The latest version of the Announcements module which is shipped with DNN 3.3.0 includes a new module setting which provides Administators with the ability to modify the layout and style of the module content.
By going to the module setting page, Administrators can edit the Html which controls the announcement records. The provided Html:
<CODE>
<span class="SubHead">[TITLE] - [CREATEDDATE]</span><br>[DESCRIPTION] <a href="[URL]" target="[NEWWINDOW]">read more...</a><br>
</CODE>
will display each Announcement record like:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. - Friday, June 16, 2006
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Mauris diam nibh, cursus eget, imperdiet in, consectetuer quis, felis. Donec tincidunt commodo odio. read more...
However with just a few simple modifications, in this case to the stye applied to the title and date, and by transposing the title and date:
<CODE>
<span class="NormalRed">[CREATEDDATE] - [TITLE]</span><br>[DESCRIPTION] <a href="[URL]" target="[NEWWINDOW]">read more...</a><br>
</CODE>
Administrators can change the rendering of announcements to look like:
Friday, June 16, 2006 - Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Mauris diam nibh, cursus eget, imperdiet in, consectetuer quis, felis. Donec tincidunt commodo odio. read more...
As well as providing many different formatting and style options, the other major benefit is the ability to modify to traditional read more... link option with any text of your choice. This certainly customizes and broadens the way one might choose to use this module. By changing the text to so: Read This Article... suddenly the Announcements module can become an article module, or perhaps Download This Newsletter>>> changes it into a module for rendering a list of downloadable PDF's.