Within the Build Widget Content Selector is set to an automatic pull such as pulling content based on ContentTypes and Taxonomy, an additional content search box is added to prohibit selected content from being used in this widget (Applies to automatic pulls and ignored if content is manually chosen).

The above example is pulling all CW RTM articles, but "Aerocomposites: Automated RTM meets welding" links to the same KC so its excluded from the widget.

When Selecting Content via Taxonomy within a Build Widget, you are now able to select multiple sites and contentTypes. ContentTypes will be displayed when the given site is added to the sites list. It is assumed that no selections is the same as having everything selected, and selections will narrow the results.

In the Above Example, we are pulling content tagged to Big G Topics -> Automation. Due to my sites/contentType selections, this will pull Articles and Press Releases from AM, Articles for MMS, and any content for PM.

Two new templates were added to the WYSIWYG templates section. These are additional versions of the sidebar template, but will be floated left or right (Similar to Images). 

Along with this update, I also added an easy button for "MagicLine" to the WYSIWYG menu, rather than only the auto magicLine that appears within the textbox. This option should make it easier to create a new paragraph outside of any divs your current selection might be stuck in.

While the body is Maximized, clicking a comment/annotation will now navigate to the comment's position within the body.

This feature is only applicable when the body is maximized as otherwise, the comment would be moved offscreen when scrolled to its placement.

Cache Bug Fix

I believe the origins of the cache bug that's been impacting some Build updates has finally been found and fixed. The bug occasionally occurred when making changes to an already cached version of a Build site (meaning it's been viewed). The change would attempt to clear out all the required cached items, but when this error happens, one of the template-level caches gets excluded leaving it with outdated information which results in an error screen.

I believe I've sourced this bug back to an alteration I made to expand Build functionality for Grow which resulted in Widget Clipboard items getting included in template cache data. This itself didn't cause the error, however, clipboard items belong to the page and not any one template, so when one template was changed, the clipboard widgets would shift but still exist in the cache of other template items, which is what ultimately led to the error.

This is now being scoped specifically to Grow, and will no longer impact the other sites. In addition to this change, I've also gone through and added additional cache clearings for the template-level Microsite caches.

Navigation Enhancement

A structural enhancement has gone out for Microsites containing a navigation bar on desktop devices. The navigation bar now spans the full height of the page and will stick to the top of the page as you scroll. To allow space for this, strip content will now start directly to the right of the navigation bar and span the remaining width.

This change was primarily made to remedy a structural issue in cases where the navigation was taller than the Template 1 content. In these cases, the navigation would cause empty space between Template 1 and Template 2 or Template 1 and Strip 1 since previously the navigation was inserted along with Template 1's content.

GardnerWeb, Gardner Intelligence, and Microsites not containing a navigation have not been impacted and will display the same as they did prior to this release.

/manage/ProspectExhibitorList/{ShowName} has been updated to use a Vue component to display the list of exhibitors for the given show. With this change, the speed of grid updates, such as sorting and filtering, will be much quicker.

The "Export All" button will simply change whether the Exports are set to export only the current viewed exhibitor list or all of them. The button will no longer display all exhibitors as a giant list because of the slow-down. When displaying all records at once, updates to the grid will take multiple seconds each instead of the near-instant results found using the chosen implementation. It is important to note that the sorting and filtering are carried over to the exports as well.

Any column can be filtered and sorted on. The search box above the grid will update the filter on the ExhibitorName column. By default, the filter type will be looking for exhibitor names that "Contain" the given input text, though will use the currently selected filter type if the option is changed.

Individual filters can be cleared by using the "Clear" button in the column's filter dropdown. The "Clear Filters" button above the grid will clear all filters from the grid.

The Exports were also updated as well. The exports will either export the currently displayed or all exhibitors (After Filtering and Sorting).

The Excel Export should be seen as a total improvement as it will now export as an .xlsx file instead of .csv giving more features in the export. With this change, the headers are now sortable and filterable from within Excel as well. (Once again... just a reminder that filtering on the grid before exporting will limit the exhibitors shown in the exported list). The column sizes are also defined so should be more easily read.

The PDF Export will result in a well-formatted pdf file, though there is an unfortunate side-effect from the grid's speed improvement changes. Because the Export All option has the export render the full list of exhibitors in the background, the PDF Export may be a bit slower and will cause the page to become frozen and unresponsive. The time is dependent on the number of total rows being exported. For reference, an export of 1750 items took about 40 seconds.

The default behavior of Distribute's Query Builder has been altered. Previously, the default behavior was to display live, published, content only within the results. Then, you could allow unpublished & future-dated content via the "Non-Published" filter. This behavior has now been flipped.

Now, the default behavior is to display published, unpublished, and future-dated content. Then, you can apply the "Published Only" filter to restrict results to live, published, content. This filter will be important to apply, for example, when creating an RSS Feed you intend to share or pull content from.

Additionally, we've now also added an actions column to the results. With these actions you can "View" the live content, "Preview" not yet published content, and open the content within the Editorial App by clicking "Edit". Note, unpublished content no longer contain a "View" link in the content header nor the action column since the resulting page would be a 404.

Above you can find an example of a Query Builder restricting the results to Published Only content. You can also see the new action column, the right-most column.

A new field has been added when entering manual companies into a Build Microsite, called "Website Text". When provided, this text will be the displayed value for the "Website" link provided.

Essentially, this will allow you to specify the call to action text for a company's website link.

Fixes

• Fixed an issue with the Query Builder where OR statements applied to the same group didn't work properly. This was accidentally broken as a part of yesterday's updates adding the Non-Published filter.

• Fixed an issue with the Query Builder where future dated published content was getting included by default. Future dated content should've been restricted to when the Non-Published filter is included in the query builder.
  

Updates

Improved the way errors are handled. Prior to this update if the Query Builder was converted into invalid SQL, zero results were returned for the query and no notice of an issue was given. Now, an error is captured and displayed (as shown below). This is now also being logged for us developers with information about the query so that we can easily replicate what led to the error.

The above error was forced for demonstration purposes.

The bulk upload behavior on the Content Creator and Media Library has been altered. Previously, when you selected multiple images to upload all of the selected images would be grouped and sent up in a single request to upload. We've noticed this can result in an error due to the single request's size being too large if too many or too large of images are uploaded.

As a remedy the bulk upload will now upload each selected file individually. The only change you should notice here is that multiple files will no longer be grouped but rather listed individually.

Additionally, we've also added validation onto our uploads, including the bulk upload, to restrict image sizes to 5MB or less. We've noticed some images between 15MB to 30MB being uploaded, which is very large for a single image upload.

Today we updated the library we use to put together data tables within Dash. These tables are those you find on the Content Work In Progress page and the like. Prior to today, we used a very outdated version of this library that was still attempting to utilize flash. Because of this the copy, excel, and pdf buttons didn't work and haven't since flash was removed by browsers a few years ago.

With the updated version of this library, flash is no longer required for these buttons. As a result, these buttons are now back up and working. This updated version also brings improved pagination, so you can directly jump to a particular page and even the last page.

This update impacts the following Dash pages:

• Content - Work In Progress & Future-Dated tabs
• Content Finder
• Authors
• Collections

File System Links & Images

File system urls begin with `file://`. These urls are paths to locations on your computer and are not accessible to anyone but you. Recently, we've seen instances where these file system urls have been used for both links and images. For images, we believe this is happening from copy/pasting or dragging & dropping images from the file system or Outlook emails directly into the content editor. For links, we believe the same thing is happening but with file system & Outlook locations.

In an attempt to prevent links and images from being inserted into content in the future we're adding checks for such urls when copying & pasting and dragging & dropping into the content editor.

With this now in place, when links are dragged & dropped or copy/pasted into the content editor and they go to a file system url, the link will be removed and just the text for the link will remain. Images on the other hand containing a file system url will be completely removed, as there's nothing usable to keep.

When this does happen, warnings will be displayed in the top-right corner of your screen. An example of one of these warnings is below. Checks for file system links have been added to the content creator and build.

Url Defense Links

In addition to file system links, we've also noticed Proofpoint Url Defense links have been getting used as well. Links received within emails are routed through Proofpoint so that Proofpoint can verify the url is safe before it reaches you in your inbox. In some cases, these have been entered for links and advertisements by copy & pasting links from emails. Below is what one of these links looks like.

When clicked, these do take the user to the correct final destination, however, Google Amp considers these links invalid. Additionally, these links may expire after some time and stop working.

To prevent either of these situations, we've added a link check for these url defense links. When one of these links is entered, we'll strip out the Proofpoint Url Defense portion and replace it with the underlying link. When this happens, you'll be notified by a warning in the top-right corner of your screen. Please verify the link's correctness when this does occur.

This check has been added to the content creator, build, and the ad create/update form.

Updates to the Content Creator have been in the works and finally went out this morning. Most of the updates are improvements to the code, its structure, speed, and re-usability. Minimal changes should be visibly noticeable, however, you should notice a decent improvement in page load speed.

This update focused on the right-hand side of the page (taxonomies, structure, related suppliers, issues, etc). This portion has been re-written and the tree-based structures have been moved off the page load and now will load on request. They'll also begin to load if you hover over the card for a short period of time as this shows an "intent to click". For example, if you hover over issues, but don't click it, after 200ms the tree contents for being to load in.

One thing you may notice is in regards to the issues section. Previously this section was loading all issues for all brands, which was a significant slow-down in terms of load times. The issues section will now only load the past three years for each brand. For example, this means currently only 2022, 2021, and 2020 will be displayed.

I've spent a good chunk of time testing these updates to ensure they don't break anything, however, should you experience any issues please let me know and I'll see to it that the issue(s) are fixed!

Default Sponsor Logo

When you add a new sponsor to a webinar, the system will check to see if the sponsor's showroom has an attached logo. If it does, it'll default to using the sponsor's showroom logo. When this happens and the showroom logo is being used, a note "Defaulting to Showroom Logo" will be displayed under the logo.

This can be easily replaced by selecting a different logo from the Image Library.

Presenter Updates

The presenter form has been completely reworked. The form's length has grown since it was initially created and the presenter descriptions are longer than I had initially imaged them to be. Due to these reasons, I've moved the presenter form off into a modal. This gives both the presenter preview and the form more horizontal room so that both aren't squished next to one another.

To add a presenter, now click the "Add Presenter" button in the top-right corner of the presenters section. This will open the modal.

Also new is the ability to search and select a presenter that's already been entered into the system. To differentiate between the two there's now a "What would you like to do" question prefixed to the top of the form when adding a new presenter. This will not display when editing a presenter. The old form will display when selecting "Add a new presenter".

A fresh batch of webinar and event updates went out today for all sites. Details are below.

Sponsors

The Sponsor(s) section was altered to allow multiple sponsors to be entered within Dash and displayed on the detail page. When a sponsor is selected there will now be a new logo field specific for that sponsor. This new logo field replaces the old "Sponsor Logo" field. On already entered webinars the "Sponsor Logo" field will remain visible, though renamed to "Legacy Sponsor Logo". On newly created webinars, or webinars updated to use the new sponsor-specific logo field the legacy sponsor logo field will be removed.

Additionally, sponsor logo alt text will now default to [Company Name] + Logo.

Lastly, for the sponsors, the autocomplete was changed to include all supplier directories. Results will be grouped by the directory and the same company may appear under different directories. Please be sure you're selecting the correct company under the correct directory.

Presenters

The presenter image field now uses the Image Library. Additionally, the image editor has been added here with a 1:1 ratio crop (square crop). A simple WYSIWYG has also been added for the biography field consisting of bold, italic, and link tools. If more tools are needed here, please let me know. Lastly, the edit and delete buttons for the presenter's positions were changed (non-visually) to give the biography preview more space.

Misc

- All image fields for webinars and events have been switched to the Image Library.

- Fixed an area where the alias tool wasn't rigged up correctly (featured events)

- Fixed how events that start and end on the same date are displayed, they'll now display October 13 instead of 13 - 13.

When the content editor WYSIWYG is fullscreen, the related suppliers panel is now visible and pinned to the bottom-right corner of your screen. This allows you to add and remove related suppliers without leaving fullscreen. Changes here will then immediately reflect within the "Insert Supplier Link" dropdown in the WYSIWYG toolbar. When you exit fullscreen in the editor the related suppliers panel will return back to its original position.

Edited Image Placement

When editing images in Build in the past the edited image used to save directly into the same folder as the original image. Now, when editing images, if you apply a crop transform to the image the edited image will now be placed inside a sub-folder named after the cropped aspect ratio.

For example, if I upload a 16:9 image to my Microsite, example-microsite, and crop it to fit a 3:2 widget, the new altered 3:2 image will be placed inside a folder called 3x2 at /brand/PM/build/example-microsite/3x2. (x is used in place of : because : isn't url-safe).

Default Widget Image Library Folder

If a Microsite has a sub-folder named after the aspect ratio the widget supports, for example 3x2 for a 3:2 aspect ratio, the widget's "Browse Image Library" will automatically open within that aspect ratio's folder. If the Microsite doesn't have a folder yet for the expected aspect ratio, then it'll open as it did previously inside the Microsites folder.

Alias Is Now Required To Create A Microsite

To aid with the behaviors defined above, you now must provide an alias for your Microsite during the creation process. This ensures the Microsite has a sub-folder within the Image Library to allow the above two behaviors to occur.

Unique Filenames

Previously, timestamps (numeric representation of the datetime) were prefixed to the filename when uploading an image using the "Browse Computer" button. Additionally, when editing an uploaded image a timestamp was added to the end of the filename. This behavior is now normalized and the timestamp is placed at the end of the filename for both, delimited by a dot.

So previously an uploaded and edited  image's filename might look like this:
1633094956353_mmsmx_zone_software_1633095076789.jpg

Now it'll look like this, which will make it easier to find images by their name:
mmsmx_zone_software.1633095076789.jpg

Additionally, when editing this image the existing timestamp will be replaced with an updated timestamp for the newly edited image version, preventing the duplicate timestamp that was previously occurring.

A transparency grid, common with photo editing software, has been added to Build's image previews to fix a couple issues.

1. Fixes an issue where white images are invisible due to blending in with the white background
2. Fixes an issue where you can't tell if an image has a white background in areas needing transparency

For example, prior to this change this VMA logo was completely invisible. While still not entirely legible, you can at least now tell that there is an image, what the image is, and that it has transparency.

When an image doesn't contain transparency, here this image has a white background, the transparency grid won't be visible at all.

Bug Fixes

Most of these bug fixes are edge cases that require a certain flow to be followed in order to have run into them. However, always better to have them fixed than lingering around.

• Fixed an issue where you couldn't edit a widget if the Microsite's alias in "Basic Info" was empty.
• Fixed a cache issue where if you previewed a public page and the previewed version got cached, when viewing the public version it would use the preview cache resulting in the menu linking to preview pages. 
• Fixed a cache issue when linking to another Microsite or Microsite page inside Image + Head + Deck, Head + Deck, or a manual field in the Story Grid. If the linked-to page is private/in-review on the current cache then made public the widget was failing to update accordingly resulting in the widget not displaying on the public version.
  

 New Features

• You can now swap strip positions on a page. For example, you can swap Strip 1 with Strip 3 and visa-versa. There is a new button within the strip template panel called "Swap Position" that will ask you which position to swap with, then initiate that swap.
  
• You can now change the visibility of all pages at the same time by clicking the root page in the Pages tree to open its context menu. A new option resides within the context menu called "Change Microsite Visibility" that, when clicked, will open a modal asking what to set the visibility to for every page in the microsite.
  
• You can now instruct Build to tell search engines not to index a Microsite or Microsite page. A new checkbox has been added within the "Basic Info" and "Page Info" panels called "Exclude From Search Engine Index" that will add a meta tag to the page containing "noindex, nofollow" which will instruct search engines not to index the page so the page won't display within search engine results.
  

Enhancements

• When you clicked "Edit Content" on a widget it used to take a second for the page to open the modal because it waited for the modal to be ready before displaying it. Now, when clicked, the modal will open immediately and show "Loading" to signal that the click actually worked and something is happening. Then, once the modal is ready "Loading" will be replaced with the edit form.
• When changing the "Content Selector" radio selection in a widget edit form it used to take a second for the old selection's fields to be removed and replaced with the new selection's fields. Now, when changed, the old fields are immediately removed and replaced with "Loading". Then, when the new selection's fields are ready "Loading" is then replaced with those fields.
• The styling on the page's menu has been slightly tweaked to fit more characters on a line before line-breaking, provide better contrast on hover, reduce the massiveness of the drag-and-drop icon.
• The styling on the page menu's context menu (what displays when a page is clicked) has been slightly tweaked to improve contrast and fit more items vertically in a smaller area.

Team List Link Option

Within Build, the Team List widget now has a new option to allow linking for a team member. This option is only available for the Grid and List layouts. The Grouped layout utilizes the email field for linking.

The Link field has three options

1. Don't Link - This is the default, in which the team member won't have a link
   
2. Link To Author - Only displayed when selecting an author, will link to that author's page on the site
3. Define Manual Link - This allows you to manually define a link for the team member.

When "Define Manual Link" is selected an additional field to provide that link will be displayed.

Edit Page Panel

Also added with build, though not really a Dash change, is a new panel displayed on Build pages when you're logged in. Note this is not visible to our users. This panel sits in the bottom-right corner of the screen and provides information about which Microsite you're in and which page within the Microsite you're in.

If you have access to edit the Microsite there will be a link in this panel to go directly to the Build edit screen for the current page you're on.

A list of the ad collections each ad is in is now being displayed on the ad collection edit page. Each collection name is a link and will take you to that ad collection's editor.

The Content Marketing Dashboard has been re-imagined. The dashboard is now broken up into four different sections. Links, Site Maintenance, Social and Push, and Trello.

1. Links - Consists of Quick Links and Dash Training links. Quick Links will be brand specific links unique to a brand's dashboard, while Dash Training links will be the same across all brand dashboards.
   
   
2. Site Maintenance - Consists of Featured Content, Read Next, Resources, Home Strips and Zone Strips. Featured Content will only display for the Custom Content team. Read Next and Resources now have an "Overdue" status countdown to help prevent content from becoming stale. Resources can now be pulled from a collection of Dash content, a taxonomy selection, or manually inserted. Home Strips and Zone Strips are brand new. You can assign up to three home strips and one zone strip. This allows you to select between a Color Series strip or a Photo Series strip. These strips work very similar to the strips within Build.
   
   
3. Social and Push - This section has been converted from one single table containing future dated items to four sections, this week, this month, future, and past 6 months. Coming in Phase 2 will be the inclusion of push alerts.
   
   
4. Trello - Another new section to the dashboard is Trello. This requires you to login and authorize Dash to access your Trello boards and cards. Once authorized a read-only version of Trello will be displayed within your Content Marketing dashboard.
   

Starting for images placed in content bodies July 9th onward. When pulling an image from the body copy for usage on pages like the home page the system will now search for and use the first 3:2 aspect ratio image, or one very close to 3:2. So, if a 2:1 image is displayed first in the article followed by a 3:2 image halfway down the page the 3:2 image will be used instead of the 2:1 image.

This only applies for images place July 9th and onward because images will now have their native dimensions data applied to the image which is what's used to determine the aspect ratio.

In this example, note the image being pulled when linking to the article, which is boxed in red, is the third image to display within the actual article. This image is the one that's pulled because it's the first image within the article that's a 3:2 aspect ratio.