Foundation Dev Blog: Best Of

We're happy to announce the wide-scale release of Foundation Mobile Web 2.0 being under way. We've been upgrading sites daily and will be continuing through next week until everyone has been upgraded.

If you haven't already, please shoot us a reply to our launch preparation request that was recently mailed to your team by Ryan Murphy (ryan@desert.net).

If you did not see that email, let us know and we'll resend it, or we can also initiate your launch using the default settings.

For more details on what's included, we've put together an overview of many of the features that we're excited about:

GENERAL FEATURES
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* Framework - We've merged Foundation's component framework with the jQuery Mobile framework to provide a powerful rapid-development environment that is supported across numerous mobile platforms (iOS, Android, Blackberry, and more).

* Comments - A full commenting system is now in place. The commenting system also supports like and dislike functionality. If a user is logged in, their comment will immediately post. If not, they'll be presented with a login,

* Logins - We've designed a mobile specific login interface that supports Facebook logins, publication based logins, password reminders, and account creation.

* Video Support - Videos are presented and will be viewable based on the mobile device's capabilities. In short, this typically means that You Tube videos will work, but most others won't. This will independently change over time as video content providers transition to HTML5 video players.

* Audio Support - Audio will typically fair better than video. We have added a HTML5 audio player to support localized MP3 based audio links. Audio content providers are also moving towards HTML5 audio players.

* Search - Integrated into the top of every page.

MOBILE-LEVERAGING FEATURES
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* Mobile Detection - Automatically routes mobile users to the mobile interface when they access the web homepage. This is also a preference that can be controlled.

* Switch to Desktop Button - A clear button in the footer of each page to allow a user an easy way to get to the desktop view should they prefer it. In addition, a cookie is saved when a user does this so that their viewing preference is saved.

* Comment Tagging - Comments are now also tagged by their source so that it will be known if the comment came from mobile or not. We are doing this for two reasons: 1) to alert readers that it was a mobile comment and in theory they'll then be kinder to the creative autocorrect typos that may surface in some mobile comments, and 2) to simply promote the existence of mobile commenting to help get the word out that this is now an available option.

* Bookmark Bubble - A dynamic tool-tip-esq bubble that encourage users to add a bookmark on their mobile desktop.

* Mobile Leaderboard Ad Support - Our recommendation are footer only ads, but header and footer placement are both available on every page.

HOMEPAGE
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* Top-Buttons/Icons - The row of "buttons" or "icons" across the top is fully customizable. This is to drive your most sought after mobile links such as Restaurants, Music, Calendar Events, and Film Times. In all cases, the button, link, link-phrase, and sequence of buttons are customizable.

* List Links & Components - The list on links below the top buttons are all customizable as well. Our default links focus primarily on article-based content such as blogs, current issue, best ofs, article and issue archives. What appears here is also customizable:

- You can use the Link class to add any link, with any phrase, description, image or icon.

- We can also customize components for you to tease any data you'd like in this area, in any sequence within, above or below the links. For example, the "latest issue" and "cover story" each match and display the latest images for those ideas.

FILM TIMES (if applicable)
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* Films by Movie - A listing of films currently playing. The default sort is by Release date with the recently opened films up top. Additional sorts can be accessed in the header including a sort by Genre, MPAA rating, and alphabetical.

* Theater Listing - A listing of nearby theaters. Additional sorts can be accessed in the header including an alphabetical listings and a sort by neighborhood.

* Films by Time - A presentation of films by time so you can literally see what's playing now, or what just started (it defaults to 15 minutes ago).

* Synopsis Toggle - In the header is an option to toggle the synopsis on or off for each film. This uses the short film review if stored with the film, or it falls back to the synopsis provided by your Film Times vendor (Cinema Source or Tribune Media Services).

* Film Page - The film page presents the basic information about the film including rating, time, genre, poster image, synopsis / short review, official site, director, producer, cast, share buttons, and no playing times.

* Theater Page - The theater page presents the address, direction link, phone number link, URL link, reviews of the theater (if they exist), and a list of the films playing at the theater. Other links like Best Ofs and Related Stories or Events will also display if they exist.

LOCATION/DINING LANDING PAGE (we'll showcase the Restaurants view here)
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* Top Links - The top links include Top Rated, Nearby, Browse by Neighborhood. These links are similar to the homepage links and support icons, copy changes, position changes, and expansion.

* Browse by Category - A listing of categories and the number of restaurants matching that cuisine. Clicking on these links will display the nearby restaurants in this cuisine.

LOCATION SEARCH RESULTS
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* Sorts - The default sort is Nearby. Additional sorts include Price, Top Rated, and A to Z. In some cases, a reverse sort toggle is supported such as Price.

* Location List - The location list presents the location name, feature icons, distance, rating, price range, address, neighborhood, and link to the location.

* Details Button - A details button at the top expands the location list to present additional information including hours, descriptions, and recent reviews.

* Filters - If you click the top header you can also filter your results by category, neighborhood, or feature. Options relevant for the search at hand are presented.

LOCATION
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* Directions link - A link to Google Maps which will load up the Google Map App on most smart phones.

* Phone - A link that will dial the phone when clicked.

* Plus lots more - URL link, Email link, description, dining details, user rating, hours, price, features, payment type, images, related stores, related events, share links, reviews, and ability to post a review.

EVENTS LANDING
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* Choose Date - Ability to choose a specific date, plus some pre-set options including Today, Tomorrow, This Weekend, Next 7 Days, Next 30 Days, and All Dates.

* Landing Page Top Links - Similar to locations, customizable landing page links including the core defaults of Staff Picks, Nearby Today, and Today Only.

* Category Links - Links to specific event categories (or sections). Clicking a category will take you to the search results. The default sort is By Date.

EVENTS SEARCH RESULTS
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* Choose Date

* Sorts - The default sort is By Date. Additional sorts are Nearby, Staff Pick, and A to Z. As with location, some sorts support a reverse sort such as A to Z.

* Events List - The event list presents the event title, feature icons, distance, date, and location.

* Details Button - A details button at the top expands the location list to present additional information include and event descriptions.

* Filters - If you click the top header you can also filter your results by category, neighborhood, or feature. Options relevant for the search at hand are presented.

EVENT
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* Event Title, Date and Description.

* Link to the location

* Link to get directions

* Social buttons

* Related stories and reviews if relevant.

BEST OF (where the module's in use)
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* Link to Best of Section and Category lists.

* Best of Page - Presents the best of category, location and distances (if relevant), best of article, comments, tags, previous winners in that category, comments, related links, and more.

* Paging Navigation - Once within the best of, there are page forward and back buttons at the top and bottom of the page to allow a user to page through any particular section.

ISSUE ARCHIVES
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* Listing of Issues - A list of each issue (reverse date sorted). This includes the issue cover and run date.

* Table of Contents - Clicking on an issue will display the table of contents for that issue broken out by section.

* Table of Contents Paging Navigation - From the table of contents, you can page to the previous or next issue and continue browsing table of contents pages.

* Article - When you select an article, it will present the article, images, share links, tags, comments, related links and more.

* Issue Paging Navigation - When viewing an article within an issue, page forward and back links will also be presented so a user can literally thumb through the issue.

ARTICLE BROWSING
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* Browse by Section or Category.

* Category List - Once you make it into a category, you'll see all of the articles within that category including the headline, image, summary, byline, and date. The category list is also easily customizable via the category's "special placement" value of "mobile". If you'd like to hide or not display a category in this list, simply uncheck "mobile" on the category you want to pull.

* Article Sorts - The default sort is By Date but you can also sort by comments, shares, and views.

* Paging - Similar to the issue paging, when viewing a category in the archives, you can page to the next article in that category. This is ideal for reading a particular column you like.

BLOGS
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Much of the functionality you'll see within blogs are the same as with other data above, but there are a few additional items of note.

* Blog Posting Time - When viewing the blog, it will state what time it was posted, yesterday, or a date. In admin mode, it will also present scheduled postings in this list as well.

* Browse by Topic - In the blog header, you can choose from a list of topics and browse the blog by topic.

* Comments - We touched on this above, but it will likely see the highest action in blogs so we wanted to reiterate it here.

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That's Foundation Mobile 2.0 in a nutshell.

Thanks again!

p.s. "One more thing..." (I couldn't resist) Here's a sneak preview of Mobile Restaurant Menus. This is a release that will follow the widescale mobile rollout release. We're pretty excited about this one as it's fantastic content and it's also additional page and ad views. For reference, we were able to provide menus for over 60% of Tucson Weekly's restaurant guide in our beta and are working on getting that number up even further.

• Source: Gambit
• Top Tags

New Components:

* "Top Tags" Component - This will display the 6 most-used tags on Content/Stories in the past 90 days. If used on a page that has a section perspective like a section landing page/TOC, it will be narrowed by that section's stories' tags.

You can further customize it to:

- narrow to a specific category, or the environmental category
- use a different number of days to look at tags from
- display a different number of items

Note: this is similar to "Top Topics" component which was earlier released for Blog pages.

Example (middle column below recent comments):
http://www.bestofneworleans.com/gambit/news/Section?oid=1222774

* "Recent Comments on Locations" Component - This component is for the homepage and/or section landing pages. It displays the most recent comments or reviews members have made to Locations. If used on a section-specific page, the comments will be narrowed to those on locations whose Location Categories have been associated with that particular section (ie: Restaurant categories may be associated with the Dining section, etc.)

Example:
http://montanaheadwall.bigskypress.com/montana/head-trip/

Film Related Updates:

* Film Staff Ratings - Added "Rating" field to the Film class to allow for star ratings by staff.

http://clatl.com/atlanta/tangled/Film?oid=1705136

* Film vs DVD - Added a "DVDReleaseDate" field in the Film class. You can use this field to specify the date of a film's DVD release. Selecting a date for the DVDReleaseDate field will also select "DVD" in the Features field, allowing you to create queries for all films with DVD releases.

Happy Hour / Cocktail Compass Related:

* Cocktail Compass users now have their Bar Features added as a searchable option on your website, when browsing the Bar Guide locations. The link to your web-based Bar Guide can be found in the "Other searches" box, at the bottom-left of any search-results or archive pages.

• Source: Arkansas Times
• Bar Details

Example:
http://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/bar_louie/Location?oid=1217421

Newsletter Related Updates:

* Newsletter Announcement Image Options: Added Image.Alignment and Image.URL sub fields to the Announcement class which is used with Newsletters.

* Newsletter Unsubscribe: Added a single-click unsubscribe to the newsletters.

Events Related Updates:

* Events Alpha Navigation - Added Alpha Navigation to Events when sorting by title.

Example:
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/EventSearch?sortType=title&alphaGroup=m

Mobile Related Updates:

* Mobile Film Reviews - A modification has been made to the mobile Film page to always give internal reviews precedence over the film synopsis.

* Mobile Best Of Infobox - Added the Content's Info Box to the display in the Mobile Best Of layout

* Mobile Events Sort Default - Added an option to set the default sort on events for the website or mobile. For example, you can set the mobile to sort by title. Please connect with DesertNet support if you would like a similar change.

Example:
http://m.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/EventSearch?sortType=title&alphaGroup=m

* Mobile Posts preference to allow for reversing the default subnavigation of Blogs | Articles to become Articles | Blogs. If you would like this change made, please contact DesertNet support.

Example:
http://m.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/ArticleArchives

Miscellaneous System Updates:

* Foundation-related JavaScript is now compiled to optimize all code and reduce the overall size (aka minified).

* Category Meta Description - Extended the data size of Category "Description" field so it can be greater than 256 characters if desired.

* New Grid option for Layouts: "Grid Morbeus-6-Zone"

We're pleased to announce that you can now create dedicated surveys directly in Foundation. Surveys can handle large numbers of questions, and are suitable for use as ballots for Best Of features. Here's a quick rundown of some highlights of this system:

Survey question features:

* Use multiple answer types (write-in, multiple-choice, location select).
* Require an answer to any question.
* Organize questions into sections.

Survey handling features:

* Require minimum number of questions for completion.
* Restrict to logged-in users.
* Schedule surveys for release and expiration.

Survey analysis features:

* View results by section, question, or participant.
* Export results as CSV.
* Identify IPs with multiple voters.

If you'd like to get started with surveys, please contact us at support@desert.net.

This release also includes:

* Friendly URLs for Events such as:
http://www.thelmagazine.com/newyork/shakespeare-in-the-park/Event?oid=1653652.

* Modifications to Polls so that you can optionally allow multiple votes per voter if desired. The default remains one vote per voter.

* Added an "Hours Between Votes" field to Polls. In the event you choose to allow multiple votes per voter, you can now set the amount of hours between votes that you will allow. For example, 24 for one vote per 24 hour period, or 4 for one vote every 4 hours.

* And, the new AltWeeklies.com has launched! Click here to check it out.