Announcer

Summary

The Announcer allows an administrator to configure a set of articles that will be presented to a user on visit in a modal panel. The Announcer has some intelligence built into it as to when it should reappear. The Announcer can be used for various purposes such as for announcement and orientation of new features when a user visits a site or page.

Figure 1: Default Article View

Overview

The Announcer contains a set of articles to be shown to the user after login.

Articles will be displayed to the user once per day or when the administrator updates the articles list such as, add an article or reorder the list of articles. The behavior of this app also depends on the user's action.

When the modal panel (pop up) is displayed the user will have two choices:

1. Close the pop up with the 'x' button without completing the list of articles. When the user chooses to close the Announcer with this option, it will be displayed again on the next visit to page if at least 24 hours had gone by.
2. Go through the articles using the 'Previous', 'Next' buttons. Once the user lands on the last article a 'Close' button will be shown on the bottom - right corner. When the user chooses to close the Announcer with this option, it will not show up anymore unless the administrator updates the content.

In the page where the Announcer is included the user will be able to see an article selected by the administrator as the presentation article (default article). Initially empty, until a default article is chosen. On a successful login, the user will be shown a button 'Launch'  on the bottom-left corner to trigger Announcer (Figure 1).

Figure 2: Announcer Modal Panel

Installation

Announcer is a lightweight plugin, so the installation is fairly simple. The installation steps are as follows:

1. Obtain the Announcer app from the Liferay Marketplace.
2. Deploy the app in your existing out of the box Liferay installation. If you haven't installed Liferay, please download and follow the instructions to do so.
3. Go to the site page where you intend to add Announcer app.
4. Click “Add” and search for the Announcer.

It is that easy to install the Announcer app. The installation steps may vary depending on the Liferay version in use. Remember that the UI has changed significantly in 6.2 GA1.

Configuration

Now let us look at the configuration.

1. Preference
   1. To change the articles displayed, navigate to Preferences by clicking Options wheel on top right corner of the app.
   2. To add/delete article click on the 'Add/Remove articles' button. A pop-up with the list of Web content articles along with their current selection will be displayed.
      Add a new article to Announcer by selecting the checkbox.
      Remove an article by unselecting the checkbox.
      Once done with selection of articles close the window with the 'x' or 'Close' options.
   3. To reorder the list of articles click the 'Actions' button on the right side of the desired article and select the 'Up' or 'Down' option.
   4. To select a default article (mandatory) to be displayed as the presentation of the Announcer click the 'Actions' button on the right side of the desired article and select the 'Default Article' option.

Code repository

The latest source code is located at the following location:

https://github.com/rivetlogic/liferay-announcer

Contact Us

We welcome feature/bug reports concerning the Announcer app and the nature of its data. Discussion helps clarify the ways the app can be used and also helps define directions for future development. Please post your concerns at http://issues.rivetlogic.com/browse/LRA

Change log: