on Connect and Subscribe</li> <li>layout.footer.social-media.js  // updated the array to include new social networks and to swap the 'fa' class for 'fa-brands'.</li> </ul> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Files added:</p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>fa-brands-400.ttf // place in "fa-6" subfolder of "fonts"</li> </ul> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">NO change to the footer template building blocks.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">To receive this update:</p> <ol xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>Republish your core.css page assembly along with any subsite core stylesheets.</li> <li>Republish your core.js file</li> </ol>Michael Tangen7099992777212025-10-17T18:49:20Z78988191331<custom:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-709997" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2025-05-02T17:58:03ZFixes that address usability and accessibility issues with the JavaScript that helps generate the top and left navigation.New fixes for the top and left navigation JavaScript12<ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>layout.navigation.top.js - fix for keyboard navigating issues where hidden directories were preventing a user from proceeding past that hidden directory <br /></li> <li>layout.navigation.left.js - fix for subsites or other paths that have a child path that is the same as another child path elsewhere in the site. <br /></li> <li>Adjusted and optimized left nav and the breadcrumb population <br /></li> <li>Minor spacing issue addressed in breadcrumb <br /></li> <li>layout.header.js - fix for the how do I toggle box, allowing users more ways of closing out the opened view by way of tabbing out, clicking outside, hitting escape, and the usual button toggle.</li> </ul>Michael Tangen7099972777212025-10-17T18:49:19Z7898878991/showcase/assets/change-log-feature-image_tcm12-280275.jpg/showcase/assets/change-log-thumb_tcm12-280276.jpg<custom:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-536145" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2022-08-01T17:07:52ZWe have recently updated jQuery from version 3 to version 3.6.jQuery updated to version 3.612<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">We have upgraded jQuery from version 3.0 to 3.6.  If your jQuery-based apps are experiencing issues as a result of this upgrade, please open up a support ticket and assign it to the MNIT web team.  Thank you!</p>Michael Tangen53614512092777212022-08-01T17:14:37Z7898878991/showcase/assets/change-log-feature-image_tcm12-280275.jpg/showcase/assets/change-log-thumb_tcm12-280276.jpg<custom:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-436067" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2020-06-15T19:21:50ZWe've refreshed how course content is displayed and have put in some further enhancements to conditionally remove content that has not been filled out.New conditional displays and CSS updates for the course template12<div style="float: right; margin: 0px 0px 20px 20px; padding: 10px; background:#e2e2e2; border-radius: 7px; border: 1px solid #888; width: 40%;" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p><strong>To update your course list/detail pages</strong> to this new styling and template:</p> <ul> <li>Republish your core.css page assembly (found in the 050 level in Root &gt; CSS)</li> <li>Republish the course pages in your 050 website publication</li> </ul> </div> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">We're happy to announce some great updates to the Course component/page templates to improve the overall appearance and behavior of course content within Tridion. As with many improvements, this one comes off the heels of a work order request to introduce a few necessary improvements and enhancements to how courses are displayed in both list and detail view.</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Conditional display</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">This content type was originally developed for MMB's Enterprise Talent Development website, targeting very specific sets of information that they wanted to share about each course. But as we know, not all courses are created equal — some have date ranges, some do not, some don't have any date associated with them.  Additionally some do not have associated attributes such as competencies, skills, or other descriptive course attributes.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">To address this and give you a little more flexibility, we've made the optional fields conditional in the template. Now, when there are fields that you've left blank (such as the start or end date of a course), those sections of code will not render out and are left out of the display.  </p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Improved layout</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">We've also improved the overall look and feel of the courses page — both its list and detail views.  We've cleaned up the individual course listings and made it easier to distinguish the registration deadline, start, and end date/time of the course (if present).  Additionally, the headings have been fixed and reformatted to improve overall accessibility compliance and logical size adjustments as well.</p> <div class="row margin-bottom" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <div class="col-sm-6"><strong>List view: <br /> <a href="/showcase/assets/screencap-course-list_tcm12-436030.png" title="screencap-course-list" target="_blank" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:title="screencap-course-list"><img src="/showcase/assets/screencap-course-list_tcm12-436030.png" title="screencap of course list view" alt="screencap of course list view" style="width: 350px; height: 427px;" xlink:title="screencap-course-list" /></a></strong></div> <div class="col-sm-6"><strong>Detail view: <br /> <a href="/showcase/assets/screencap-course-detail_tcm12-436031.png" title="screencap-course-detail" target="_blank" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:title="screencap-course-detail"><img src="/showcase/assets/screencap-course-detail_tcm12-436031.png" title="screencap course detail view" alt="screencap course detail view" style="width: 350px; height: 455px;" xlink:title="screencap-course-detail" /></a></strong></div> </div> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">If you use the course content type on Tridion and wish to receive these updates you only need do two things:</p> <ol xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>Republish the CSS page(s) in your respective 050 Website publication within Root &gt; CSS <br /></li> <li>Republish your course page(s).  You do not need to republish the individual courses.</li> </ol> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">If you need assistance, please submit a work order request and we'll gladly help you out.</p>Michael Tangen4360671209789932777212020-06-16T15:23:13Z7898878991/showcase/assets/change-log-feature-image_tcm12-280275.jpg/showcase/assets/change-log-thumb_tcm12-280276.jpg<custom:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-436125" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2020-04-02T15:00:00ZWe've added in new fields and formatting options for the Flex Row giving you even more visual control.New improvements to the flex row configuration12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The Flex Row content configuration has given you loads of options for configuring the layout of your content, including column layout configuration and the background color.  Additionally, there are CSS hooks for each row number allowing you some level of granular control over the formatting using CSS.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">With the rapid, near-overnight development of the <a href="https://mn.gov/covid19/" target="_blank">COVID-19 response website</a> developed by MNIT IT staff in cooperation with the Governor's Office and the Department of Health, there were a few imperative formatting needs to fulfill the visual requirements.</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">New background colors</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">In addition to the options of light and dark gray, the branded blue, and white, we've added five new options that draw from <a href="https://mn.gov/portal/brand/style-guide/colors/" target="_blank">the official MN branding</a>:</p> <div class="row margin-bottom" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <div class="col-xs-3" style="background:#78BE21">branded green</div> <div class="col-xs-3" style="background:#9BCBEB">accent sky blue</div> <div class="col-xs-3" style="background:#F5E1A4">accent cream</div> <div class="col-xs-3" style="background:#FFC845">accent gold</div> </div> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The fifth option is labeled "custom" which opens up a new set of opportunities for additional formatting and control.</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Custom CSS classes now supported</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">If the background color options aren't sufficient enough or you need additional levels of control, select "custom" from the list of background colors and then enter the class(es) that you would like added to that row.  For example, let's say you want the row to include the following classes:  gradient-background, white-text, rounded-corners.  You would enter them into the custom CSS class text field like this:  </p> <p style="padding-left: 15px;" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">gradient-background  white-text rounded-corners</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Just type in all the class names with no commas and no periods.  Each class name should be separated by a space.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Use the custom class option if you're using a commonly shared set of styles between multiple flex rows throughout your page/site.</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Custom Row ID for further control</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Similar to the custom class options, you can assign a unique row ID attribute to your flex row.  This is particularly useful for one-off, unique styles or for providing specific hooks to latch onto with client-side scripting like jQuery or vanilla JavaScript.  </p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Naturally these custom class and row ID options require a certain level of familiarity with CSS and/or JavaScript.  If you're not comfortable with CSS, JavaScript, or don't have permission to edit your agency's CSS, it's best that you leave these fields alone.  If you need assistance customizing your content, open a Work Order Request and we'll gladly help you out.</p>Michael Tangen4361251209789922777212020-06-16T17:04:09Z7898878991/showcase/assets/header-alert-banner_tcm12-436209.jpg/showcase/assets/header-alert-banner-thumb_tcm12-436208.jpg<custom:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-436286" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2020-03-30T19:12:32ZIn the wake of COVID-19, our customers needed a way to convey brief, important, and time-sensitive information across their site. Introducing: the header alert banner.Provide succinct time-sensitive information above your page header12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">We've introduced a brand new content type called "Header Alert Banner" — a thin, light-weight banner that spans the width of the browser and sits above your site's header.  It persists on all pages, is closable by the end user, and uses cookies to remember the user's choice to close the banner.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">It's highly configurable and allows for a variety of options.  To learn more about this new content type, check out the video we've created that covers how the content type works, how to configure it, and some of the customization options available.  Beneath this video is a list of the component fields and what they do.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iVSZq0qqx2A" frameborder="0" /></p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">What do I need to do to get this new content  type?</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Absolutely nothing.  You should have this content type available to you now.  The only thing you'll need to do is republish your website's CSS page assemblies to get the new style updates that handle the formatting of the Header Alert Banner.  You may also need to publish out the cookies.js JavaScript library, which is located at 050 Website &gt; Root &gt; js &gt; frameworks &gt; cookies — and publish out the frameworks.cookies.js page assembly if it's not yet published.</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Header Alert Banner fields and their values</h3> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li><strong>Banner enabled:</strong>  allows you to toggle the banner on and off.</li> <li><strong>Banner cookie name:</strong>  a unique identifier (assigned by you) to ensure a unique cookie is placed in the user's cache.</li> <li><strong>Banner text:</strong>  a basic rich text field that allows you to put a short amount of text, a hyperlink or two, and some basic formatting options for the message inside the banner.</li> <li><strong>Alert icon:</strong>  an optional icon that will precede your message should you select one.</li> <li><strong>Expiration:</strong>  the number of days in which the cookie will expire</li> <li><strong>Stylesheet override:</strong>  the alert banner defaults to a yellow background.  Advanced CSS users can use this field to place their own CSS overrides.  If you are not proficient with CSS, do not use this field and leave it blank.</li> </ul> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">After the stylesheet override field are a variety of fields that allow you to configure offset values if your layout is highly customized and has altered the positioning of the navigation, search, and the header itself.  Please leave these fields blank unless you know what you're doing.  There are override fields that allow you to compensate the positioning of the navigation, body, and search blocks for both mobile and desktop views.</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Creating a Header Alert Banner</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">To create a Header Alert Banner for use across your website, the process is quite simple.</p> <ol xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>First create a new component using the "Header Alert Banner" schema.  We suggest putting it in the same folder as your site's Header component.</li> <li>Next fill in all of the required fields: <ol type="a"> <li>Name your component something that will help you know its purpose at a glance </li> <li>Enable your banner (if you're ready to use it right away)</li> <li>Give your banner a unique cookie name (alpha-numeric characters only please)</li> <li>Enter a small amount of text in the banner text field.  Limit it to one or two sentences at most.  KEEP IT SHORT!</li> <li>(Optionally) choose an icon to precede your text, and</li> <li>Set the expiration time of the cookie (a number in days)</li> </ol> </li> <li>Save and close the component.</li> <li>Open up your header component, scroll to the bottom where there's a component link field for the Header Alert Banner, and load your new alert banner into that field.  Save and close.</li> <li>Republish your header and you're good to go! We strongly suggest publishing just to staging FIRST, preview your work, and then if everything looks good, publish to live.</li> </ol> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">You may need to republish your CSS if you have not already done so if your alert banner looks off. </p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">If you have questions or would like help setting up a Header Alert Banner for your Tridion site, submit a Work Order Request and we'll do our best to help you out!</p>Michael Tangen4362867899212092020-06-16T20:50:22Z78988This Change Log update has a few changes and fixed batched together with some new content display options and some minor CSS fixes for Feature Rotators.eng78991/showcase/assets/change-log-feature-image_tcm12-280275.jpg/showcase/assets/change-log-thumb_tcm12-280276.jpg<custom:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-343791" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2018-06-27T15:19:40ZThis Change Log update has a few changes and fixed batched together with some new content display options and some minor CSS fixes for Feature Rotators.New article spotlights, CSS fixes, and Sample Code content12<h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">New Article Spotlight display options</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">At the request of MNIT Communications, we've added three new Article Spotlight templates to the array of options for displaying your article lists. Article Spotlights are essentially list previews of your articles, giving you the ability to display a set number of your latest articles on a landing page.  Now you have three new display options for use on Flex Layout pages:</p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li><strong>Article Spotlight List (with thumbnails)</strong> — this is an extension of the the existing spotlight list template but adds adjacent thumbnails next to each article item. <br /> <br /></li> <li><strong>Article Spotlight List Row (with thumbnails)</strong> — this is similar to the previous item, but the major difference being that it is designated as its own row of items.  Use this template if you want the list to take up your entire content row.  <em>You will still need to use a Flex Row Configuration component to configure the row options!</em> <br /> <br /></li> <li><strong>Article Spotlight List Row (feature image and list)</strong> — this is a completely new display option, which does the following:  displays the feature image (not the thumbnail) along with the headlines and short description <em>for the first article item</em>, and then adjacent to it will list out the remaining article items with no thumbnails.  Example:  if you configured your article spotlight to list out 5 of the most recent articles, the first and most recent item would display to the left with its main image and headlines, and to the right a list of the next four article items would appear. Like the previous spotlight template, this one requires its own row and its own Flex Row Configuration component to establish row color and its single-column configuration. <br /></li> </ul> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">To see examples of the templates in action, visit our <a href="https://mn.gov/showcase/content-types/article/article-spotlights.jsp" title="sample spotlights">sample article spotlight page</a>.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><strong>What do I need to do to get these new templates?</strong>  Nothing. Everyone with access to current Article Spotlight templates have access to these new templates.</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Minor CSS fix for Feature Rotators</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">New CSS fixes have been rolled out for Feature Rotators, which addresses the positioning of the number controls, particularly when the viewport size dips below the 1200px threshold. </p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><strong>What do I need to do to get this fix?</strong>  You may need to publish out your core.css page assembly (at the 050 level in the CSS structure group) and any sub-site CSS page assemblies that you may have.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><strong>IMPORTANT: </strong> if you have any custom CSS that overrides the formatting and/or positioning of the rotator controls (the start/stop and number buttons), you may need to double-check that they are positioned properly.</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">New content type:  Sample Code</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">We also have another new content type that has come at the request of both MNIT Communications and the State Branding team.  This new content type is called "Sample Code" and allows you to present sample HTML, CSS, and/or JavaScript along with the ability to preview it and copy the code samples.  You can see a sample of it in action at our <a href="https://mn.gov/showcase/test/sample-code.jsp" title="sample code">test sample code page</a>.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">We have opted to restrict access to this content type, as the vast majority of our customers and users have no need for this particular content type. But should your agency find itself in a position where this content type would be handy for sharing code snippets with your end-users, contact Michael Tangen in MNIT's AppDev team to talk further about the ways this new content type might help your agency out.  To request access, submit a Work Order Request and have it assigned to Michael Tangen.</p>Michael Tangen343791277721789937899212092019-06-20T18:53:49Z78988We've patched up the CSS with a couple small changes including a new formatting option for your flex row configuration components.eng78991/showcase/assets/change-log-feature-image_tcm12-280275.jpg/showcase/assets/change-log-thumb_tcm12-280276.jpg<tcdl:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-314585" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2017-10-11T16:11:59ZWe've patched up the CSS with a couple small changes including a new formatting option for your flex row configuration components.Some CSS updates and a new flex background color option12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Some changes we've made are now available for all of our SDL Web customers.  First up, we've fixed a minor CSS bug that prevented the "skip to content" link from displaying.  Now when you hit your tab key, the first tab into the page will display the "skip to content" link, giving users the option to skip down to the content. This option has always been available to our screen reader users, but now is visually present when tabbed into that element.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">If you are wondering why the words "skip to content" are not always visible, the answer is pretty straight forward.  Years ago when mobile device screen real estate was minimal and you had no means of quickly scrolling through content, a "skip to content" link made it significantly easier to navigate past the header and menu and right down to content without having to repeatedly press the down arrow key on your flip phone.  But technology has significantly changed with the prolific presence of smartphones and other touch-driven devices, rendering the need for a visible link nearly irrelevant. </p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The second, more notable addition is a new formatting option that's been added to the flex row configurations — light.  This new light gray (specifically the hex value #eceff3) gives you one more option in the arsenal of configuring your flex pages.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">You do not need to do anything to inherit these changes.  All stylesheets have been re-published and the new schema change to the flex row configuration automatically trickles down to everyone.</p>Michael Tangen314585277721789937899212092017-10-11T16:24:32Z78988New updates now available in the DataGrid that allow linking in your spreadsheet displays.eng78991/showcase/assets/change-log-feature-image_tcm12-280275.jpg/showcase/assets/change-log-thumb_tcm12-280276.jpg<tcdl:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-309280" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2017-08-25T13:52:13ZNew updates now available in the DataGrid that allow linking in your spreadsheet displays.Links now supported in DataGrids12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><img src="/showcase/assets/datagrid-url-links_tcm12-309278.png" title="datagrid-url-links" alt="datagrid-url-links" style="width: 80px; height: 140px;" class="photoRightWithBorder" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:title="datagrid-url-links" />New changes rolled out yesterday to our DataGrid functionality that now allows for hyperlinking in our standard DataGrids.  These changes include an addition of a data type in the configuration schema and a URL conversion function in the template. Allow me to explain succinctly how to create hyperlinked URLs in your DataGrid.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">To first take advantage of this feature, you must ensure that one of your columns of data is a valid URL (e.g. https://mn.gov/showcase/) and with nothing else in that column.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><img src="/showcase/assets/datagrid-url-schema_tcm12-309279.png" title="datagrid-url-schema" alt="datagrid-url-schema" style="width: 323px; height: 85px;" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:title="datagrid-url-schema" /></p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Second, in the configuration component that defines and configures your DataGrid, you have to set a data type for the hyperlinked column.  Within the column definitions, look for the form field labeled "Data Type".  We've added an attribute labeled "url", which allows you to take that column and convert it to a hyperlink.  <strong>IMPORTANT: that column must be a URL</strong> — it takes the value of that column and converts it to a hyperlink containing that value.  If a cell contains "http://mn.gov", it will convert it to a hyperlink — &lt;a href="http://mn.gov" target="_blank"&gt;http://mn.gov&lt;/a&gt;.  However if you do NOT have a URL in that cell and instead have text, like "Cell Content" for example, it would attempt to convert it to a link and would look like this:  &lt;a href="Cell Content"&gt;Cell Content&lt;/a&gt;.  So make sure that you're selecting the data type "url" for ONLY data that is indeed a valid URL.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><strong>To acquire this update:</strong> all you need do is republish your DataGrid page.  The "url" attribute should already appear when you open up a DataGrid configuration component.  If you do not see it, you may need to clear your browser's cache and/or start with a new browser session.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Modified files:</p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>DataGrid template building block</li> <li>DataGrid embedded DataField schema</li> </ul>Michael Tangen3092801209789922777212017-08-25T14:26:53Z78988We've made improvements to the scripts that handle top and left navigation to both reduce render time and to eliminate errors.eng78991/showcase/assets/change-log-feature-image_tcm12-280275.jpg/showcase/assets/change-log-thumb_tcm12-280276.jpg<tcdl:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-303749" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2017-08-04T16:13:35ZWe've made improvements to the scripts that handle top and left navigation to both reduce render time and to eliminate errors.Improvements and patches to top and left navigation scripts12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><img src="/showcase/assets/TinyGrab%20Screen%20Shot%208-4-17%2C%208.12.40%20AM_tcm12-305609.png" title="screenshot-mobile-menu-highlight" alt="screenshot-mobile-menu-highlight" style="width: 400px; height: 187px;" class="photoRightWithBorder" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:title="screenshot-mobile-menu-highlight" />Today we released some updates to all of our customers on SDL Web (Tridion), updates that both help reduce page render time as well as eliminates errors when a page has been added into the system but your navigation component hasn't been published to reflect that change.  One of the more obvious improvements is both a visual and text indicator (for screen readers) of the current page you're on when using a mobile device.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">When you open the mobile menu, the current page will be highlighted green with a black right chevron pointing to the page.  Persons with screen readers will be given the added text "(you are on this page)" next to the chevron and inline with that current menu item. <em>If you do not see this on your website yet, you may need to clear your browser's cache.</em></p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">In terms of performance improvements, we've changed how the menu is assembled on the client-side.  Now, when the navigation script evaluates your current URL against all of the menu items, it gracefully fails and looks for the nearest parental match in the navigation and reverse-builds out the left navigation from that nearest match.</p> <blockquote xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Example: <br /> Let's say your currently at this page:  http://mn.gov/agency/levelone/leveltwo/levelthree/levelfour/pageone.jsp — but you have a few situations that we have to deal with. For example, pageone.jsp is a new page and your navigation component hasn't been published yet.  Also, you forgot to make the structure group "levelfour" included in the navigation.  With those two situations, the left navigation would be reverse-built from "levelthree" on up. <br /> <br /> <p>Your menu might be something like this then: <br /> Level One Main Structure Group  <br />  - Level Two Page/Structure Group <br />  - Level Two Page/Structure Group <br />  - Level Two Page/Structure Group <br />  - - Level Three Page/Structure Group <br />  - - Level Three Page/Structure Group</p> </blockquote> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">None of the level four items would show up because of the expected criteria:</p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>pageone.jsp was published but the navigation was NOT republished to include the new page,</li> <li>The "levelfour" structure group wasn't updated to display in navigation</li> </ul> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The render time savings varied from page to page, but on average there was a 50% reduction in Finish time, DOMContentLoaded time, and overall load.  Not all pages saw a reduction in time, which may be due to other circumstances beyond our control — content issues or third party scripts that load beyond what point the navigation script finishes.  But in all, we've seen an improvement on render time.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><strong>You do not need to publish anything to receive this update.  All publications have received this change by publishing out the core.js file and your core.css page assemblies. </strong></p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Modified files: <br /></p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>core.css (page assembly)</li> <li>layout.navigation.top.js</li> <li>layout.navigation.left.js</li> <li>layout.topnav.less</li> </ul>Michael Tangen3037497899312092777212017-08-04T16:14:06Z78988Minor updates were pushed out today for the templates that control FAQ and tabbed content style display as well as mobile navigation.eng78991/showcase/assets/change-log-feature-image_tcm12-280275.jpg/showcase/assets/change-log-thumb_tcm12-280276.jpg<tcdl:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-296595" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2017-05-24T18:20:37ZMinor updates were pushed out today for the templates that control FAQ and tabbed content style display, along with a minor improvement for navigation.Minor fix for toggle lists and navigation12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Some minor updates were pushed out today for toggle list content, specifically component and page templates that present FAQ-style and tabbed toggle list content.  The patch ensures that both tabbed and FAQ style content initially is set to "display: none" to reduce the visual impact when page content is loading in the browser.  Now, all toggle list content is hidden by default and is only triggered visible in the following situations:</p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>On page load, first tabbed content appears</li> <li>On tab click, all tabbed content hides and selected tab content displays</li> <li>When FAQ-style link is clicked, its content is set to visible</li> <li>On page load when an anchor is included in the URL, that content changes status to visible </li> </ul> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Also a minor update has been released for the navigation as it appears on tablets and phones, which covers the same basic issue — the mobile navigation now loads off screen and does not flicker visible then hidden when you first load the page.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Along those lines with navigation improvements, the base z-index value has been adjusted in the top navigation Javascript file, which is a part of the core.js page assembly.  The base z-index value is now set to 1 for the first level — which helps alleviate issues with GovDelivery's limitations on their subscription modal overlay.  The second level on resumes with a z-index level of 100 and increases by ten for each sub-level.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><strong>To obtain this patch:</strong> </p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>For the toggle lists, simply republish the pages that use the toggle list page template</li> <li>For the mobile navigation fix, republish the core.css page assembly found in /root/css/</li> <li>No action is required for the z-index patch — all core.js page assemblies have been republished for all customers.</li> </ul> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">If you have questions about these updates, please reach out to me and I can further elaborate on these or other changes we make along the way.</p>Michael Tangen296595277721789932017-05-24T20:19:46Z78988eng78991/showcase/assets/change-log-feature-image_tcm12-280275.jpg/showcase/assets/change-log-thumb_tcm12-280276.jpg<tcdl:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-291701" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2017-04-28T16:13:54ZWe've updated the flex layout page type with a new update and a minor fix. Read on for more information.Updates and fixes to the flex layout page type12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">We've fixed a really minor issue with feature rotators on the flex page types.  Rotators with component links were appending a hashtag with a number value — that number value is in what order the component lives on the destination page.  So if the component you were linking to was the third component in your list of components on the destination page, you would see something like this in the link:  destination-page.jsp#3 in the href attribute.  To reiterate, this was not that big of an issue — but it did create undesirable behavior for one of our customers.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><strong>To obtain this fix:</strong>  simply republish any one of your flex landing pages.  </p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">New column option on flex layout pages</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">In response to a customer request, we've added one more layout option to the Flex Row Configuration component — <em><strong>six columns</strong></em>.  So if you would like to display a row of icons, for example, this might be a more appropriate use case.  </p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><strong>To obtain this new feature:</strong>  you may need to close/reopen and/or refresh your browser to see the change in the Flex Row Configuration schema.  The new layout option is last, under the default four-column option.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">If you need to apply unique styling to this particular row of content, it can be accessed with the following CSS path in your custom.less file: <br /> <code>.main-landing-content .container .row .col-sm-2.col-xs-6 { }</code> <br /> and from that point on you can access the image and/or content relative to that starting point.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Hope you find this new option useful!</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><img class="img-responsive" src="/showcase/assets/six-column-flex-content_tcm12-291690.png" title="screenshot of example six column layout" alt="screenshot of example six column layout" style="width: 98%; height: auto;" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:title="six-column-flex-content" /></p>Michael Tangen29170178993277721789922017-04-28T16:35:09Z78988A minor fix was pushed out today in the footer template in the conditional logic controlling content display.eng78991/showcase/assets/change-log-feature-image_tcm12-280275.jpg/showcase/assets/change-log-thumb_tcm12-280276.jpg<tcdl:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-289695" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2017-04-13T15:47:29ZA minor fix was pushed out today in the footer template in the conditional logic controlling content display.Minor fix to the footer template12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">A minor fix is being issued out today in the footer template, which fixes a conditional check for null content in the footer.  The right column content had an incorrect null check and was checking for the presence of the left column content instead of the right column content.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><strong>Issue:</strong> right footer column content will not display if there's no left footer column content <br /> <strong>To obtain this fix:</strong> republish your footer</p>Michael Tangen289695277721789932017-04-13T15:52:11Z78988We've added a new content type that allows you to easily add modal overlays to your flex pages — the Modal Overlay content type.eng78991/showcase/assets/dev-update-modal-preview_tcm12-285126.png/showcase/assets/dev-update-modal-thumbnail_tcm12-285127.png<tcdl:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-285139" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2017-03-24T18:54:03ZWe've added a new content type that allows you to easily add modal overlays to your flex pages — the Modal Overlay content type.Replace your GovDelivery subscribe modal with something a little more robust12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">We recently discovered issues with GovDelivery's email subscription overlay, where the top navigation was bleeding through the modal, whereby creating undesirable outcomes. So to offer you more control while waiting for GovDelivery to fix this issue, we've created a brand new content type called "Modal Overlay", available now for your flex layout pages — both main and internal.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><img class="photoRightWithBorder" style="width: 400px; height: 270px;" alt="governor-subscribe-overlay" title="governor-subscribe-overlay" src="/showcase/assets/governor-subscribe-overlay_tcm12-285129.png" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:title="governor-subscribe-overlay" />Creating and using the modal is super easy and can be done in a matter of minutes; and for the more advanced users comfortable with managing your CSS, there are a variety of ID and class hooks that you can latch onto to fully tailor each modal. Let's take a look at the fields in the new Modal Overlay schema and cover what they do. <br /></p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Modal Overlay fields</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><strong>Modal Introduction Text</strong> — this is a rich text field that allows you to put in formatted text and images at the top of the modal. In the example of the Governor's Office modal, the state seal graphic and the opening two lines of text are in that top introduction field.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><strong>Modal Code</strong> — this is a text-only field that allows you to paste in your HTML from GovDelivery or other sources.  Please take care to use only well-formed HTML or this could cause your page to break.  Remember that we are using the Bootstrap framework, so consider using some of the classes and formatting options found in the <a target="_blank" title="Bootstrap" href="http://getbootstrap.com/css/#forms">Bootstrap documentation website</a>. In the photo example, we're using a custom form built using the Bootstrap framework elements and are pointing to GovDelivery's website. <br /></p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><strong>Modal Bottom Text</strong> — this is a rich text field that will populate beneath both the Introduction and Code sections.  This might be a nice spot to put links to disclaimers or supplemental information relevant to the modal. In this example photo, there is no bottom text.  It's an optional field and is not required. <br /></p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><strong>Modal Name</strong> — this is a required field that assigns a unique name to your modal, which allows you the ability to place custom CSS formatting that applies to only that modal (or all modals that share that name).  Only alphanumeric characters and underscores _ are allowed — NO SPECIAL CHARACTERS OR SPACES ALLOWED.   Some example names:  </p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>SubscribeModal </li> <li>Modal_Disclaimer</li> <li>ModalWindow</li> <li>modal_1</li> </ul> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">You would then use that unique name to hook onto with CSS.  So for our first example "SubscribeModal", your root level ID hook would be "#SubscribeModal".</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><strong>Width</strong> — you have three options for the width of the modal: small (300 pixels wide), medium (600 pixels), and large (900 pixels). The default is set to medium.  Note that the height will automatically expand to fit all of your content.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><strong>Automatically Display</strong> — this boolean value lets you decide whether or not you want the modal to display when the page loads are not (default is set to true).  If you set it to false, a button will display instead, allowing the user to click on the button to launch the modal overlay.  Which then leads to our next field, Button Text.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><strong>Button Text</strong> — if you elect NOT to automatically display the modal overlay (set to false),  you will want to fill in this field with the text that you want to appear in the button.  You might use this to launch a privacy policy or more information.  Simply type in the text that you want to appear in the button.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><strong>Style</strong> — much like the flex row configuration, you have some base level formatting options that allow you to set the theme for the modal.  You can set it to "branded" (the dark Minnesota blue with white text), "dark-gray" with white text, "light-gray" with dark text, and "white" with dark text.  The default is set to "white".  In our photo example, the Governor's Office used the "branded" option.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><strong>Expiration</strong> — You have some level of control as to how often this modal overlay appears to the end-user. The current default is an expiration of 30 days, meaning that the modal won't display again for 30 days (unless the user clears out their cookies, browses from a different device, or browses in "incognito/private mode").  If you want the modal to display every time, set the numeric value to 0 (zero).</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">How to start using this content type for your website</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">If you haven't done so, please republish your core CSS page assemblies. We've added a new content LESS file for the modal overlay and it requires you to republish it for all of the default formatting to be included in on your website.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">To use this content type, simply create a new component using the Modal Overlay schema, fill in the required fields, and enter in the desired content and/or HTML code for things like subscription forms. This information should suffice to get you going. Remember that this content type only works on Flex Layout pages. You cannot use this anywhere else at this time. <br /></p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">About the modal overlay's DOM structure</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">If you wish to dive deeper into formatting your modal overlay, we've provided the HTML structure below. It's comprised of a few ID and class values that you can latch onto and provide unique formatting to in your custom LESS file. But for most of our users, you do not need to worry about this.  Everything is already in place and you can start using this content type immediately after your CSS has been republished.  Here is the structure of the modal (note: where it says "ModalUniqueNameHere" — this is the unique name you assign your modal in the component):</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px;" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><code style="display:block;overflow: scroll;">&lt;div class="modal fade" id="ModalUniqueNameHere" tabindex="-1" role="dialog" aria-labelledby="Modal_SubscribeLabel"&gt; <br />    &lt;div class="modal-dialog modal-md" role="document"&gt; <br />      &lt;div class="modal-content branded"&gt; <br />        &lt;!-- the following tag is for screen readers only //--&gt; <br />        &lt;div class="sr-only" id="Modal_SubscribeLabel"&gt;Modal_Subscribe modal window&lt;/div&gt; <br />        &lt;div class="modal-close-button"&gt; <br />            &lt;button type="button" class="btn btn-primary" aria-label="close_modal" data-dismiss="modal"&gt; <br />             &lt;span class="fa fa-close" aria-hidden="true"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="sr-only" id="close_modal"&gt;close&lt;/span&gt; <br />            &lt;/button&gt; <br />        &lt;/div&gt; <br />        &lt;div class="modal-body"&gt; <br />          &lt;div class="modal-intro"&gt; <br />                THIS IS WHERE YOUR INTRO COPY IS <br />          &lt;/div&gt; <br />          &lt;div class="modal-code"&gt; <br />                THIS IS WHERE THE FORM LIVES <br />          &lt;/div&gt; <br />   <br />          &lt;div class="modal-bottom"&gt; <br />                THIS IS WHERE YOUR BOTTOM RICH TEXT LIVES <br />          &lt;/div&gt; <br />        &lt;/div&gt; <br />      &lt;/div&gt; <br />    &lt;/div&gt; <br /> &lt;/div&gt;</code></p>Michael Tangen2851392777217899212092017-03-24T20:04:16Z7898878991/showcase/assets/change-log-feature-image_tcm12-280275.jpg/showcase/assets/change-log-thumb_tcm12-280276.jpg<tcdl:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-284198" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2017-03-15T15:49:59ZA few updates and fixes rolled out this month for two jqxWidgets that we use along with a minor CSS update for toggle lists.jqxGrid and jqxDataTable updated to ver 4.4.0; CSS fixes12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">We've rolled out a couple of updates this week and will have more on the way.  The first update is an upgrade to jqxWidget's latest version of jqxGrid (what we have dubbed as the "DataGrid" content type) and jqxDataTable (referred to as "DataTable").  This upgrade is to version 4.4.0, which boasts a more responsive design for phones and tablets, along with other device viewport sizes.  Additionally, we've baked in some custom formatting for the detailed view for the DataGrid content type, allowing for longer detail views to scroll within each detailed view.  So in the event that your detailed data view has more lengthy information, a scrollbar will appear if it exceeds your defined height (in pixels) for the detail view. Additionally, we've fixed the detailed view to be responsive as well, which will force your detail columns to stack when it reaches a certain threshold.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">This update also applies to the Dynamic Document List content type, specifically the DataGrid view.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><strong>To obtain this update:</strong> simply republish your page(s) that use the DataGrid or DataTable content type. Your page will automatically be updated.</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">XML now supported in DataGrid version 4.4.0</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The DataGrid and DataTable now supports XML source data in addition to CSV, tabbed, and JSON. To use XML-formatted data in your DataGrid, you need to specify the repeated containing field that houses your record sets — this containing field will have to be entered in the DataGrid configuration file field labeled base XML node name (it has this help text: "If your data is XML, enter the base XML node name that occurs in your record sets (case sensitive) "). Let me provide an example.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Let's say you're iterating through grabbing the names and favorite colors from an XML data source, and it looks something like this:</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><code>&lt;people&gt; <br />   &lt;name&gt;Arthur&lt;/name&gt; <br />   &lt;favoriteColor&gt;Blue&lt;/favoriteColor&gt; <br /> &lt;/people&gt; <br /> &lt;people&gt; <br />   &lt;name&gt;Robin&lt;/name&gt; <br />   &lt;favoriteColor&gt;Yellow&lt;/favoriteColor&gt; <br /> &lt;/people&gt; <br /> &lt;people&gt; <br />   &lt;name&gt;Gallahad&lt;/name&gt; <br />   &lt;favoriteColor&gt;Blue, no Yellow, aaaaaah&lt;/favoriteColor&gt; <br /> &lt;/people&gt;</code></p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">In this instance, you'd enter the node name "people" in this new field that instructs you to enter the base XML node name — &lt;people&gt; is the base node that all of these record sets have in common.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">We realize that for most of you, XML will not be your preferred data type to work with. But for those of you working with more advanced content sources, you may find yourself working with XML as an option for source data.  Now you have the option to display that XML source data in the form of a DataGrid — and we love it! </p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">CSS fix for toggle lists</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">There is a minor fix that we also pushed out for toggle lists, specifically when you have unordered lists within the "answer" rich text field. </p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><strong>Issue:</strong> unordered lists started out with a circle format type and not the disc type. <br /> <strong>To obtain this update:</strong> simply republish out your CSS page assemblies located in /root/css/.  You may need to clear your cache to view the fix.</p>Michael Tangen2841982777217899312092017-03-16T20:08:39Z7898878991/showcase/assets/change-log-feature-image_tcm12-280275.jpg/showcase/assets/change-log-thumb_tcm12-280276.jpg<tcdl:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-280282" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2017-02-13T20:20:11ZThere are a few minor updates that pushed out this week, non-urgent changes and fixes involving both CSS and Javascript assets.Minor changes, CSS and Javascript updates12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">We've got a few new updates that are rolling out today that we wanted to call to your attention. Most of these updates are non-critical and do not require any immediate action on your part. Any actions required on your end will be noted <strong>in bold</strong> inline with the change information.</p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>Issue: the top and footer navigation tags sharing same ARIA role value ("navigation"). <br /> Fix: we've added in aria-label attributes to distinguish the two from each other.   <br /> <br /> To obtain this fix: <strong>re-publish your navigation components</strong> (your main navigation and any subsite navigation) <strong>and your footer components</strong>.  This will publish out the minor changes in both the navigation and footer templates.  <br /> <br /></li> <li>Issue:  Personnel lists were cutting off some of the entries when printing out the personnel list. <br /> Fix: We've added in some print CSS conditions to the personnel list LESS file to address this. <br /> <br /> To obtain this fix: <strong>republish your core.css files</strong> (and any subsite CSS page assemblies). <br /> <br /></li> <li>Issue: When browsing a tabbed content page on PC computers using Chrome, occasionally the first tab listed on your page would have its name injected in the last breadcrumb navigation item. <br /> Fix: We've corrected the Javascript handling breadcrumb navigation generation to clear out re-used variables. <br /> <br /> To obtain this fix: <strong>republish your core.js file</strong>.  <br /> <br /></li> <li>Issue: Page load and performance times. <br /> Fix: We're continually looking for ways to improve the page load and performance. We've made a few adjustments to different Javascript files — the core.js file (and all of its contents) are set to async, and the rest of the Javascript files have been set to defer.  The difference between async and defer is that async will execute as soon as its downloaded, and defer will execute in the order that it was downloaded. These changes resulted in an approximate 17% improvement to page downloads.  We will continue to make updates to consolidate Javascript files that relate and move more files to async instead of defer, since that will slightly decrease the loading time. <br /> <br /> To obtain this fix:  <strong>republish your core.js file and your footer file(s)</strong> — you are already doing this for changes noted above.</li> </ul> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">If you have questions about these or any changes that have been made, drop us a line or submit a help desk ticket.</p>Michael Tangen280282277721191330789932017-03-15T16:13:18Z78988Minor modifications have been made to the stylesheet used by the WYSIWYG editor in SDL Tridion, some enhancements and fixes to your content editing experience.eng78991/showcase/assets/updates_wysiwyg-editor-updates_tcm12-277727.jpg/showcase/assets/updates_wysiwyg-editor-updates-thumbnail_tcm12-277726.png<tcdl:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-277733" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2017-02-08T15:48:44ZMinor modifications have been made to the stylesheet used by the WYSIWYG editor in SDL Tridion, some enhancements and fixes to your content editing experience.Font size updates and span tag issue fixes12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Updates were pushed out today to our WYSIWYG editor within Tridion, specifically the stylesheet that is used by the editor.  These updates include a few fixes as well as some minor esthetic improvements. NONE of these changes affect your external facing website and its stylesheet(s).  This is solely the stylesheet used by the editor in Tridion.</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Fixes</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">A few of you that have had issues with <code>&lt;span&gt;</code> tags injected into your content can now rejoice. We've tracked down what is actually causing the issue and have remedied it by removing any font size references to body and paragraph copy in the editor's stylesheet.  So now when you delete a carriage return between lines by "backspacing" content up into its previous line, the editor won't inject a span tag with embedded font size information.</p> <img src="/showcase/assets/editor-updates_now-with%20spacing_tcm12-277718.png" title="editor-updates_now-with spacing" alt="improved line spacing screen capture" class="photoRightWithBorder" style="font-family: &quot;Open Sans&quot;, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; width: 400px; height: 142px;" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:title="editor-updates_now-with spacing" /> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Visual changes</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">You may have noticed that font sizes have changed in the editor as a result of these updates. The overall font size is much smaller, an issue that we cannot remedy.  But with that said, if you find that it's too small for you to read, you can use your browser's built-in ability to adjust the overall display size.  For Chrome, for instance, you'd use <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> (PC) or <kbd>Command</kbd> (Mac) plus the <kbd>+</kbd> or <kbd>-</kbd> key to increase or decrease your browser's display size.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">To aid in making editing a little bit easier, we've also adjusted the padding around the content to give it a little more breathing room between your content and the edges of the WYSIWYG editor.  We've also tweaked the line spacing and margins after paragraphs and headings to make it a little easier on the eyes when working with larger paragraphs of text.  This increased line height will make it easier for you to proof-read your copy and catch errors before publishing out your content.</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">"Tool" for catching DIV tags</h3> <img src="/showcase/assets/editor-updates_div-with-dotted-outline_tcm12-277717.png" title="editor-updates_div-with-dotted-outline" alt="dotted line around division tags screenshot" style="width: 313px; height: 190px;" class="photoRightWithBorder" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:title="editor-updates_div-with-dotted-outline" /> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">One issue that has plagued us for some time is when the editor generates <code>&lt;div&gt;</code> (division) tags instead of <code>&lt;p&gt;</code> (paragraph) tags.  Generally speaking we want your content to be made up with a series of headings and paragraph tags, along with other content-focused tags like lists, images, and tables.  You should rarely ever have a reason to introduce <code>&lt;div&gt;</code> tags into your content.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Well now we've introduced a way to "catch" when the editor starts out with a <code>&lt;div&gt;</code> tag instead of a <code>&lt;p&gt;</code> tag.  This commonly happens if you put your cursor at the end of a heading or a list and hit return to start a new line.  It will frequently start out that new line as a <code>&lt;div&gt;</code> and not a <code>&lt;p&gt;</code>.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Now, if the editor introduces a <code>&lt;div&gt;</code> tag, it will be styled with a subtle dotted red line around the <code>&lt;div&gt;</code> tag. <em><strong> NOTE: it will NOT appear this way on your website.</strong></em> This change solely affects how <code>&lt;div&gt;</code> tags are displayed in the editor and will help you identify which group of content is affected. Once you've identified the <code>&lt;div&gt;</code> tags in your content, you can select those blocks of content individually and change the "style" to a Paragraph Section Type (which can be found in the "Style" section of the ribbon bar up top above the WYSIWYG editor.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">After you change that "Generic Container" <code>&lt;div&gt;</code> to a paragraph , you will see that the red dotted line disappears. </p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">If you have any questions about these changes, drop us a line and we'll be happy to answer any questions that come up. </p>Michael Tangen277733120978993789922777212017-02-08T16:50:23Z78988In what is probably one of our biggest enterprise-wide updates, we've pushed out changes to all SDL Web-hosted websites that translate into faster page performance. Read up on the details here.eng78991/showcase/assets/tridion-thumbnail_performance-improvements_tcm12-265579.png/showcase/assets/tridion-thumbnails-square-thumbnail_performance-improvements_tcm12-265578.png<custom:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-265580" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2016-12-03T21:05:01ZIn what is probably one of our biggest enterprise-wide updates, we've pushed out changes to all SDL Web-hosted websites that translate into faster page performance. Read up on the details here.Structural changes that translate into faster page loads12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">This weekend, we pushed out one of the most labor-intensive updates to all sites hosted on the SDL Tridion platform. These updates in the end translate to faster page load times — on the order of reducing the page render time by up to 25% — and also enable us to make further Javascript- and jQuery-based improvements in the future with less invasiveness. The updates involved changing where various jQuery scripts were located and loaded and required that all sites undergo a site-wide republish — a daunting task for sites like DEED, DHS, and MMB where <em>thousands</em> of pages had to be republished.</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">What exactly changed</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">In the &lt;head&gt; tag, we removed the jQuery file from the core.js page assembly, moved core.js to the footer, and loaded the jQuery library independently in the &lt;head&gt; tag.  This change allows the page content to load independently and any jQuery processes to run after a majority of the content has been loaded.  This change alone has resulted in an average 20-25% reduction in page rendering time. </p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Additionally, we've moved both top and left navigation scripts to the core.js page assembly, which affords us the opportunity to make further enhancements and improvements upon how both the top and left navigation is generated and rendered. </p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Other non-performance related changes </h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">In the &lt;header&gt; region, we've removed the &lt;h1&gt; tag around the logo and site name and have replaced it with a &lt;div&gt; tag instead. This now puts the burden on you as content contributors to start out your content with an &lt;h1&gt; title in your content.  This is easily accomplished by including a page introduction on your page, as that template displays the component title with an &lt;h1&gt; tag.  While on a philosophical level there is no right or wrong answer to the question, "is it OK to have more than one &lt;h1&gt; tag on a page", in the end we've come around as a team to leave that decision up to you.  So if your agency prefers to only have one &lt;h1&gt; tag per page, you are in control of that and can do so by the choices you make in content and component templates.  But if you're agnostic on the issue and don't mind more than one &lt;h1&gt; on a page, you still have the option to do so, so long as you do so properly.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">We have also updated jQuery to version 3.0 and jQuery UI to version 1.12 and have removed some of the jQuery UI feature that were not being used, thus also reducing total page load time for our end users.  If your site uses custom jQuery that you or your developers have implemented, please test to ensure your code is compliant with this latest version. We encourage you to proactively test any custom jQuery that you create against new releases of the jQuery library to ensure their forward-compatibility.</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">What to do when something doesn't look right</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">There is the distinct possibility that a page may have been missed along the way. Though we've taken every measure to ensure we've re-published every structure group in your site, there is always the possibility that we may have missed something.  If during the process of examining your website you notice a page that doesn't look right — symptoms including the top and left navigation do not work, and your footer links are not displaying in their proper columns — the fix is simple. Re-publish that page and it will inherit the new &lt;head&gt; tag changes.  If after clearing your browser's cache, reloading the page, and it continues not to display correctly, open up a ticket with the MNIT Service Desk and we will look into it.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">We've made every attempt to ensure that only pages that are <em>currently published</em> were published out to both stage and live.  But should you find any pages that should not be published out there and are, we apologize for any inconvenience that it may have caused you.  Simply un-publish the page and you should be all set.</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Some final thoughts</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">A few of us on the Web Development team have been involved in the review process of all of your websites during this update, and frankly we've all noticed a dramatic difference in page response times and how much more snappier they are as a result of these changes. We hope that this improvement on page load performance leads to great returns for your agency and your website. Thank you so very much for your patience and flexibility during this very labor-intensive update process.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">If you have any questions about this update process, please reach out to us and we can answer any questions you may have.  Otherwise if you have support needs, please submit an incident ticket to the MNIT Service Desk and we'll jump on that right away.</p>Michael Tangn26558012092019-06-20T19:01:20Z7898878991search updates/showcase/assets/article-search-updates-feature_tcm12-249892.pngsearch updates/showcase/assets/article-search-updates-thumbnail-square_tcm12-249893.png<tcdl:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-249897" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2016-07-19T20:01:52ZThe configuration component for dynamic lists has been updated and improved with added support for searching articles and other dynamic lists.Now you can search within your dynamic lists and articles12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><img src="/showcase/assets/TinyGrab%20Screen%20Shot%207-19-16%2C%202.56.07%20PM_tcm12-249896.png" title="new search checkbox under list of functions" alt="new search checkbox under list of functions" style="float: right; width: 300px; height: 120px;" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:title="search-function-added-to-article" />We've made some great improvements and enhancements to dynamic lists and articles.  If you open up the configuration component for your articles and other dynamic lists, you may notice a few new field sets, including a checkbox for "search" and some fields pertaining to sort order. One of these updates will require just a re-publish of the page itself that articles are displayed on, the other will require a bit more comprehensive re-publishing.</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Article sorting is now configurable </h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">By default, your articles will sort by date and in descending order — listing from the most recent article to the oldest article. But now you can sort by the title, subtitle, date, category, and tag — and furthermore choose to sort in ascending or descending order. Department of Veteran Affairs has one example where they prefer to have a slightly different configuration.  They use <a href="http://mn.gov/mdva/news/events/" target="_blank">their events list</a> sorting their date field in ascending order — the date closest to the present day to a date further out in the future. This allows them to have events that are coming up in the near future show up before events that are further out in the future.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">To update your articles to sort in a different order than the default:</p> <ol xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>Change the value in the configuration component(s) to choose the sort by field and in what order (ascending/descending).</li> <li>Re-publish your article page.</li> </ol> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Adding the search feature to your article lists</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Now you can add a search box to your dynamic lists and your article pages by checking the search checkbox under the list of functions in your article configuration component. But hold up on publishing that page! There are a few important steps that you'll want to take first! Follow this simple list in order before publishing out your article page:</p> <ol xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>FIRST, re-publish all of your articles (the individual components) — we suggest that you do this after-hours if you have a large quantity of them or publish them at low priority if you would like to re-publish them during the day.</li> <li>Next wait a day for the search engine to crawl your website and get the new metadata updates for all of your articles.  This part is key!</li> <li>Lastly, open up your article configuration component and enable the search function.  After you've done so, you may re-publish your article page and the new search box function will be added to your article page.</li> </ol> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">And that's it! </p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">If you have questions about these new changes and enhancements, please reach out to someone on our team or submit a help desk support ticket for any assistance that you may require.</p>Michael Tangen2498971209789922016-07-19T20:51:25Z7898819133178991important updates to alternative text/showcase/assets/alt-text_feature_tcm12-244415.pngimportant updates to alternative text/showcase/assets/alt-text_thumbnail_tcm12-244418.png<tcdl:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-244447" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2016-06-07T17:20:23ZIn an effort to help you maximize your website's level of accessibility, we've revisited how alt attributes are populated in many of our enterprise content templates.New enhancements and improvements to help guarantee alternative text in images12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">This month we've rolled out new improvements to many of our content templates to ensure the maximum level of accessibility, particularly with how the alt attribute is populated in images served up through many of our templates. For templates such as the Feature Spotlights or our Feature Rotators, we've revised alt attribute inheritance in all templates that serve up images and have devised an inheritance plan to ensure that your images will have an alt attribute — even if you forget to put alternative text in the multimedia component's metadata. While this excludes images that you embed in your General Content component's body text, the list of templates that have been updated is fairly extensive.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">But before we talk about the changes that have been made and what you need to know about how alt text is inherited and populated in your content, let's quick talk about metadata.</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Alternative text metadata field</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">When you open up an image — regardless if it uses the schema <em>Default Multimedia</em> or <em>Image</em>, there is a field in the Metadata tab labeled "Alternative text".  In the <em>Image</em> schema the alternative text field is required — we encourage you to use this type when possible, simply because it will force a reminder to put in alt text for that image.  The <em>Default Multimedia Schema</em> does not require the alternative text field be filled in, but we still want to impress upon you the importance of filling this in to ensure more accurate alternative text for our non-sighted users that visit your website.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">What is the primary difference between the two schemas? The <em>Image</em> schema was designed to be your go-to schema for use within the website, with the intent to populate the alt text metadata field into our templates.  However with our migration process, most images were brought in using the <em>Default Multimedia Schema</em> which did not have that field.  We have since added the Alternative Text metadata field, allowing you to populate component templates with that value.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">It's important to note that when placing one of these images into your General Content body copy, it will not automatically pull in that alternative text into your General Content copy.  You will have to go into the rich text field, select the image, edit its advanced properties, and place the appropriate alt text there.  We're exploring ways to try and make this more efficient, but for now images embedded in rich text fields require YOUR intervention to populate them with the appropriate alt text.</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The inheritance model of alternative text</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">To help make the insertion of alternative text relatively "fool proof", we have multiple layers where alternative text can be acquired from and be overwritten as we move closer to the actual content itself.  This gives you some level of control in what alternative text you want your non-embedded images (images not embedded in rich text fields) to serve up. For most cases, this will be the order of inheritance:</p> <p style="text-align: center;" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><img src="/showcase/assets/alt-text-1-inheritance_tcm12-244417.png" title="inheritance order: feature image for component title, multimedia item alternative text, component alternative text" alt="inheritance order: feature image for component title, multimedia item alternative text, component alternative text" style="width: 32%; height: auto" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:title="alt-text-1-inheritance" /> <br /></p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The templates (such as Feature Rotator or Feature Spotlight) will first create a default alt attribute, such as "Feature image for ___" and then insert the Title field of the component. For example, let's say we had a component, where the Title field had the value "Our New Coffee Shop".  A Feature Spotlight template would first create the default alternative text "Feature image for Our New Coffee Shop" as a base-level alt text value. Since the Title field is required in all associated content types, we can guarantee alt text for all of the templates that have some sort of image field (such as the Feature Image or Feature Thumbnail field).</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Next, we then look to the image itself to see if there is alternative text in the metadata field.  If there is, we'll take that value and override the initial default attribute that we first created.  Using our example component, if the image had an Alternative Text value of "espresso and a doughnut", the alt text in our Feature Spotlight would instead say "espresso and a doughnut" instead of "Feature image for Our new  Coffee Shop."</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">For component types that offer an alternative text field (for example the General Content component has a field labeled "Feature image description (used for alt tags or captions)"), we offer a third level of inheritance.  Content types that have a value populated in those feature image alt text fields, that value would then be accepted over the other two previous possibilities.  Going back to our example, if our Feature image description text field had the value "espresso and a doughnut at our new coffee shop", our Feature Spotlight would then finally use that value instead.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Here is a diagram that illustrates this in action:</p> <p style="text-align: center;" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><img src="/showcase/assets/alt-text-2-example_tcm12-244416.png" title="example: feature image for Our New Coffee Shop, espresso and a doughnut, espresso and a doughnut at our new coffee shop" alt="example: feature image for Our New Coffee Shop, espresso and a doughnut, espresso and a doughnut at our new coffee shop" style="width: 44%; height: auto" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:title="alt-text-2-example" /> <br /></p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">To help clarify the inheritance, let's consider this scenario.  What if the image still didn't have any alternative text in its metadata field (i.e. it didn't contain the value "espresso and a doughnut")?  The Feature Spotlight would still be populated with the value "espresso and a doughnut at our new coffee shop" because you've got alternative text in the field Feature Image Description.  Why? Because our inheritance model looks at all three levels and will populate it with the item next in line with a value.</p> <h3 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">What content types support alt text generation?</h3> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The following content templates provide three layers of alternative text inheritance, because they support an additional field allowing you to provide an image description:</p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>Feature Spotlight (with H2 heading)</li> <li>Feature Spotlight (with H3 heading)</li> <li>Feature Rotator - default dark</li> <li>Feature Rotator - default light</li> <li>Feature Rotator - overlay dark</li> <li>Feature Rotator - overlay light</li> <li>Feature Rotator - side dark</li> <li>Feature Rotator - side light</li> <li>Internal Jumbotron</li> <li>Page Introduction - Feature Image (black text bar)</li> <li>Page Introduction - Feature Image (white text bar)</li> <li>Page Introduction - Jumbo Feature Image (black text bar)</li> <li>Page Introduction - Jumbo Feature Image (white text bar)</li> <li>Multimedia Gallery Item</li> <li>Multimedia Item - inline no text</li> <li>Multimedia Item - inline with text</li> </ul> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The following content types only provide two layers of inheritance. They do not offer an image description field (at this time):</p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>Flex Spotlight (with H2 heading)</li> <li>Flex Spotlight (with H3 heading)</li> <li>Location *</li> <li>Personnel Detail *</li> <li>Personnel List *</li> </ul> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">These dynamic content types offer two layers of inheritance:</p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>Article Detail</li> <li>Article List and Detail</li> <li>Article List and Detail - No Thumbnail</li> <li>Document</li> <li>Document List</li> </ul> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">* Denotes that instead of a title used in the first layer of alternative text, it would use either the name of the location (for the location content type) or the name of the person (used in the personnel content type).</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">We hope that these changes will help provide an additional level of accessibility to your website, further helping you maintain a high standard of web content accessibility.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">If you have questions about these changes, please reach out to me and I'd be happy to answer any questions you have on this topic.</p>Michael Tangen24444719133012092016-07-19T20:51:49Z7898878991null/showcase/assets/yammer_tcm12-202656.pngnull/showcase/assets/yammer-thumbnail_tcm12-202655.png<tcdl:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-202658" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2016-04-01T15:07:28ZDoes your agency have a presence on Yammer? You can add your link to Yammer in the social media links in the footer and have a Yammer-like icon to boot.Well.... sort of12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">With Minnesota state agencies coming on board with Yammer and using it as their means of connecting socially and professionally with one another, some are asking to have that presence represented in their social media links in the footer.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">As a standard across all our Tridion 2013 sites, we have chosen the vector-based font icon library Font Awesome as our means of presenting icons, social media logos, and common graphics in a manner that is scalable, easy to format, and loads quickly once cached in the user's browser session.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Unfortunately Font Awesome does not have an actual Yammer icon in its library yet, and has <a href="https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome/issues/2707" target="_blank">multiple requests</a> in their GitHub issue tracker for adding that icon to the available list of social media options. So until they do, we've chosen a Y icon in a rounded box — <span class="fa fa-yc-square"> </span> — which is the nearest neighbor to the actual Yammer icon.</p> <h2 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">How do I get this to work in my footer?</h2> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Simple:  just add your yammer link in the list of social media links in the footer component and the jQuery script processing those footer links will do the rest.  As long as "yammer.com" is somewhere in that URL, the script will automatically create the icon, put in the word "Yammer" for screen readers, and present your link amidst the rest of your social media links.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">That's it!</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Other social media sites supported presently in the footer include:</p> <ul xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <li>Facebook</li> <li>Twitter</li> <li>LinkedIn</li> <li>Google+</li> <li>YouTube</li> <li>GovDelivery</li> <li>Flickr</li> <li>Instagram</li> <li>Yammer (NEW)</li> </ul> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">If there are other social media links that you would like to see supported, submit a Work Order to our team for review!</p>Michael Tangen2026581209789922016-07-19T20:51:49Z78988eng78991null/showcase/assets/font-awesome-4-5-update_tcm12-202644.pngnull/showcase/assets/font-awesome-4-5-update-thumbnail_tcm12-202643.png<custom:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-202645" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2016-04-01T13:00:00ZWe've updated our Font Awesome library to include dozens of new scalable, vector icons for use in your website.Now available to all our Tridion 2013 customers12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">For most of our content contributors in SDL Tridion 2013, this may not be big news to you — but for others the update to Font Awesome 4.5 brings in dozens of new scalable, vector, font-based icons available for your use. To get a run-down on all of the new icons as well as a complete list, head on over to the <a href="http://fortawesome.github.io/Font-Awesome/icons/" target="_blank">Font Awesome website</a> for more details.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Why do we use Font Awesome? It's one of the most comprehensive font-based icon libraries around and allows us to use common icons, symbols, or graphics but in a manner that is scalable and easy to format.  You may have noticed their use in some obvious places like the social media icons in the footer, or in less obvious places like the search buttons, toggle lists, and other places throughout your site.  And besides being scalable and easy to format, it also reduces the load time — instead of loading a bunch of icons through CSS, we're loading one font file.  Once it's cached, the user will notice no lag time for icons to display on the page.</p> <h2 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Using Font Awesome</h2> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">How do you use Font Awesome? It's pretty simple if you're willing to dabble in a little HTML.  Here is a sample usage with the HTML presented first and how it's rendered:</p> <p style="margin-left: 40px;" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Code: &lt;span class="fa fa-envelope-o"&gt;&amp;#160;&lt;/span&gt; Contact Us!</p> <p style="margin-left: 40px;" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Rendered:  <span class="fa fa-envelope-o"> </span> Contact Us!</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">It's fairly simple to use if you're comfortable with just a little HTML.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">There is one thing you need to know when attempting to put &lt;span&gt; tags in the WYSIWYG editor within Tridion.  If you have a &lt;span&gt; tag without any contents in it, the editor will attempt to clean up your content and will remove the tag.  So you need to make sure you include this within the span tag:  &amp;#160;  which is the XML mark-up for a non-breaking space.  The editor will respect that space as a character and leave the span tag be.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">For more information on how to use Font Awesome, visit the <a href="http://fortawesome.github.io/Font-Awesome/icons/" target="_blank">Font Awesome website</a> and spend some time reading their documentation for more complete information. This latest update is available now to all of our customers in Tridion 2013.</p>Michael Tangen2026451209789922019-03-24T14:04:03Z78988eng78991null/showcase/assets/general-content_tcm12-202612.pngnull/showcase/assets/general-content-square_tcm12-202613.png<tcdl:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-202627" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2016-04-01T01:28:13ZCustomers have asked for the ability to add links in their feature descriptions — we've delivered.New link support added in the feature description12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">One of the most commonly asked for feature additions to the General Content schema was the ability to add links to the description field when creating Feature Rotators. Originally the newly re-purposed Feature Rotators were solely to be used to elevate interior content to the surface, capitalizing on Tridion's ability to re-use content in a variety of ways. But we realize that not everyone cares to use the rotators in the same manner, and instead want the flexibility to add links to their Feature Description content.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">And so we've delivered!</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The Feature Description field has been updated to support basic rich text, allowing for the creation of links in your content. You can create hyperlinks to external sources or component links to other components used throughout your site, including binary links to PDFs and standard content links.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">We're intentionally keeping the rich text options limited because of the way the Feature Description field is used in its various component presentations — Feature Rotators, Feature Spotlights, and Feature Jumbotrons. This field is meant to be kept short and sweet, and aid in bringing people to your content deeper within your site; and not intended for longer formatted content, like lists, tables, and including additional images.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">This change takes effect immediately, and you can now include hyperlinks in your feature content. If you have questions, please reach out to anyone in the Tridion Support Team.</p>Michael Tangen2026271209789922016-07-19T20:51:47Z78988eng78991null/showcase/assets/feature-spotlight-update_tcm12-194844.pngnull/showcase/assets/feature-spotlight-update_square_tcm12-194846.png<tcdl:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-194847" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2016-03-23T04:17:32ZSome fixes and new enhancements is now available to feature spotlight content in our implementation of SDL Tridion 2013.Bringing alignment to new heights12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">One of our goals with Feature Spotlights — a component template presentation of the General Content component type — was to make them more uniform and line up better. Well we've further improved how they appear and align on the Feature Spotlight internal page type.</p> <h2 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Some necessary fixes</h2> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Previously, the jQuery was designed to go through a set of Feature Spotlight component presentations and align the feature descriptions so that they'd all start at the same point relative to the spotlight that had the tallest headline. Unfortunately the code was such that it wouldn't do it on a row-by-row basis. Instead, it would take the biggest headline of them all, and adjust all the other headlines to match that height.  The bi-product was not ideal and produced results that we weren't happy with.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">So in tandem with work we were doing for Minnesota Department of Veteran Affairs, which had unique formatting requirements for their Feature Spotlights, we both fixed the existing functionality and added a few items in there to help you have better looking feature spotlights.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Now the jQuery used to format feature spotlights performs its work on a row-by-row basis instead of the whole lot of them.  </p> <h2 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">New formatting features</h2> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">In addition to better aligning the feature descriptions up with each other, we've gone a step further with both the feature image thumbnails and the DIV element that contains each spotlight item.  Now while we know you strive to ensure quality in all that you create, we know once in a while you may have feature images that are not quite the same dimensions. With that in mind, we evaluate each image on a row-by-row basis and add bottom margins to those feature images that aren't quite as tall as the tallest image present in each row.  So if you have that one image that's just a bit taller than the others, your shorter images will be given a little extra bottom margin so that your <strong>headlines</strong> all start on the <em>same</em> horizontal plane.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Additionally, if you've got special formatting on the feature-spotlight-item container DIV for each spotlight item, you'll now notice that the containers for each row set now match, too.  So if your feature spotlights have custom formatting applied to them — such as a background color — those spotlight items will all have the same height and match the height of the tallest item in each row.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">You may not even notice that these changes are in place — it's that subtle. But it's those small touches that help make your good content look like <em>great</em> content.</p>Michael Tangen194847789937899212092016-07-19T20:51:46Z7898878991null/showcase/assets/flexible-content-layout_tcm12-78997.pngnull/showcase/assets/flexible-content-article-thumbnail_tcm12-78999.jpg<tcdl:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-79002" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2015-11-25T18:17:25ZMove over bacon, now there's something meatier — the new Main Landing Page - Flexible Layout page type. It puts you in the driver's seat and gives you more control over content layout options on your home page.Time to stop using that old home page template12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">You're likely still using the old home page layout for your website's main home page. That page layout was only intended to be an interim option until a more flexible and solid option became available. Its with great pride that we're introducing the new replacement page template: "Main Landing Page - Flexible Layout". </p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">This new page template offers a wide variety of flexibility for laying out your content as well as re-using existing components, too. Each row of "flex content" can be configured for the number of columns you want, how those columns are divided (e.g. thirds, quarters, etc.), and what color formatting you want for that row (dark, white, or your branding color). Each row of flex content is configured using a new content type called "Main Landing Page - New Row".</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Setting up a row of content is quite simple, actually. There are only three fields in the New Row content type: an optional headline to precede your columns of content, a layout configuration (a select box with an ASCII text representation of how that content will be presented — select the ASCII diagram that represents the option you want), and the color option for that row (dark, white, and branded).</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><img src="/showcase/assets/main-landing-page-new-row-page-assembly_tcm12-78996.png" title="main-landing-page-new-row-page-assembly" alt="main-landing-page-new-row-page-assembly" style="float: right; width: 400px; height: 65px;" class="photoRightWithBorder" xlink:title="main-landing-page-new-row-page-assembly" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" />After you've saved that component at your 020 level, go ahead and insert that into your home page (make sure you have "Main Landing Page - Flexible Layout" selected as the page template) and then insert the number of components you selected for your layout (if your layout is two columns, insert two components; if three columns, insert three components, etc.). You are limited to four columns and must have a matching number of components to your row configuration.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Presently the Main Landing Page - Flexible Layout supports the following schemas: General Content, Home Content, Article, Multimedia Gallery Item, and Code Block. Each of those schemas have one or more supported component presentations (such as "Feature Rotator - default dark"). Full documentation will be available soon, including what content types are supported, which templates will work on that page, and what fields display with each of those templates.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">It may be a lot to swallow at first, but we have both a cheat sheet and YouTube training videos in the works to help make the leap to this new flexible content page type easier! Stay tuned for more information to come! We think that you're going to like this new page type!</p>Michael Tangen79002789922016-07-19T20:51:45Z7898878991null/showcase/assets/developer-updates_code_tcm12-79033.jpgnull/showcase/assets/developer-updates_code-thumb_tcm12-79032.jpg<tcdl:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-79034" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2015-11-24T20:01:25ZA few minor changes have been made to the top navigation script to provide an enhanced experience for JAWS users.Accessibility improvements for JAWS users12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Some of our JAWS users have become accustomed to using the Quick Links tool in JAWS to navigate quickly to items in larger menus. Up to this point in our Tridion 2013 implementation, we've taken every step known to ensure full keyboard and mouse navigability and full support for screen readers as well. This includes the use of a variety of ARIA attributes as well as the Role attribute.  </p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The Role attribute was used to identify the menubar, submenus, and menu items. For some reason, JAWS fails to add visible menu items to the list of Quick Links when using role="menu" or role="menuitem" in a menu item. While as developers we understand the philosophical difference between a menu item and a link, some of our users have the expectation that those menu items should be included in the list of Quick Links.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">To meet that expectation, we've temporarily commented out the code that adds role="menu" and role="menuitem" until we can figure out another way to properly introduce menu items into the Quick Links functionality.  Additionally, we've added screen reader only text that reads "SUBMENU" to all parent menu items that have child navigation. We hope that this will further aid non-sighted users in navigating through complex menus.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">No changes were necessary to our use of ARIA attributes in the menu items.</p>Michael Tangen79034789932016-07-19T20:51:43Z7898878991null/showcase/assets/stock-new-bolt_tcm12-79074.jpgnull/showcase/assets/stock-new-bolt-thumb_tcm12-79073.jpg<tcdl:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-79076" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2015-11-23T22:45:09ZIn an effort to help keep you informed of all that we're doing to improve your experience in Tridion 2013, we're starting a blog to publish out updates with all the new additions, changes, and fixes that we make to our implementation of Tridion 2013.Stay connected with all the latest additions and updates12<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">In an effort to help keep you informed of all that we're doing to improve your experience in Tridion 2013, we're starting a blog to publish out updates with all the new additions, changes, and fixes that we make to our implementation of Tridion 2013. Our intent is to roll out new or improved functionality on a monthly basis or as our development schedule permits. One way that we hope to keep you up-to-date on all these changes is through our Development Updates blog. This blog will contain all the latest updates that we make to templates, schemas, and other underlying functionality that you interface with when working in Tridion.  We will also provide many of these same updates in our Tridion User Group sessions as well.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">We hope that this information proves to be useful for you. Should you have any questions, please reach out to us or submit a support ticket if you need further assistance.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Thank you!</p>Michael Tangen7907612092016-07-19T20:51:42Z11837Conservation professionals, and many others, have become very aware of declining bee populations (as well as butterflies and aquatic insects) and are concerned due to the important role they play in pollinating crops and sustaining the integrity of native plant communities.engConservation professionals, and many others, have become very aware of declining bee populations (as well as butterflies and aquatic insects) and are concerned due to the important role they play in pollinating crops and sustaining the integrity of native plant communities.11751315<tcdl:Link urlOnly="true" type="Component" destination="tcm:12-11854" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" origin="tcm:0-0-0" />2014-03-06T18:00:00Z12118451185411838null/showcase/assets/Pollinators%20at%20Risk_tcm12-11830.pdf2016-12-23T14:47:19Z