Two Column Feed Manager?

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5/6/2010 1:36:26 PM
Byron L.
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Two Column Feed Manager?

I have a page layout of LEFT / CENTER.  The CENTER column on the home page contains a Content Template formatted as 1 column over 2 columns.  Currently, those 2 lower columns contain static content.  My client would like to convert both to the feed from separate blogs.  Can the feed manager be made to display the feeds in this way?  I tried specifying 2 columns in the feed manager settings, but it didn't seem to have an effect.  I'm not sure if it would sort in this way even if it did work.

My only other thought (so far) is to create a separate skin with a 50/50 two column layout equal to the width of the current CENTER column.  The header, footer, and menus would be disabled.  I would then put a feedmanager in each of the columns and reference the finished page in an IFRAME on the home page.  This seems a bit extreme, so I'm hoping for a simpler solution.

Any thoughts?  Thanks.

Byron

5/7/2010 11:02:54 AM
Joe Davis
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Re: Two Column Feed Manager?

Hello Byron,

You can do this with some CSS manipulation. First, you need to add a custom css class to the Feed Manager instance. Afterwards, you can add some css in your style.css file and acheive the desired result. You may have to tweak what I have here a little but this should get you started.

  1. Goto the Settings for the Feed Manager instance you want to be two column and add "multicolfeeds" to the "Custom CSS Class". If you don't have the "Custom CSS Class" option, you will have to upgrade to 2.3.4.1 or just grab the module-id and use it where you see "multicolfeeds" in my instructions.
  2. Open the style.css file in your skin (/data/sites/[1]/skins/[nameofskin]/style.css).
  3. Add the following to the bottom of the style.css file:
    .multicolfeeds{width: 700px;}
    .multicolfeeds div.rssfeedentryTrue,
    .multicolfeeds div.rssfeedentryFalse{width:180px; margin:15px 0 0 0;padding:0 10px 0 0;line-height:15px;float:left;}

I borrowed this idea from Michael Meadhra's article on TechRepublic.

HTH,
Joe D.

5/7/2010 12:16:35 PM
Byron L.
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Re: Two Column Feed Manager?

Thanks a lot, Joe!  I'll give it a shot.  I'm still on 2.3.3.9, so I'll go with the module-id option.

Byron

5/7/2010 6:00:50 PM
Byron L.
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Re: Two Column Feed Manager?

Joe,

I'm having some issues getting it to work.  My CSS isn't nearly as strong as I would like it to be, but I'm guessing that I'll need to do something with rsstitle, rssdate, etc. widths as well, since these are wider settings and nested within the rssfeedentryTrue div.  Even so, after reading the excellent article you referenced, I'm convinced this will eventually give me two columns in the order in which the items appear.  The problem is that with two feeds interspersed, I actually need to have one feed on the left and one feed on the right.  Unless I'm missing something, it's back to the drawing board.

Thanks for the effort.

Byron

5/10/2010 3:14:53 PM
Byron L.
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Re: Two Column Feed Manager?

Update for anyone curious:  I love browser compatibility issues.  I do see multiple columns in both IE and Firefox, but not in Chrome on my Linux box which is where I hang out most of the time. Chrome on Windows 7 works fine.  Still, it doesn't show up in the correct order in either environment.  I've decided to think outside the feed manager and use an external rss feed via javascript.  I found one (FeedWind) that allows style changes to match my site.  It's working in dev.  I need to tweak a custom CSS and I'll be good to go.

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