Hi:

Does anyone know what the differences are between the templates in the "JOURNAL TYPE EDITOR" and the templates that are part of a Theme?  When and where is each used? 

Also, does anyone know how to add a custom journal type?  I thought I saw in one of the images on this site that there was a button that allowed you to do that but I can't find it on my install. (v1.9).

Thanks very much.

-eLindy

First, you can only add Custom Journal Types if you have the enterprise edition of Active Social. That will change in the next patch release, which will be released soon.

Custom journal templates are not part of a specific theme, and are stored in the database. The are used in the journal (Profile, Group or Summary) automatically, when the custom journal type is used.

Hi Ben:

Thanks for your reply.  I understand the first answer.  The second answer is totally confusing to me now.   

I am trying to change the layout of elements the SUMMARY view screen.  In particular, I'm trying to remove the author picture.  Later, I will want to layout any images in the SUMMARY in a GRID form.  But, for now, I'm trying to remove just the author image from the summary screen.  I have tried the following:

1.  I created a new theme and then created a new JOURNALSUMMARY template where the AUTHORPICTURE was removed.  I applied the theme to the site and selected the new journalsummary template for my SUMMARY view.  The author image still showed up.

2.  I modified the TEMPLATE in the Journal Type Editor for the POST journal type.  In particular, I modified the SUMMARY template in the POST journal type to remove the AUTHORPICTURE.  That didn't work.

3.  I created a custom view and used the JOURNALSUMMARY template as a starting point.  Again, I removed the AUTHORPICTURE from the template and used that custom view.  That didn't work either.  In fact, many of the AS:CONTROL:JOURNALxxx stuff didn't work in this case.

I'm hoping that I'm missing something really really simple here.  Nothing I have tried has worked.

Thanks in advance for any direction you can provide!

Posted By Ben on 10 Mar 2011 09:42 AM
First, you can only add Custom Journal Types if you have the enterprise edition of Active Social. That will change in the next patch release, which will be released soon.

Custom journal templates are not part of a specific theme, and are stored in the database. The are used in the journal (Profile, Group or Summary) automatically, when the custom journal type is used.

You will need to go to each of the Journal Types on the journal page, and edit the Summary template for each one. Each different journal type will have the [AS:JOURNALINFO:JOURNALAUTHORPICTURE] token that needs to be removed.

After you save the template, go to the DNN Host Settings menu and restart the application.

You should not need to make a custom theme or a custom view. If anything just using a portal template will be good enough. (You may not need to edit the JournalSummary template, if you edit all the individual journal item templates.)

Theme: Used when you want to make major changes to multiple templates and/or css.
Custom View: When you want to create a new view that functions differently than a default view.
Portal Template: Stored in the portals directory and should automatically overwrite the default templates for the corresponding view.

Posted By Ben on 10 Mar 2011 09:42 AM
Custom journal templates are not part of a specific theme, and are stored in the database. The are used in the journal (Profile, Group or Summary) automatically, when the custom journal type is used.

Are they really stored in the db? I posed this on the support forum but it never got past moderation. In the attached image I see the journal templates for the default journal types, but ALL custom journal type templates have NULL values in the db. I know they are stored somewhere, because I can edit them and they work. But I am a little confused about the db. I am on the latest AS/AF/DNN.

Sorry, they WERE stored in the database, prior to AS 1.8. Now they are stored in a file called journaltemplates.config. The file behaves similarly to the other config files, in that one in the portals directory will be used instead of one in the DesktopModules directory. You should never modify the files in the DesktopModules directory though.

When you edit a template using the Control Panel journal item template editor, it will automatically create a copy of the config file in your portals/{portal id}/activesocial directory with your changes.

Posted By Ben on 10 Mar 2011 11:55 AM
Sorry, they WERE stored in the database, prior to AS 1.8. Now they are stored in a file called journaltemplates.config. 

Ok, that clarifies a lot. I thought I was going crazy the last few weeks trying to find these in the db. The config file looks a little odd to me. Does it never delete templates if a journal type is removed or renamed? It looks like there are some old templates in there. It also gave me an error that there were non-standard line endings and asked me if I wanted to normalize them when I opened in visual studio viewer.

Hi Ben:
Thanks for this explanation.  A couple of follow up questions just to be clear:
    1.  Do we always have to restart the application after every template change?
    2.  In the example I am using, I will restrict the summary feed to photos only.  Do I still need to remove the JournalAuthorPicture from all journal types?  
    3.  What happens if I want to have two different journal views - one for photos and one for, say, notes?  The one for Photos will not have the Author photo and the one for notes should. 

I think I do need to use a custom theme because I do want modifications to multiple templates and to the CSS files.  In this case, do I still make the mod in the Journal Types page or do I make it in the theme as a new Journal Template?

Thanks again for the prompt response. 

- eLindy

Posted By Ben on 10 Mar 2011 11:10 AM
You will need to go to each of the Journal Types on the journal page, and edit the Summary template for each one. Each different journal type will have the [AS:JOURNALINFO:JOURNALAUTHORPICTURE] token that needs to be removed.

After you save the template, go to the DNN Host Settings menu and restart the application.

You should not need to make a custom theme or a custom view. If anything just using a portal template will be good enough. (You may not need to edit the JournalSummary template, if you edit all the individual journal item templates.)

Theme: Used when you want to make major changes to multiple templates and/or css.
Custom View: When you want to create a new view that functions differently than a default view.
Portal Template: Stored in the portals directory and should automatically overwrite the default templates for the corresponding view.

1. Active Social uses a lot of heavy caching with the templates. I like to restart the application whenever I am viewing my changes, so that I am sure I am seeing the most recent version.

2. No, you would only need to edit the visible ones.

3. If you only remove the token from the photo template, it will still be displayed on the notes summary.

4. You should still edit journal type templates on the journal page of the control panel. You can't have multiple templates for the same journal item & journal type. (Not without creating a new custom journal type at least.)

Ben:

Thanks very much - this helps a lot.

-eLindy