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Populating a Mashup Page With Content
RWD Mashups can display a very wide array of content, including pure documents, lists of messages or files, slideshows, coded widgets, and even a full web page.
When setting panels to display content, in addition to telling the Mashup which content to display, you have to tell it also what the format of that content should be.
A list of possible formats displays in a dropdown menu as the image below illustrates:
The following is a listing of the possible formats for content of the various available types, with information about what you can expect it to look like on the web.
Mashup Options For Displaying Documents or Content From Another RWD Web Page |
Mashup Special Format |
Results / Notes |
Document/Page
Click image to see example |
This setting is used to display the content only, without any wrapper or Header information, of a variety of FirstClass Document types. Documents, messages, RWD pages within your site, etc can all be viewed stripped of the Envelope or Header information in your Mashup. The prevents, for example, another RWD page in your site from displaying as a complete web page in the mashup but rather shows only the Page Body content.
The height of the panel is determined by the content in the document and cannot be controlled on the web page. While this is sometimes a disadvantage, the main advantage of this setting is that any translation applied to the page will be applied to the document as well.
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Document/Page (iFrame)
Click image to see example |
This setting functions similarly to the setting above, however, the height of the panel can be set to any height you desire. If the document is longer than the height you've set allows for, a scroll bar will be generated so users can view the entire document. While the advantage of this setting is that you can control the height of the panel, the primary disadvantage is that it uses an iframe and therefore translations applied to the page will not work.
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Mashup Options For Displaying Calendars |
Mashup Special Format |
Results / Notes |
Month Calendar
Click image to see example |
The Month Calendar is new to RWD 7 and provides a much improved user experience over the old legacy month view calendar. This object will display a month view of a FirstClass Calendar, but will give the web visitor buttons with which to navigate the calendar and to access different views including a week view and a day view. It also features a print button that will let users print a monthly view of the calendar.
This object, when used in a mashup (it can also be called from a Header Links link or Navigation Sidebar link) will respect the height setting in the mashup row in which it is called. If the height setting is less than the calendar would normally take up, a scroll bar is generated so that users can see all of the calendar.
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Calendar Widget
Click image to see example |
The Calendar Widget has the distinct advantage of being able to render content from FirstClass Calendars, but also Google Calendars and iCal formats. Displayed as a list of events, the Calendar Widget opens up to the current week, but users can scroll forward and backward in time. If a user clicks on a date, the area expands with more detail about the event, and provides the user with the ability to open the event itself. The Calendar Widget can be combined with a configuration form to allow for significant customization in the way it looks in your site. The image at left, is the most basic view of the Calendar Widget.
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Calendar Priority List View
Click image to see example |
Often, calendars get very busy, with some events being far more important than others. The Calendar Priority List View is a way to display only a subset of the events in a given calendar. When you set any event in a FirstClass calendar to the status of Urgent, the Priority List View will display that event as long as it is in the future. This feature is highly useful for sites with a busy calendar that need to highlight just important events on the web. The Calendar
Priority List View can be combined with a configuration form to render with a number of custom visual attributes that can be set to match the website.
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Mashup Options For Lists of Documents, Messages (Blog Posts) or Files |
Mashup Special Format |
Results / Notes |
Static Container List
Click image to see example |
The Static Container List is a bare bones listing of the SUBJECT field of all of the items (messages, documents or files) in a container. The default maximum number of items displayed in the mashup is 6, however this can be overidden with the parameter ?displaynumber = x where x is the number you wish to display. If the number of items in the container exceeds the number displayed on the web, an additional link to view all items is added to the display. The big advantage of this view is that it displays a lot of information - or rather gives a web visitor access to a lot of information without taking up much space on the page.
Parameters: In this and many other objects- in the mashup, you can use parameters to override the default behaviour of the object. For example, you can control the number of items displayed in the list if you don't want the default 6 by adding the following after your containter name in the Link To field of the Mashup: ContainerName?displaynumber=n (where n is the number of items you want displayed). You can also force the thumbnail to be displayed if you wish
by adding the parameter ?displaythumbnail after the container name.
Note: If you are using multiple parameters, the first is preceeded by the ? and all subsequent parameters in the string are separated by the ampersand (&): ?parameter1¶meter2¶meter3 etc. |
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Scrolling Container List
Click image to see example |
Almost exactly like the Static Container List, the Scrolling Container List is different only in that the entire listing of the container is displayed in an upwardly scrolling list. This view is used mostly for ticker type content such as sports scores or news headlines.
You can control the speed of the scroll by adding the parameter: ?speed=n (where n is the speed setting with HIGHER Numbers meaning a SLOWER scrolling speed. Try 200 as an initial setting - eg: Sports_Scores?speed=200 |
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Preview Container List
Click image to see example
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The Preview Container List view is the classic Blog type view of a list of messages in a FirstClass Conference. When posting messages to an RWD Blog (Conference), you can paste thumbnail images in the space provided and they will display on the web in an attractive manner that gives readers a preview of the content of your posts. They can then click on the link to view the entire post which will then open either in a lightbox or in a new web page, based on your settings in the mashup form.
It is important to remember not to put images or links in the first part of your blog posts because the preview is unable to render them and instead displays information about the image or the link which is not particularly attractive.
Another thing to remember is that thumbnail images should be consistent in their aspect ratio, and the optimal size is 180 pixels x 180 pixels.
This object supports a number of parameters, but the most commonly used is the displaynumber parameter (see above) |
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Content Library
Click image to see example |
The Content Library is by far the most powerful way to render content that is in containers in FirstClass. This includes both message content as well as lists of files. The Content Library default view renders in similar fashion to the Preview Container List view, except that a number of additional features are included. These, depending on the setup of your system, can include a way for users to filter by the post or file Title (Subject in FirstClass) and / or the Preview, buttons to display more or fewer items in one page, pagination, sorting and RSS functionality. It is highly recommended to use a Configuration form along with a Content Library in order to customize the experience for users in a number of useful ways. In most implementations however, a general Configuration Form is set for all content libraries.
Content Libraries are highly useful for many purposes. Faculty Directories, Policy and Procedures Listings, School Newsletters and News archives are just a few of the uses that are well suite to this object.
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Media Slideshow
Click image to see example |
The Media Slideshow is the best way to display groups of images in a slideshow. Simply upload images to a container and Caption them by entering captions in list view of the Container. You can associate any image with a URL that will open when a user clicks the automatically generated "Read More" button, and you can also display video from YouTube right in the slideshow panel itself.
More help on how to accomplish these effects is available in the Slideshow Configuration help document.
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Document Slideshow
Click image to see example |
This setting, when applied to conference or folder with documents, images or messages (or all three) will display the contents in a transitioning slideshow. A custom configuration form can be associated with the Document Slideshow which will then allow you to control the transition speed, transition effects, user controls and a number of other attributes. You can set the height of the Document Slideshow in the mashup itself; If your content is of varying length, this will stop
the page jitter that results as the slides transition.
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Mashup Options For Displaying Other Content |
Mashup Special Format |
Results / Notes |
iFrame
Click image to see example |
iFrames are meant to me used whenever you have a need to display content from other, outside web sources. Entire websites and self contained widgets - essentially anything that needs an iFrame can be displayed using this method. An alternate method is to use a document setting (first item in this table) and paste the iframe code (remembering to set all of the code as literal HTML in FirstClass) into the document. |
Note: Because the legacy objects are not supported in a responsive design layout, they are not discussed in this documentation and should be avoided |
Note: While custom parameters are discussed here, the better way to customize the mashup objects is through the use of Configuration Forms. These are discussed in the Configuration Forms section of this help site.
Below is a short explanation about the most common parameters associated with the mashup objects.
Special Format Selection |
Parameters / Tags |
Notes |
displaynumber |
msgdate |
displaythumbnail |
speed |
Scrolling Container |
No Effect Always rotates through all items in the container |
No Effect
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No Effect
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Changes the list scrolling speed |
The HIGHER number used with the speed parameter, the SLOWER the scrolling speed. Default speed is 250 (milliseconds) |
Static Container |
Overrides the default "6" items displayed in the panel |
No Effect
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Will display the thumbnail if one exsits for the posting / message being displayed |
No Effect |
Image thumbnail is NOT displayed unless the displaynumber parameter is used. |
Preview Container |
Overrides the default "3" |
Displays Post Date |
No Effect Always displays thumbnail |
No effect |
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Slideshow
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No Effect |
No Effect |
No Effect |
Changes the image refresh rate |
The HIGHER number used with the speed parameter, the LONGER pictures will stay displayed before the next is shown Default speed is 4 (seconds) |
Parameter Syntax Examples: (for examples, URL = the path and file name of the object you are linking to as typed in the Link To field of the mashup) |
displaynumber
msgdate
displaythumbnail
speed
combined tags example |
URL?displaynumber=n (where n is the number of items to display)
URL?msgdate (no variables are required for this parameter - it's presence in the URL activates the feature)
URL?displaythumbnail (no variables are required for this parameter - as above)
URL?speed=x (where x is the number of milliseconds - or seconds, depending on the object being used)
URL?displaynumber=4&msgdate&displaythumbnail=1 (any number of parameters can be used - join them with &)
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While custom parameters are discussed here, the far better way to customize the mashup objects is through the use of Configuration Forms. These are discussed in the Configuration Forms section of this help site.
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