Add-On Devs...Some Advice On Implementing A News Site Please
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Hi,
I'm building my 2nd site with C5 and need a little advice before I dig in. Maybe the Add-On devs can point me in the right direction.
I do know how to convert a static site to C5 in regards to creating a theme and adding the elements, etc. But, I'd like to step it up with this new site.
The static portal is being built using (mostly) HTML5/CSS3 and I'm not much interested in supporting the older browsers that have trouble rendering it.
http://dev.meridiansouth.com/policyzoo...
If you go there you can see that it's a news portal. It's pretty much done except for fine tuning the media queries.
What I need to know is if it's possible using either the core and/or available add-ons to:
1) Pull in article teasers based on taxonomy
2) Dynamically create lists of links to related content by taxonomy or date.
3) Manage the image thumbnails on the portal based on the full article page.
4) Be able to archive the full articles in a taxonomy-based structure with permalinks.
5) Dynamically manage blog posts on a separate page by chronology.
6) Anything else you can think of that I'll need to do.
I do appreciate any help you veterans can give me in building this site.
Thanks,
Michael
I'm building my 2nd site with C5 and need a little advice before I dig in. Maybe the Add-On devs can point me in the right direction.
I do know how to convert a static site to C5 in regards to creating a theme and adding the elements, etc. But, I'd like to step it up with this new site.
The static portal is being built using (mostly) HTML5/CSS3 and I'm not much interested in supporting the older browsers that have trouble rendering it.
http://dev.meridiansouth.com/policyzoo...
If you go there you can see that it's a news portal. It's pretty much done except for fine tuning the media queries.
What I need to know is if it's possible using either the core and/or available add-ons to:
1) Pull in article teasers based on taxonomy
2) Dynamically create lists of links to related content by taxonomy or date.
3) Manage the image thumbnails on the portal based on the full article page.
4) Be able to archive the full articles in a taxonomy-based structure with permalinks.
5) Dynamically manage blog posts on a separate page by chronology.
6) Anything else you can think of that I'll need to do.
I do appreciate any help you veterans can give me in building this site.
Thanks,
Michael
Thanks for the input John.
Before I posted this I was looking at your add-ons. As I understand it, with the Magic add-ons I create tokens based on my taxonomy tags and then call the tokens into my teaser and list blocks. Is this how it works?
Thanks again,
Michael
Before I posted this I was looking at your add-ons. As I understand it, with the Magic add-ons I create tokens based on my taxonomy tags and then call the tokens into my teaser and list blocks. Is this how it works?
Thanks again,
Michael
Just to emphasise, my answer above does not require Magic Data. It is based on regular concrete5 page lists and, in most cases, attributes of the pages listed. Think of attributes as your taxonomy tags and more.
For example, there are page lists that will show an image attribute attached to the listed pages as a thumbnail. So for each page you add the thumbnail image attribute to, it will get shown in the page list that reads that image thumbnail attribute.
There are also ways to make a page list filter or sort based on attributes of the subject pages.
So you should think of your taxonomy tags as mapping to attributes of the pages.
Magic Data provides a token/symbol processing engine and a variety of ways of using that, such as embedding tokens within the content of blocks so they get evaluated and displayed when the page is shown. The expressions within tokens can refer to various items of site data including attributes.
Taking a news page as an example, a simple way of using a Magic Data token would be to say:
+++
[%ORIGINAL_PAGE PAGE_NAME%] was provided by [%ORIGINAL_PAGE OWNER USERNAME%] on [%ORIGINAL_PAGE TIME_PUBLIC DATE "d M Y"%]
[%ORIGINAL_PAGE OWNER AVATAR%]
---
(ORIGINAL_PAGE rather than PAGE to make sure that it doesn't get confused if shown as part of the teaser in a page list)
Of course, some blogs and page lists already provide such information built into the blog and page list blocks. If you were writing a custom block or page list, you could build the equivalent to the above into the php rather than using Magic Data. It all depends on what flexibility you require and where you want your flexibility to be.
You could use a very complex expression of Magic Data to replicate much of this, but a page list block makes much more sense and will be more efficient.
Looking to the medium term future, I would like to create a list block that is entirely built on Magic Data, using it to create the list of pages (or other items like users or products), then iterate through them and process templates containing further Magic Data to show each teaser.
For example, there are page lists that will show an image attribute attached to the listed pages as a thumbnail. So for each page you add the thumbnail image attribute to, it will get shown in the page list that reads that image thumbnail attribute.
There are also ways to make a page list filter or sort based on attributes of the subject pages.
So you should think of your taxonomy tags as mapping to attributes of the pages.
Magic Data provides a token/symbol processing engine and a variety of ways of using that, such as embedding tokens within the content of blocks so they get evaluated and displayed when the page is shown. The expressions within tokens can refer to various items of site data including attributes.
Taking a news page as an example, a simple way of using a Magic Data token would be to say:
+++
[%ORIGINAL_PAGE PAGE_NAME%] was provided by [%ORIGINAL_PAGE OWNER USERNAME%] on [%ORIGINAL_PAGE TIME_PUBLIC DATE "d M Y"%]
[%ORIGINAL_PAGE OWNER AVATAR%]
---
(ORIGINAL_PAGE rather than PAGE to make sure that it doesn't get confused if shown as part of the teaser in a page list)
Of course, some blogs and page lists already provide such information built into the blog and page list blocks. If you were writing a custom block or page list, you could build the equivalent to the above into the php rather than using Magic Data. It all depends on what flexibility you require and where you want your flexibility to be.
You could use a very complex expression of Magic Data to replicate much of this, but a page list block makes much more sense and will be more efficient.
Looking to the medium term future, I would like to create a list block that is entirely built on Magic Data, using it to create the list of pages (or other items like users or products), then iterate through them and process templates containing further Magic Data to show each teaser.
PS. Magic Data is just one set of addons that use Magic in their names. I have many others that use 'Magic' in their names that are not part of Magic Data, such as Magic Tabs (for tabbing) and Magic Tipple (for popups), and more.
If your thoughts on taxonomy come from Joomla or Drupal, these may help:
http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/how-tos/editors/transitionin...
http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/how-tos/developers/concrete5...
http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/how-tos/editors/transitionin...
http://www.concrete5.org/documentation/how-tos/developers/concrete5...
John,
Thanks so much for the information.
My goal is to be able to publish articles and have the front page change dynamically to reflect the newer content.
Because of my disdain for Drupal, I was hoping all this was possible in C5 and you've shown me it is.
Amazing response, thanks again,
Michael
Thanks so much for the information.
My goal is to be able to publish articles and have the front page change dynamically to reflect the newer content.
Because of my disdain for Drupal, I was hoping all this was possible in C5 and you've shown me it is.
Amazing response, thanks again,
Michael
There are loads of page list variations available, so a good starting point would be to read up and create a features cross reference on as many page list variations as you can find.
If you can't get it all in one variation, then it should be possible by combining templates from a few of them.