news component               
===============

Description
-----------
This component enables the shop owner to easily add news items to the 
foundation catalog.
If you are already familiar with the merchandising components (eg. promo) 
you will notice that the news component has much resemblance (esp. the 
usage) with the promo component.


Installation
------------
In order to activate this feature, you have to copy the tree in the 
eg/news_feature directory to the appropriate directory of the foundation 
catalog.

	cp -r eg/news_feature/* path_to_your_catalogs/the_catalog

Restart the server after you have copied the files.

Examples
--------
A couple of sample news items are also provided to illustrate some 
features. To see them just point your browser to the news.html page.

The news page (news.html) can be accessed with:

	http://yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/your_catalog/news.html



Features
--------
Fields in table news:
- code		code of the news item (auto number if not entered)
- featured	used for categorisation purposes. One could use this
		field to display different types of news messages on 
		different pages (different configuration of the news 
		component on different pages)
- banner_text	Text could be used for banner display; not used in 
		sample data and sample page
- banner_image	image to be displayed together with the news item
		Currently only used when component is displayed
		(not used in the news item itself on news.html)
- blurb_begin	Teaser text (see promo component)
		Will replace title in component display when present
- blurb_end	Closer text (see promo component)
- timed_news	Activates timing (start and finisch dates) of the news 
		item. Should have any value not Null or 0 to activate.
- start_date	News item will be displayed from this date (format 
		20010804) if the timed_news field is set
		You could set this field to the propper value
		by choosing the 'Date Selector' in the meta editor
- finish_date	News item will be displayed until this date
		See also start_date
- posted_on	Date the news item is posted
		see also start_date
- posted_by	Name of the author of the news item
- posted_email	Email address of the author
- url		not used in sample data
- title		The title of the news item
		See also blurb_begin
- body		The text of the news item


Files
-----
The directory structure of the news_feature directory has the same layout
as the foundation catalog directory. This should assist in  

news_feature
	|
	|--README
	|--dbconf
	|	|--default_db
	|	|	|--news.dbm
	|	|
	|	|--mysql
	|	|	|--news.mysql
	|	|
	|	|--oracle	
	|	|	|--news.ora
	|	|
	|	|--pgsql
	|		|--news.pgsql
	|	
	|--pages
	|	|--news.html
	|
	|--products
	|	|--news.txt
	|
	|--templates
		|--components
			|--news



I welcome any comments for improvement.
Ton Verhagen <ton@verhagen.net>





