1
Using the Smarty variables and if/else statements, you can edit your news_item.html file (in Templates Menu) to exclude elements, or completely change the look of the news item based on who posted the story.
for my
K-News Station site, I created a user named KNEWS, and if I post the story as that user (or, I just change it in 1.3) the entire "Posted By" line gets dropped. - here is the only thing I changed - other than creating the user:
<{if $story.author_name == "KNEWS"}>
<{else}>
<td class="itemHead">
<span class="itemTitle"><{$story.title}>span>
td>
tr>
<tr>
<td class="itemInfo">
<{if $story.files_attached}><{$story.attached_link}> <{/if}>
<{if $story.poster != ''}><span class="itemPoster"><{$lang_postedby}> <{$story.poster}>span><{/if}>
<span class="itemPostDate"><{$lang_on}> <{$story.posttime}>span><{$news_by_the_same_author_link}>
td>
tr>
<{/if}>
adding the:
<{if $story.author_name == "KNEWS"}>
<{else}>
statement made that entire loop disappear when the user who posted the story was "KNEWS"
- I don't know template editing very well, so it looks a little weird without it completely, but you can see how only things posted by "KNEWS" will have that element dropped.
So imagine using two or three different users setup, with a different presentation for each one.
edit: I then used the /if loop to tie in a second itemHead (itemHead2) to the css, then added that statement to the css, - to add the buffer I wanted.