Content Rotator Module for BrowserCMS

This module allows editors to create a rotating jquery based slideshow. Each rotator can have up to five slides, which can feature an image, title and text that can auto rotate, or allow users to click on a specific slide to view it. It is commonly used on home pages to feature lots of content within a small area, with some visual interest due to the rotation.

Features

  • Rotator - Allows up to five slides in rotation. Staff can choose to enable autorotation, as well as how long between each slide.
  • Slides - Each slide represents a single frame within the rotation.
  • Preloading Slides - Editors can create as many slides as they like, and choose which slides should appear in the rotation and in what order.

Slide Content Type

Each slide can consists of the following attributes:

  • Title (String)
  • Alt Text (String)
  • Image (File) - An uploaded image which will be shown as the background of the slide.
  • Description (Html)
  • Link Url (URL) - Determines where the user goes when they click the slide.
  • Nav Title (String) - The name for the clickable link to changes slides (If left blank, it will show the name of the slide).

Installation

Follow the standard bcms module installation found here: http://guides.browsercms.org/installing_modules.html. If you are adding this to an existing project, you will also need to manually seed the database after running the migrations, like so:

$ rake db:migrate
$ rake db:seed:bcms_content_rotator

Next, add the content rotator javascript to your templates. The asset pipeline will automatically pull in the necessary dependencies like jquery.

<head>
    ...
    <%= javascript_include_tag :bcms_content_rotator %>
    <%= yield :html_head %>
</head>

Once this is complete, you can add a new "Content Rotator Portlet" to any page. Create several slides, and edit the content rotator to choose the order.

Customization Notes

  • Each rotator's template is editable through the UI
  • By default, each slide has a 'Read More >>' link that will link to the Link URL (if the URL is specified).

Upgrading Notes

Upgrading this module from versions < 1.2.0 will require manual updates to the database.

  • There is now one migration named bcms_content_rotator120.rb, with some new fields for attachments.
  • The image_url column has been replaced with attachment ids.
  • The portlet views have no javascript in them anymore (its now a separate js file), so it may be worth creating a new portlet and comparing the HTML view code.