Install

• Uncompress the sdotNews product into your zope/Products directory or link it there, e.g.:

  ln -s /path/to/installation /path/to/zope/Products

  Change the owner of the directory e.g.: chown -R plone:plone sdotNews

  Restart Zope.

• There are two ways to install sdotNews: using (1) an external method or (2) Plone's QuickInstaller tool. They both achieve the same result:

1. External Method: In the root of your PloneSite installation (within the ZMI), add an external method to the root of the Plone Site, with the following configuration values:
   • id: install_sdotNews
   • title (optional): Install sdotNews
   • module name: sdotNews.Install
   • function name: install

   Go to the management screen for the newly added external method and click the Test tab.

   The install function will execute and give information about the steps it took to register and install the Forum into the Plone Site instance.

2. QuickInstaller (recommended): In the Plone Configuration, found under Plone Setup in Plone 2, the Add/Remove Products tool can be used to add sdotNews.

Setup

SDotNews comes with no stylesheet attached so you have to add:

.sdfolderIcon {
 float: right;
 clear: both;
 margin-right:0px;  
 margin-left:10px; 
 margin-bottom:2px; 
 margin-top:2px;
 }

 .sdNewsIcon {
 float: left;
 clear: both;
 margin-right:5px;  
 margin-left:1px; 
 margin-bottom:2px; 
 margin-top:2px;
 }

 #portlet-newscategories li {
   text-align:center;
 }

to your ploneCustom.css. The sdfolderIcon class defines the postioning of the images next to your Newsitems, the sdNewsIcon class specifies the postition of the image next to your folder description at the top of the page.

Usage

sdotNews provides a folderish type sdot News Folder. Newsfolder have an Id (part of the URL), a Title (the name, thats what you see in your navigation), a description and an Icon (this visualizes the categories). In this Folder you can add news (and optional PloneArticles). Note that the News you add in a sdot News Folder also show up in the "normal News".

Why a folderish type?

Making the categories folderish has some advantages. You can finetune the permissions (reviewer, manager, etc) on a per folder basis, i.e. you may have reviewers for certain categories (via local roles for users or groups), you may browse the categories with the Plone navigation, there is no need for a special sdotNewsItem type (you may add additonal types to show in the sdot News Folder via ZMI) and it was easy to implement ;).

Displaying sdotNews at your Frontpage

simply add an DTML Document named index_html to your siteroot:

<dtml-var sdotnews_view>

To display an icon at this level you will have to add an image named sdot_folder_icon (no extension) in your custom folder or your Plone siteroot. Note that if you do not add icons to your sdot News Folders this image will be displayed by default.

Replace News with sdotNews

In the ZMI goto portal_actions. Find the News action and replace string:$portal_url/news with string:$portal_url/sdotnews_view. If you use the News portlet you will have to customize that as well.