The Associated Press has completed its migration to modern infrastructure. A significant change was made when the AP moved away from its legacy Webfeeds method of syndicating content to a new API-based method.

The Associated Press no longer supports the Web Feed Manager. Sites that are using that for downloads need to migrate over to the BLOX wire tool and set up the new API-based delivery method immediately. 

BLOX Digital recommends BLOX Total CMS appliance sites update as soon as possible to the latest version, Appliance OS 2.34.0. It's paramount, though, for sites to use at least 2.29.0. From this version, 2.29, and on, only AP channels using the new Media API will be available. 

MAJOR PACKAGES INCLUDED

• BLOX CMS version 1.67.0 (from 1.62.5)
• Wire 1.43.0 (from 1.42.1)
• PageTracker 1.18.4 (from 1.18.1)

BLOX CMS Version 1.62.6-1.67.0

In this minor release of BLOX Core, we are resolving an issue where unsubscribed readers were still provided access to content within the same browsing session. In addition, there are other bug fixes.

We are adding a new tab in the asset editor to manage SEO metadata, adding functionality to override headlines and summaries as they appear in BLOX CMS, and making various improvements to our Syndication channel and webservices.  

NEW FEATURES

• A new tab has been added that includes fields for commonly-used SEO markups, including SEO title and SEO description. We've also migrated the URL Title and Type of Work fields from the Miscellaneous properties into this more appropriate location. For editorial assets, this tab will now appear alongside the recently released Social tab. The SEO options will reside under the Other tab for all other asset types. For more information, please read our documentation. (TNCMS-8302)
• We've added a number of new fields to the profile tab in User Accounts. This is part of a larger effort to allow for more reader transparency. These fields will not yet be publicly visible to readers when populated. Continue to follow our release notes for further updates. (TNCMS-8290)
• As part of an ongoing initiative to provide more author-to-reader transparency, we're reintroducing social media fields to user profiles. Authors can now add their Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts to their User Account. Author cards will now display links to their social media profiles when added. (TNCMS-8304)
• We are adding additional "types of work" options to the SEO tab. These different attributes can be applied in order to set schema on that article. Some "types of work" will also add labels to the article, above the headline. These labels help end users identify different types of content. (TNCMS-554436)
• The SearchAssets webservice endpoint now includes a parameter to exclude assets that are currently "locked" or in use by an admin. This is to ensure assets that are still being edited are not prepared for production. For more information on webservices, please visit our documentation here. (TNCMS-554370)

IMPROVEMENTS

• We've resolved an issue where recently unsubscribed readers were still permitted access to content within their same browsing session. There are now checks in place to ensure this cannot happen. (TNCMS-8274)
• Information populated in the Social and SEO fields will now be preserved when Syndicated to other sites. (TNCMS-554379)
• Our User webservice now supports the ability to add author image when generating new admin accounts. For more information on our webservices, please visit our help site. (TNCMS-554443)
• We've introduced Workflows to the Editorial search options. This new search criteria will allow admins to generate Saved Searches based on a Workflow status. (TNCMS-554444)
• We've updated the webservice response for editorial collections to include the "hide headlines" and "hide details" settings to ensure those values are honored when presented elsewhere, such as our mobile app. For more information on our webservices, please visit our documentation. (TNCMS-554511)

BUG FIXES

• Syndication methods were running into issues with relationships not being maintained semi-randomly. This appears to be caused when the parent is processed before the children. This has been addressed and relationships should maintain as expected in Syndication.(TNCMS-554353)
• We discovered an issue where the Author bios were missing in some cases. This has now been fixed and bios entered previously should now be present. (TNCMS-554446)
• We've resolved an issue with relationships not being preserved during the syndication process. (TNCMS-554469)
• We fixed an issue with the User Profile 'about' field losing rich-text markups. This should display appropriately now. (TNCMS-554519)
• We fixed an issue in Notifier application where adding or editing a new target would unselect previously chosen channels. (TNCMS-554532)
• We fixed an issue where article import jobs would omit summaries in some cases. (TNCMS-554590)

PAGETRACKER 1.18.4

In this minor software release BLOX Digital (formally TownNews) is resolving a pair of bugs. 

BUG FIXES