Hi, I’ve been using the new “featured topics” widget on a daily basis for the past weeks now. And I just wanted to let you know that I’m really loving it. It is quick and easy to add or remove content, the queue can be moved around easily too and the best thing is that the widget places different amounts of topics automatically into the optimal (desktop) alignment.

The most important improvement suggestion we have at the moment, I’ve already talked about here.

Hi @Julian , I can’t get the cards to show the thread image. Im sure Im missing something? I’d appreciate your help with this. 

Is the topic “Welcome to Beta” created as an article? Or as a discussion / question? Only the featured images of articles are displayed on the featured topics cards (and in other places). If you insert images in discussions or questions, then they aren’t recognized as such.

I just wanted to jump on this, but Bjoern was quicker. I would have asked the same question... :)

Well, I believe that’ll do the trick. Thanks @bjoern_schulze 

I’d highlight that on your article @Julian , at least for folks like me :P

Good suggestion, I will add it!

Did you change the HTML for the Featured Topics? It looks like they are embedded into a figure element now which has a default margin (left and right) of 40px. I believe the margin should be zero instead.

I noticed the same thing

I saw my colleagues released and then rolled back a change that might have caused this. It should be fine now again, please let me know if you still encounter issues.

It seems like it was fixed with the rollback @Julian but it’s gone weird again.

Can you ask that it’s rolled back again ASAP. And that your tech guys just stop messing about today?

Hello! Can you give me simple instructions on featuring content on the home page? Like “add a moderator tag” or click this button or…? 

We’re trying to get initial content in to launch our forum and I’m stumped on how to add articles to the featured widget.

Thanks much!

Welcome to inSpired @heather locke !

It sounds to me as if you’re looking for a handy guide here. 

In particular, here’s the steps you’ll most likely be after.

1. Activate Customization mode

2. Hover over the homepage and determine where you want to add featured topics. Click the plus icon ()  and select the Featured topics widget

3. Add one or more topics via search or by copy/pasting a topic URL. You can add as many topics as you like

4. Select how many topics should be displayed as full-width. If you choose 0 the topic cards will either show in a 2 or 3 column layout depending on the amount of topics

5. Click Done in the sidebar

6. Click Publish. Your featured topic cards will now appear on your homepage

If you get stumped, feel free to give us a shout and we’ll walk you through everything.

Good luck with launching your community too! If you need any advice at all, we’ll be glad to offer it.

Thank you. For some reason the customization button which wasn’t available all day finally popped up and I’m now using the featured topics widget. Thanks much!

No worries.

Don’t forget that if you’ve got access to the staging environment as part of the package, it’s an extremely useful tool for trying out testing and experiments without causing the main forum to implode. Everything you do in the staging environment is kept separate from public and is restricted to moderators only by default.

Don’t be afraid to break staging! That’s what it’s there for. 

@Frank Is there a way to have something like the “Featured Topic Banner” but instead of linking to a topic, I insert my own text and url? Essentially what I want to do is have a featured banner at the top that is pointing community members to unanswered questions (https://community.insided.com/search/activity/unanswered)

@security_lion I think you’d really be better off adding a some HTML, and stealing the code from the featured banner so you can just edit the content. You don’t need to be very familiar with all this to figure this out either:

1. Add the featured banner with a random topic
2. Press cmd+shift+C (Mac Chrome) to inspect the element and steal the code of the banner
3. Remove the topic banner
4. Hit customise and add a HTML widget
5. Do not put a title simply paste in the entire “stolen” code as is
6. Edit the content so that it just says something like “View unanswered questions”
7. Edit the link to be the one you mentioned
8. Publish!

Your HTML would look something like this:

<div class="homepage-widget-container widget-container homepage-widget-container--topic_banner widget-container--topic_banner homepage-widget-container--topic_banner widget-container--topic_banner" data-idx="3">
                <div class="widget-placeholder">
                                        <div><div class="topic-banner_wrapper featuredBanner"><a class="banner-notification_url" href="https://community.insided.com/search/activity/unanswered"></a><div class="box banner-notification notification"><div class="box__content box__pad"><p class="notification-title"><span class="notification-link">View unanswered questions</span></p></div></div></div></div>
     </div>
</div>

The only downside, which might actually be for the best is that this will only appear on the homepage. If you wanted it everywhere you’d have to make it part of your navigation, which is a little more tricky.

Hope this helps!

Eyyyyy @SmartlyGreg !! Living up to your username. Thank you for your suggestion and for walking me through it.

​@Julian ​@Blastoise186 

I don’t see the option to add a “Feature Topic Banner” in my site that displays on every page?

I can add a Banner to my homepage, which I’ve done in Sandbox, but its not displaying across all the pages in sandbox. 

Can you help me understand what I am doing wrong? Trying to solve for this use case.

Thanks!

Howdy ​@lyoung !

Man, it’s been a while since I was last here!!!

Do you mean the big blue one like you see here, or the green one on my home forum over at OVO?

If so, IIRC I think you’re looking for the Topic Banner widget specifically - that’s the one that does it and appears below the Mega Menu.

Check out this little puppy as I think it’s what you’re looking for.

https://communities.gainsight.com/product%2Dupdates/topic%2Dbanner%2Davailable%2Din%2Dcustomisation%2Dmode%2D20652

My suspicion is you were just trying to add a regular Featured Topic Banner/Hero Banner of some kind which is a different tool. If the one you try to add gets plonked anywhere other than just below the Mega Menu, you’ve probably picked the wrong one for this use case! :D

Please bear in mind that you can only have ONE thing at a time in that Topic Banner, so you may want to consider your selection carefully.

If you want to, you could also steal ahem borrow some code from my old friend Tim left behind that you can chuck into Custom HTML/CSS/JS to then set as a widget that you can then place wherever you want. I’ll leave a link to the repository for you - just make sure to adjust it so it’s what you want it to be!

https://github.com/T-J-D-Cavey/Forum-Guidelines-Text-Box

Easiest way to do so is to Fork the existing repository and make the changes to your copy (should be as simple as just changing the text tbh) before you add it to your own instance. All Tim asks is please maintain the copyright notice and respect the MIT License he placed on the original code (your legal team should be able to help you if you get stuck but it’s pretty easy to comply with).

If you’d like to see an example of it in action, simply try to create a thread on the OVO Forum (don’t worry about logging in - just being on the page is enough!) and it should pop right up.

And yeah… I promise I’ll be back on here more often at some point in the future! I’m just having too much fun Taking Over The World elsewhere at the moment - it’s hard to be an Evil Genius and find the time for other things! XD

Thank you for your detailed response - Yes, I am looking at the green one. The issue is that when I go to Edit Layout and try to add a “Topic Banner” widget, it’s not an option in my widget menu… (condensed screen shot - I can scroll down but it’s no where in the list)

Sorry to drag you out of retirement : ) but I appreciate you jumping in with a response.

OMG nevermind I see it - its already added on my site just hidden lol - Thank you!

MUHAHAHAHAHAHA! Told ya! :P

A Blastoise’s work is never done ya know - and I NEVER retire! XD

Here’s a funny thing actually. I’m not a Community Manager myself - I’m actually a User (well, Super User)! Gainsight welcomed me into inSpired back in the inSided days and I kinda just stuck around because I enjoyed it a lot. The only reason I haven’t been here is because well, the chaos on my home forum kept me pretty busy all this time. Long story short, my home forum is incredibly active and keeps me very busy, combine that with my IT based day job and the fact I do community volunteering with the fire service (I’m not a firefighter though, I do the community engagement stuff!) and you can soon see where my time gets eaten up. You wouldn’t believe some of the crazy stories I get out of it... :D

Jokes aside, glad to see that it works now. If ya need us again, you know where to find us. :)

Thanks for all the help, incredible ​@Blastoise186! Happy to have seen you back over here!