Customization would be required -- or a new feature to enable articles, but disable "ordinary" article display on portal page.
I think "show articles on portal page" is at the heart of what SimplePortal was designed to do.
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As you can see, I am using my custom sp_articles on a portal page. And there are the "ordinary" articles below ...
http://rockhallsailingclub.org/ I use custom sp_articles again on
http://rockhallsailingclub.org/smf/index.php?page=PageCruising I switched to boardnews on
http://rockhallsailingclub.org/smf/index.php?page=pageRacing because it is easier for the Racing Content Provider.
More and more, I think boardnews is an easier way to go than articles, because it is easier for the content providers.
That is why I requested a feature of templates for Boardnews, so it is easier to customize the appearance (mostly by CSS, but perhaps even in the HTML) of boardnews. I kind of like the way I made my custom sp_articles look. I'm not so fond of using catbg for the article/boardnews titles.
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I think you have continued this discussion at
http://simpleportal.net/index.php?topic=5174.msg31250#msg31250 . I think this will be a customization issue or a feature request. I am going to mark this topic as solved, because your question about the designed behavior of SimplePortal is answered. In your new topic, you are getting at why you think SimplePortal ought to be designed differently.
If you think this question is not solved, you can change the message icon on your original post back to "not solved".