Dotnetnuke Core Announcements Module (TUTORIAL)
The image below shows what a typical announcements module can look like. You can set the announcement to be a simple announcement as below, have it link to another page which opens in its own browser window, link to a file on the website and also track how many times it has been viewed.
To add the module it is just a matter of selecting the Announcements module from the list of modules, choosing where on the website you wish to add it (in this case Contentpane and at the bottom of any other modules that currently exist in this pane) and set who has the right permissions to view the module :
Once you have the module on the page, hovering your mouse over the menu will pop up the options menu as shown below. Clicking on the "Settings" option allows us to set many different options for this particular module :
The Basic Settings shown below allow us to set options such as the name of the module, and what permissions you wish to apply for any security roles that you have previously created :
The Advanced Settings provides more options :
Page Settings are probably the most used. Here we can set an icon for the page, the alignment, colour, visibility and the type of container just to mention a few :
The last options are for the Announcements themselves. Here you can set how the announcements will look by adjusting the default template, and settings for how many days the announcements should be displayed for, and whether to display future announcements :
Now that the settings have been adjusted, you can return to the pop up menu and select the option to "Add New Announcement" :
Provide a title for the Announcement, and then enter a second line of desciption :
You can also choose what type of Announcement to add. None just allows text to be added. A URL will allow you to link to an external page, a page link type will allow you to link to a page you have created elsewhere on the website, and the File Link Type allows you to link to an image or file on your website. You can choose to track user clicks and log the details of the clicking, and also choose whether to open the announcement in another browser window. This is useful if you wish to keep users on your website, but still provide them with useful links.
The Publish date allows you to set a date for which the announcement should appear. The view order enables an order for your announcements to follow if say for example some are published on the same day :
Hopefully that gives you an idea what to expect from the Dotnetnuke Core Announcements Module.
TIP : I have previously noticed on some websites designed for clients that they get confused at the date beside the announcement, indicating when the announcement was added to the website. They mistake this date for the date that may be mentioned in the announcement description. In this case, I change the template by simply removing the "- [PUBLISHDATE]" from the template and it no longer causes this issue.