Columnists Module

[Pentacle]

I had an idea but it will be hard to tell because of language problem. So I will give an example.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/columnists/

Think of columnists as they are members of your Joomla site. You choose particular members, add their photos. Then, module fetches the content to show and your table is ready to show on your website.

Now I'm working on a module about this. In my country it's very very popular in news sites. But I don't know about the world-wide needs about this. Is it used much? If so some example and opinions and especially feature requests would be great.

Thanks,
Ercan.

[AmyStephen]

Pentacle -

I like this very much. I think, in a sense, you are talking about customizing user parameters. I wanted to share two posts by Jinx for how to customize user parameters and data. I think this might be helpful for you.

Certainly, having an image, bio, blog link, email would be helpful information for a columnist - or even for a group blog environment.

Perhaps it would be helpful to provide several data elements that could be customized, as needed. So, you might provide a list of standard items that could be included or ignored. And then provide five (or so) addition fields that your users could provide a title and description for that would be used on the website. Then, if I wanted a place for people to share "their favorite movies", I could do so. And, if you wanted a place for people to share professional work history, you could do so.

Good luck with your project. I think it will be very helpful!
Amy

[Pentacle]

Hello Amy,

I think you misunderstood me, or the vice versa.

Your opinion makes great sense but a component will be needed for this, I think. So in this module, I'm trying to set the picture vs. using module parameters or in the future, using Community Builder like components.

I'll attach a screenshot of my module:



(print screen eats mouse cursor, so hover effect seems a little weird) As you see, it's a user based latestnews-like module that takes its content based on user ids. The gray silhouettes are the changeable user photos.

Btw, thank you very much for your comments.

[AmyStephen]

Very cool! That's a nice touch to a Joomla! website. I was thinking about how you could include the image - that's why I jumped to Johan's posts on the User Configuration. Also, I believe Rastin is planning on releasing a custom user component. This might be a nice addition to that, too.

You are doing great - keep up the good work (and keep building those extensions!)
Amy

[Pentacle]

Very cool! That's a nice touch to a Joomla! website. I was thinking about how you could include the image - that's why I jumped to Johan's posts on the User Configuration. Also, I believe Rastin is planning on releasing a custom user component. This might be a nice addition to that, too.

You are doing great - keep up the good work (and keep building those extensions!)
Amy

If a module is capable of playing with user params, I'll try this. Right now, it just takes a picture file from a folder that's named with the user id. ( for ex. 62.jpg for Administrator) But your way is a lot more better than that

And you keep up this optimism and motivation ability of yours please.

Cheers,
Ercan.

[AmyStephen]

Cool! Well, as these other solutions come in - Rastin's and others - perhaps it can be adapted to get the image from other locations, as well. It's not hard to be optimistic - there's neat stuff happening.

Amy