Topic: Articles & Categories question

[alan]

Hoping someone can educate a newbie like me on things he just doesn't understand. I've read through the threads here and haven't found the answer I'm looking for.
Just got my first SMF & Simple Portal site up and running. Have spent the past several days testing features & functionality as well as playing with themes.
Finally got around to testing the Articles function and was pleased to find it worked well. I noticed that I could create new Topics in the forum, press the 'Add As Article' button and it would appear on the portal front page. I envisioned the possibility of creating non-public forums simply for the purpose of creating articles for the front page, but couldn't find a way to disable articles for other forums. I then discovered that every topic I started, automatically published on the front page regardless of whether I manually directed it to Add Article.

I'm now wondering if I misunderstand how the article function actually works. Is it possible to only publish specific topics from the forums to the front page using articles? If so, how do I change my settings to accomplish?

Also, I think I understand how the categories function works, giving you the ability to assign each article to a category with custom graphics, but how do I assign the category if each topic is automatically published without user intervention.

Hoping someone can point me in the right direction even if it's to say that it's working exactly as it's supposed to.

SMF version 1.1.10
Simple Portal version: 2.2.2
site link: www.lefttoright.net

[Nathaniel]

Your website is running TinyPortal not SimplePortal. Try asking for support at their forums.

[alan]

Sorry, I just added Tiny Portal to play with while waiting for a reply, gotta say, after playing with it for an hour I'm certain I don't want to use it.
 My question does pertain to SimplePortal and I do intend to run SimplePortal once I get the articles problem solved.
Thanks for visiting though. As you can see, it's a work in progress.

[Nathaniel]

Okay, there are two different ways/methods of displaying news topics, either as articles through the Articles system, or as topics through the board news block. Just remember, whichever way you choose, they will look the same.

Using the Articles inbuilt system will allow you to pick and chose which topics you want published as articles using the 'Add as Article' button, while the Board News Block will show all the topics in a certain board.

SimplePortal comes with a defaul setup that has a Board News block on the portal, to use the articles system you will have to disable/delete that block and enable the articles feature (in the configuration area).

[alan]

Thanks for the prompt reply. I haven't played with the Board News Block yet although your description sounds like the very thing I want.
I'm still a little confused about the Articles system though. While I can add any post as an article using the 'Add As Article' button. All new topics are automatically being added as articles as well.
In testing, I turned off the Articles feature and new topics still showed up as articles.
Is this normal behavior?

[Nathaniel]

To clarify, you currently have a Board News block on your portal. (ie. The Articles system is disabled)

At the moment you only have a single board. The Board News block is designed show all the topics in a single board as you would an Article. On your portal, you have a Board News Block at the moment, so any new topics will be shown, as will any old ones, as long as they are in the board set by the Board News block (which doesn't care about the 'Add as Articles' button, because they aren't articles).

If you want to be able to choose the specific topics that are shown (instead of all the topics in a certain board). Then you will need to use the Articles system.

I believe you currently have what you want, you just need to create a 'News' board, and then set the Board News block to show topics from that board.

[alan]

Well I'll be. 
In a matter of minutes you've cleared up several days worth of confusion. I'm giving up for the night and will approach this with a whole new perspective tomorrow.
Thanks so much for your time, patience and advice.
As you can see, I was completely lost on this one.

[Nathaniel]

Cool, if you need any more clarification then I can try to explain it again.

There have been some issues with people confusing the Board News block with the Articles system, the templates are completely identical, so it can be confusing!