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Newsletter Needs "Table of Contents" View

Posted: Mon Jun 03, 2013 7:30 am
by mevans
The current view of the newsletter shows the title of the article as well as many lines of text of the article. If there's too much content, you get a "More..." control to click on to see more, or you can click on the article itself and open it. What I find is that this limits the number of articles that can appear on one page and how quickly you can review the articles. There really needs to be a list view that just shows the article title, date (and maybe author) and nothing more. It's too difficult for people to quickly parse the article titles to find what they're looking for. A "more" control is great, but it needs to compact all the way down to the article title and date.

What I'm seeing is that some people are trying to compact several older articles into one archive article because we have something like 10 pages of articles now. It's a pain to navigate through everything, even when you're filtering by one of the categories.

So you might see something like this (a little difficult to show here with proper formatting, but I'll try):
  • 03 Jun 2013 Relief Society Weekly Message
  • 03 Jun 2013 Elders Quorum Weekly Message
  • 02 Jun 2013 High Priest Group Weekly Message
  • 01 Jun 2013 Primary June Newsletter
  • 01 Jun 2013 Relief Society June Newletter
  • 30 May 2013 Sign Up for the Ward Potluck on June 21
  • 27 May 2013 Relief Society Weekly Message
  • 27 May 2013 Elders Quorum Weekly Message
  • 27 May 2013 High Priest Group Weekly Message
  • 26 May 2013 Youth Conference Information
  • 21 May 2013 Youth End-of-School Activity
  • 20 May 2013 Elders Quorum Weekly Message
  • 20 May 2013 High Priest Group Weekly Message
  • 20 May 2013 How to use the new copier in the Library
  • 19 May 2013 Relief Society Weekly Message
  • 16 May 2013 Cultural Hall Floor Refinish Coming Soon
  • 14 May 2013 Highlights from Activity Days
  • 13 May 2013 Bishop James to Speak at Singles Fireside on June 2
  • ...
In this example, I'm showing what one might see for the whole ward without filtering by category, but even if you get into one organization, there are quickly going to be too many messages. What I've shown will likely take 4 pages to display on the current ward newsletter layout and that's not convenient for people trying to review the newsletter; it takes too long for them to find what they're looking for.

Re: Newsletter Needs "Table of Contents" View

Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 5:39 pm
by rayfroess
I created an article containing a table of contents with hyperlinks to each article. The problem is that when I update it, the date remains the date is was created and the TOC moves down the chronological list. If I copy and paste the contents into a new article, the hyperlinks are not copied.

If you want to create a TOC, you create the TOC text first. Next you need to add a hyperlink to each article. It's easiest to have two browser windows open, one to create the TOC article and one to view the newsletter. In the one to view the newsletter, put you mouse on the article title and look at the bottom of your browser (I use IE) and you'll see the URL. It looks like https://www.lds.org/member-news?lang=en ... 8935157320. Right mouse on the title and select Copy Shortcut. In your TOC article with the article's line highlighted, click the link icon and paste in the URL.

Re: Newsletter Needs "Table of Contents" View

Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 7:18 pm
by aebrown
Note that no one outside your stake can see that newsletter article. If you want to make it available to other forum users, you'll have to use some other technique, such as a screen capture, or copying the contents into a document.