 General Questions
Technical Questions
General Questions
How does the BBC Headline Box work?
Once your application has been accepted, we will supply you with a small a small amount of JavaScript to embed within your HTML code. When a user requests pages from your site, the BBC Headline Box will be automatically included.
Can I sign up?
We have temporarily closed this service to new applications, however we will reopen the service on 30th August 2004. You will be able to apply then as long as you have a working website, agree to our Terms and Conditions and meet our site criteria.
Which application form should I complete?
If you are individual, applying for a BBC Headline Box for a personal site, unassociated with any Corporate or official entity, you should use the 'Individual' application form.
If you are applying on behalf of a company, registered as such with Companies House, you should complete the 'Company application form. Make sure you have your company's registered number to hand as you will need it during the application process.
If you are applying on behalf of an organization that is not a company - see above - then please use the 'Association' application form.
If you are a charity, then you may well either be a company or association. If you are a company, you will have a registered company number. If you consider your organization to be a charity, you should be registered as such and will have a registered charity number. Make sure you have your charitiy's registered number to hand as you will need it during the application process.
I've lost my password, can you help?
Yes. If you have lost your password, click here to enter the e-mail address which you gave us when you registered your account. We will send you your password.
How do I change my BBC Headline Box from black & white to colour or vice versa?
1.Log in to your account.
2.Click on the 'View/modify box' button and then click on the 'Change' button for step 1. This will take you to the page where you chose the colour of the box previously.
3.Make the change you require and click 'Save' to return to the preview page.
4.The change will happen automatically to your BBC Headline Box. You will not need to make any changes to your code at all.
How do I add/remove a section to/from my BBC Headline Box?
1.Log in to your account
2.Click on the 'View/modify box' button and then click on the 'Change' button for step 2a. This will take you to the page where you choose/add/remove sections of headlines from your BBC Headline Box.
3.Make the changes you require (remembering that you must have at least one section of headlines, and may have no more than three) and then click 'Save' to return to the preview page.
4.The changes will happen automatically to your BBC Headline Box. You will not need to make any changes to your code at all.
How do I add or remove a radio summary or a search box?
1.Log in to your account.
2.Click on the 'View/modify box' button and then click on the 'Change' button for step 2b. This will take you to the page where you chose the radio summary or search box, or not, before.
3.Make the changes you require and click 'Save' to return to the preview page.
4.The changes will happen automatically to your BBC Headline Box. You will not need to make any changes to your code at all.
How do I alter the width of my BBC Headline Box?
1.Log in to your account.
2.Click on the 'View/modify box' button and then click on the 'Change' button for step 2c. This will take you to the page where you specified the width of the box previously.
3.Make the changes you require to the width. The standard width is 175 pixels wide. The range you may choose within is 175 and 275 pixels. Then click 'Save' to return to the preview page.
4.The changes will happen automatically to your BBC Headline Box. You will not need to make any changes to your code at all.
How do I request another BBC Headline Box?
1.Log in to your account
2.Click on the 'Add a new box' button and follow the four-step process as you did for the first BBC Headline Box you requested.
How do I change my registration details?
1.Log in to your account.
2.Click on the 'Change your registration details' button.
3.You will be taken through to the registration form you completed where you can change the details and click on the 'Save' button.
If you are changing the content of your site you will need to resubmit your site for approval.
If you are modifying our contact person for your site, please ensure they are fully aware of the Terms and Conditions attached to hosting a BBC Headline Box
How do I change the URL of the page on which my BBC Headline Box sits?
1.Log in to your account.
2.Click on the 'Change URL where box sits' button.
3.Submit new URL for approval.
4.When you receive approval via e-mail, you may go ahead and move the code from the old page to the new on your site.
What is a 'page impression'?
A page impression is counted as being the page (with all the files that make it up) that gets sent to the user as a result of a request being sent to the server by that user, for example if a user goes to your url and accesses a certain page once, that would count as one page impression.
To explain this further; if the page where you intend to put the BBC Headline Box is your organisation's 'news' page, one page impression would be measured by one user seeing all the elements that make up that page one time only regardless of how many files or graphics make up the page.
Page impressions are therefore different to hits as a hit is counted as being single files. A user accessing one page may indeed be counted as being any number of hits as there may be many files that make up that page.
Where can I view your Terms and Conditions?
You can view them here: Terms & Conditions.
Where can I view your privacy policy?
Click here to read our privacy policy in full.
Click here to read our copyright policy in full.
Are there any sites that the BBC will not permit to carry a Headlines Box?
Click here to read our site criteria in full.
The same headlines appear in more than one section. Should this happen?
Sorry, but we cannot guarantee that this will not be the case, particularly if you take a section that has a wide coverage of other News sections, the UK section for example.
Technical Questions
Pre-Registration
What are the minimal technical requirements?
No specialist software is required as our Headline Box solution relies on JavaScript.
How does the BBC Headline Box work?
Once your sign up request has been accepted, we will supply you with a small amount of JavaScript to embed within your HTML code. When a user requests pages from your site, the Headline Box will be automatically included.
What happens if a user has JavaScript turned off or an old browser?
Users running browsers that don't support JavaScript or have Javascript turned off will be presented with a box explaining the problem, and linking through to a page explaining how to enable Javascript in that browser. That page can be seen here.
Why don't you support Netscape 4?
We aim to support the majority of browsers for Headline Boxes, but are unable to support Netscape 4 due to the non standard implementation of CSS2. Users running Netscape 4 will be presented with a box explaining the problem.
Is there an alternative to using JavaScript?
At this time JavaScript is the method of delivery we are currently offering. We may offer server side propositions in the future.
How can I change the way the box looks?
Once your sign-up request has been accepted you will have access to the BBC Headline Box admin screen. From here you can decide what type of news headlines you would like to carry. You may also add links to radio clips and a search facility to your Headline Box. The BBC remains in control of the layout as well as the look and feel of the BBC Headline Box and you are not permitted to alter the way it displays on your site. For more information about this, please see our Terms and Conditions.
What happens when users click on a News headline, does my site disappear?
No. All BBC content linked to from a BBC Headline Box opens up into a new, fully-functioning browser window. BBC pages will not open within the same browser window that your site is displayed in.
Can I mix sections from different boxes (i.e. News and Sport within the same box)?
No, this is not possible. You are, however, free to apply for boxes from different genres, e.g. one from News and one from Sport.
Can I have more than one Headline Box on my page?
Although you can take more than one box for your site, each box must be on a different page of that site.
Is the security of my site affected?
The integrity and security of your site will not be affected in any way by adding the BBC Headline Box to your page(s).
What HTML standard have you coded the syndication boxes to?
W3C 4.01 Strict
I am generating my site dynamically using PHP/ASP/Cold Fusion or other server side scripts - will the box still work?
The BBC Headline Box is compatible with any dynamic page generation technology you may be using on your site. The code we give you can simply be embedded in the HTML wherever you wish it to appear on your website.
Can I put the box on my other sites?
No. If you run more than one website, you must sign up for a new account for each site.
Can I give my friends or colleagues copies of my code?
No. You are not permitted to give your custom HTML code to other people or post the code publicly on your website, chat room, newsgroup or any other place where it might be copied and put into the site of another party.
Integrating BBC Headline Box
I have put the code you sent me in my web page, but I get an error, or nothing's happening, or my page does not display properly.
Make sure that that the code on your site is identical to what you received in your email. To help with this, we recommend that you cut and paste the code from the email to your site rather than re-typing it (which might lead to human-created errors). If you are using a website design software like Macromedia DreamWeaver, MS FrontPage or Adobe GoLive please also see the special information posted below.
I am using website editing tools like Macromedia DreamWeaver, MS FrontPage or Adobe GoLive. Do I need to do anything special to get the BBC syndication Box into my site's code?
Website editing tools often hide the HTML code from the designer (to varying degrees depending on the package chosen). If your editor software has an HTML view mode, we recommend that you use that to paste in the code for the BBC Headline Box. If your editor does not have an HTML mode, you may need to open up your completed .htm or .html files and add the BBC Headline Box code manually.
I am finding that the BBC Headline Box is too wide and is altering the layout of my page.
The BBC Headline Box has been optimised to fit into as narrow a space as possible. At just 175 pixels wide, the box is as compact as we can make it without making the content illegible.
My site makes use of Cascading Style Sheets or Inline Styles - do I need to modify anything in my site?
The BBC Headline Box defines and uses a number of CSS styles. We have prefixed all of our CSS classes with either 'BBCNews_', 'BBCSport_', 'BBCNewsround_' . You will only run into difficulties if any of your CSS classes also begin with these prefixes.
Do you guarantee that the headline box will look the same to everyone, no matter what browser they use?
No we don't. People tend to update their browsers when a new version is released and so the latest or most recent browsers become known as industry standard. You may experience a variety of format changes if you view the headline box in a lower specification browser.
Post-Registration
I am finding that my pages are taking a noticeably longer time to download now I have the box on my site. Why?
In order to display the BBC Headline Box on your page, we employ the use of JavaScript to fetch the content for your BBC Headline Box. A number of factors can affect the time it takes for a page to download, including a connection speed, the software you are using, or how powerful your computer is.
The BBC Headline Box doesn't seem to be up to date.
There could be a number of reasons for this. To check whether the headlines system is temporarily offline or not updating, go to http://www.bbc.co.uk and compare the content of your Headline Box with the top stories in the relevant section - News, Sport or Newsround.
Occasionally, sections may not be updated because they were either covering a special event, which is now finished, or the subject is a sport which is "off season". We will contact partner sites when we finish syndicating a section (e.g., because the event is over).
The usual BBC Headline Box has suddenly disappeared, I now get a blank space or a small BBC logo.
This is most likely because you have JavaScript turned off in your browser, or your browser doesn't support it. However, you may also receive a blank space instead of a BBC Headline Box if our syndication system is temporarily down. We will inform all partner sites of any prolonged disruption to the service.
Rather than the usual BBC Headline Box, I now get an error message.
Error messages may be displayed when occasional glitches in the system occur. Occasionally, we will use an error message to prompt you to contact the BBC Headline Box service.
How do I remove the BBC Headline Box from my site?
To remove the BBC Headline Box from your site, simply remove the code we sent you from your site. However, don't forget that that for most partner sites there is a fixed period contractual obligation between partner site and the BBC. Termination of your account (and removal of the Headline Box from your site) is subject to the contractual obligations agreed.
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FAQs
