Aurora: Featured Places widget configuration

The Featured Places widget displays a list of places (KBs, forums, blogs, ideas boards, and/or event boards) in the community that you choose to feature. You can configure it to focus on top-level boards only or to present sub-places within those communities as nested items.

Layout
List style
Card
Configuration options
Title
Edit Sample Featured Places
List item/Card elements
Number of places
More options

If you reset the layout of a page with a populated Featured widget or delete a section containing a populated Featured widget, that Featured widget is deleted from all other page templates on which it appears. If you attempt to reset or delete, you will receive a warning that also indicates all other places where the widget is located.

Layout

There are 2 layouts available for the Featured Places widget: List and Card.

List style

The List layout creates a vertical list of places, enabling members to identify and navigate to parts of your community quickly. Line items can include avatar images as well as descriptions, post totals, and more.

There are 3 list styles available in the List layout:

The Space list style divides items in the list using a blank space rather than a solid visual divider.
The Divide list style adds a solid horizontal line between line items.
The Border list style separates items in the list into separate sections.

Card

The Card layout showcases each place in a card and includes an expansion feature that opens an additional panel with any sub-places under each item.

Cards can be configured by their Card Size and Card text alignment:

The Card Size setting changes the overall size of the avatar and text so that it takes up more horizontal room in the card. You can choose between Medium and Large content sizes.
The Card text alignment setting aligns text within each card. Aligning text to either the Left or Right places the text so that it hugs the side of the card; however, the avatar image (if selected) will center itself above the text.

Configuration options

Title

You can enter a title for the widget to display at the top of the widget. If the Visible only to screen readers toggle is on, the title is relayed only through screen readers.

Edit Sample Featured Places

Click Edit Sample Content to open a window where you can select sample places to preview how the widget will look in the community.

In the Places field, search for a place to add. You can then reorder a place by grabbing it with your cursor and dragging it to the desired location.

Note: The sample places you select here will not be saved and published to the community. You must add the actual place you want to feature on the desired page in the community.

Click Preview to return to editing the widget.

List item/Card elements

List item elements and Card elements determine what information is included for each item in the widget. Turning off or on the toggles hides or shows the elements.

List item/card element options include:

Avatar (Card only): The place’s image.
Description: The place’s description.
Post count: The total number of posts in the place.
Unread post count: The number of unread posts in the place.
Most recent activity timestamp: The timestamp of the latest activity (in days) in the place.
Lock Icon (Closed, hidden, and read only) (List only)
Expand category children (Card only): An expandable section at the bottom of the card so you can view the category children.

The Lead with drop-down menu in the List layout sets which element appears first in the widget for each item.

The Max lines of description text slider available for both List and Card layouts sets the number of lines of description text to display for each item in the widget.

Number of places

The Number of places slider sets the number of places that appear in the widget before the Show More link appears.

The List layout includes a slider for the Number of category children. If the value of this slider is greater than 0, child places are displayed as nested objects under the parent.

More options

Additional options are available in the More options section:

The Include "Show More" Links toggle turns on the Show More feature if the number of places exceeds the value of the Number of places slider.
The Optimize page-load time toggle turns on the lazy loader, which loads images as the member scrolls down the page, shortening the initial page load time.