Text / Article teasers automatically generated?

[Jay DeWitt]

Greetings

I posted a message earlier that asked the question, "Is there a way to automatically break a page off at a predetermined length with a continuation automatically created for the subsequent page(s).

The answers I received indicated that this could not be done

So, if I have several articles that are on their own pages, is there anyway to automatically create teasers (lead ins) for those articles on my Home Page or will those have to be manually created with the hyperlinks to the corresponding pages manual created too

It just seems to me with all the news sources updating information so often that there would be a way to automate this process

Anybody have any insight

Thanks in advance.

 

[Jon Spivey]

Hi,
if you're pulling the articles from a database this would be easy, but if
youre building static pages I don't think there's a way to automate this. Do
you have some form of database technology available to you - asp etc?

--
Cheers,
Jon
Microsoft MVP - FP

Greetings.

I posted a message earlier that asked the question, "Is there a way to

automatically break a page off at a predetermined length with a continuation
automatically created for the subsequent page(s)."

The answers I received indicated that this could not be done.

So, if I have several articles that are on their own pages, is there

anyway to automatically create teasers (lead ins) for those articles on my
Home Page or will those have to be manually created with the hyperlinks to
the corresponding pages manual created too.

It just seems to me with all the news sources updating information so

often that there would be a way to automate this process.

 

[Jay DeWitt]

Jon,

Thanks for the input. I currently keep all articles/editorial in a shared file on my server and not in a database. My Graphic Designer takes the Word Documents and dumps it into Adobe InDesign where my style sheet and his style sheet "marry" and this allows it the text to format to our publication standard (like a css does).

Currently, I don't have a database, but would explore if this would save me time. Is there an inexpensive option you would suggest?

Also, can you at all suggest an easy way to import editorial into a dwt or is copy and paste the best alternative.

Thank you in advance.

Jay DeWitt

 

[Jon Spivey]

Sounds like a database would be a good solution for you. Assuming you're
using a windows server the FP database wizard would make a nice job of
producing a home page listing say the first 20 words with a link to read the
full article. The beauty of using a database is once you have your articles
in the database the whole process is automated - producing the home page
with article intros and links and producing the page with the full article.

To find out how viable this will be for you, what kind of server are you
hosted on?

--
Cheers,
Jon
Microsoft MVP - FP

Jon,

Thanks for the input. I currently keep all articles/editorial in a shared

file on my server and not in a database. My Graphic Designer takes the Word
Documents and dumps it into Adobe InDesign where my style sheet and his
style sheet "marry" and this allows it the text to format to our publication
standard (like a css does).

Currently, I don't have a database, but would explore if this would save

me time. Is there an inexpensive option you would suggest?

Also, can you at all suggest an easy way to import editorial into a dwt or

is copy and paste the best alternative.

 

[Jay DeWitt]

Jon

Thanks for the help. I have a Windows 2000 Server for my business, but I do not host my own Web site, as I have just begun to create a site for my company. I am all about doing things once and reducing redundant processes. If I understand you correctly I should be able to take all articles, place them into a database with the various fields (ie title, author, etc.) and pull that into a home page, with a link going to the full article. Right

Can the process of getting the article onto the related page be automated from the dbase too

What kind of database would you recommend

Thanks

Jay