The Continue option

[rj]

To save load time, and to present more articles on the frontpage, I recently began using the CONTINUE option to put my videos and graphics in. This is fine for the 90% of traffic that comes from search engines to a specific article, as they see the entire article just as before. But this has upset my 10% regulars who complain they have to click twice! Oh No! They hate it!

So I was I thinking I could fool them by creating a small generic graphic that looks like a player with a play button that when clicked does the CONTINUE replacing the continue link at the bottom.

And I wonder if there is a way to &autoplay-true just on the CONTINUE and not the whole artilce?

Thanx

RJ

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

Of course you could edit your entries.tpl template file and search for the link {$entry.link} - this is where the "Continue reading..." link is shown. You could add any kind of graphic tag inside there.

You cannot easily use autoplay for this link though. It would require a completely different kind of embedding videos to your site, as you would need to utilize javascript to see if a specific variable is set, and then use it to write code so that the autoplay starts. You would need to do that for every article that you insert a video into. To utilize that properly you would need some javascript knowhow, and how to adapt HTML Object/Embed code with it, so maybe that's a bit beyond the scope...

Bottom line: Try to make the continue-Link more visually appealing, I think that's the most you can do for those readers. You can't, without a lot of work or $$, easily reduce the clicks from 2 to 1...

Best regards,
Garvin

[Don Chambers]

I agree with Garvin - make the link an image/graphic. Your regular readers will simply have to get used to linking through to the detailed entry view if your objective is to keep those videos from overview page views including the front page.

[rj]

Thanx... I understand, a video player box at the bottom will have to do. When I find it do I just substitute a link to the image in the space the "continue" prompt is?

I suppose I could add a &autoplay=true in the various embed codes to see if it works. After all, once you save those embeds in the WYS editor the code moves all around anyway, but lucky for me, works in all the browsers these days.

Oh, and just to make sure, putting the videos in the CONTINUE box keeps the articles on the front page from loading all the the player graphics (which are around 80k each) and the embedded trackbacks?

I also wonder if it is just serendipity that since I put all the videos into CONTINUE that the SAVE ENTRY process is about 10 times faster than it was before? Or is it something unrelated you think?

My suspicion on that slowness has always been that Comedy Central takes forever to do that initial trackback inside the embed code and they may have recently upgraded their servers or something.

thanx

RJ

[Don Chambers]

Thanx... I understand, a video player box at the bottom will have to do. When I find it do I just substitute a link to the image in the space the "continue" prompt is?

Yes.. as Garvin pointed out, it is in entries.tpl. The "continue reading :code looks like this:

Code: Select all

            {if $entry.has_extended and not $is_single_entry and not $entry.is_extended}
            <br /><a href="{$entry.link}#extended">{$CONST.VIEW_EXTENDED_ENTRY|@sprintf:$entry.title}</a><br /><br />
            {/if}

The code above is from /templates/default/ - yours may vary if using a custom template.

I presume you will want to keep that, then add an image that links to the same destination? If so, it will look something like this:

Code: Select all

            {if $entry.has_extended and not $is_single_entry and not $entry.is_extended}
            <br /><a href="{$entry.link}#extended"><img src="/path/to/your/image/file.jpg" alt="video" /></a><br /><br />
            {/if}

I suppose I could add a &autoplay=true in the various embed codes to see if it works. After all, once you save those embeds in the WYS editor the code moves all around anyway, but lucky for me, works in all the browsers these days.

Not sure - I don't embed videos in my entries, but if I did, I would not use autoplay.

Oh, and just to make sure, putting the videos in the CONTINUE box keeps the articles on the front page from loading all the the player graphics (which are around 80k each) and the embedded trackbacks?

Yes, that should be correct.

I also wonder if it is just serendipity that since I put all the videos into CONTINUE that the SAVE ENTRY process is about 10 times faster than it was before? Or is it something unrelated you think?

My suspicion on that slowness has always been that Comedy Central takes forever to do that initial trackback inside the embed code and they may have recently upgraded their servers or something.

Not sure, but since it is working faster now, no need to really question it!

[rj]

Ah, thanx for the substitute code! I understand! Will let you know how it turns out!

Well AUTOPLAY is a good idea in this instance as they are pressing a pretend play button, may as well also fool them into thinking it actually works!

[rj]

Thanx Don! And Garvin... Got it all fixed up and looks and works great!
Thanx again.

http://rackjite.com

[Don Chambers]

Great job! Looks good!