Headline Lab

Skyboxer

Skyboxer puts the article you're reading into slot 1 of the homepage skybox — instantly, without opening the CMS. Works on all five GE360 publications.

• Click the bookmarklet on any article page at Defense One, GovExec, Nextgov, Route Fifty, or Washington Technology.
• The CMS opens automatically to that publication's skybox admin page.
• The extension takes over — it reads the current five slots, shifts each article down one position, and puts the new article in slot 1. You watch the progress bar; it's done in a few seconds.

1. Install the Athena Tools Chrome extension — the bookmarklet alone won't work without it. Get it from the Chrome Web Store.
2. Show your bookmarks bar if it's hidden: ⌘+Shift+B on Mac, Ctrl+Shift+B on Windows.
3. Drag the button above into your bookmarks bar. It'll appear as "⬆ Skyboxer".
4. That's it. Navigate to any article on a supported publication and click Skyboxer to push it to slot 1.

• Do I need the Chrome extension installed?
  Yes. The bookmarklet only opens the correct CMS page — it's the Athena Tools extension that actually performs the cascade. Without the extension, the CMS page will open but nothing will happen automatically.
• Does it work from a preview or staging URL?
  No — the bookmarklet reads the post ID from the live article URL (e.g. /article/12345/). Preview and staging URLs have different formats and won't produce a valid ID.
• What happens to the article that gets bumped out of slot 5?
  It's removed from the skybox — its slot is overwritten by what was in slot 4. If you need to preserve it, save the URL before running Skyboxer.
• What about sponsored/advertiser slots?
  Skyboxer detects sponsored slots (those with a title override beginning with "Sponsored:") and treats them as a wall — the cascade stops just before the first sponsored slot, leaving it and everything below it untouched.
• What if I click it from the wrong publication?
  The bookmarklet reads location.hostname and only recognizes the five supported domains. If you click it from an unsupported page, it'll alert you rather than open anything.
• Can I undo a push?
  Not automatically — there's no undo function. You'd need to manually re-edit the skybox slots in the CMS to restore the previous order.