Creating simple blog
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I'm building my first blog. Trying to figure out best way of doing this all day, I've found 3 ways so far.
1. Use pages as categories. I did it this for now. My sitemap looks like:
- Main page
- - Items - this is wrapper for all blog
- - - News - category #1
- - - Articles - category #2
Pluses and minuses of this aproach:
+ Blog items separated by categories in Sitemap.
+ Creating page type for every new category is easier than messing around with topics and theme atributes.
+ I can use "Page List" block out of the box.
- For "Items" page if I use "Page List" block with "Include all child pages" checkbox, it shows not only block items, but all categories under "Items" page too.
- "Date Navigation" block doesn't work at all for some reason.
- If there's gonna be a lot of categories, there's gonna be a lot of options in "Add Pages and Navigate Your Site" sidebar on the right.
- In link there's one additional level: /items/news/ instead of just /news/. But I'm not sure if this a minus, maybe that's even better for SEO that I have separated /items/news/ and /items/articles/.
- I can pick only one category for each item.
2. Use topics as categories.
- There's no "News" and "Articles" pages anymore, so blog items will be not separated by categories in Sitemap. There's gonna be veeeery loooong list there.
- "Page List" block crashes with MySQL error when filtering by topic.
+ If I'll make "Page List" block to work, It will allow to filter news by one topic or output all news by "items" page. No categories included, because there's gonna be no pages under "Items".
+ I can pick several categories for each block item.
+ Only one button to add blog item in "Add Pages and Navigate Your Site" sidebar on the right.
3. Use extension.
I'm okay with buying some extension. But I didn't digged thru this yet.
If you know how to fix some of the minuses, please share. Or share some experience, suggest best way of creating blog in C5 in your oppinion.
1. Use pages as categories. I did it this for now. My sitemap looks like:
- Main page
- - Items - this is wrapper for all blog
- - - News - category #1
- - - Articles - category #2
Pluses and minuses of this aproach:
+ Blog items separated by categories in Sitemap.
+ Creating page type for every new category is easier than messing around with topics and theme atributes.
+ I can use "Page List" block out of the box.
- For "Items" page if I use "Page List" block with "Include all child pages" checkbox, it shows not only block items, but all categories under "Items" page too.
- "Date Navigation" block doesn't work at all for some reason.
- If there's gonna be a lot of categories, there's gonna be a lot of options in "Add Pages and Navigate Your Site" sidebar on the right.
- In link there's one additional level: /items/news/ instead of just /news/. But I'm not sure if this a minus, maybe that's even better for SEO that I have separated /items/news/ and /items/articles/.
- I can pick only one category for each item.
2. Use topics as categories.
- There's no "News" and "Articles" pages anymore, so blog items will be not separated by categories in Sitemap. There's gonna be veeeery loooong list there.
- "Page List" block crashes with MySQL error when filtering by topic.
An exception occurred while executing 'SELECT p.cID FROM Pages p LEFT JOIN PagePaths pp ON (p.cID = pp.cID and pp.ppIsCanonical = true) LEFT JOIN PageSearchIndex psi ON p.cID = psi.cID LEFT JOIN PageTypes pt ON p.ptID = pt.ptID INNER JOIN Collections c ON p.cID = c.cID INNER JOIN CollectionVersions cv ON p.cID = cv.cID LEFT JOIN CollectionSearchIndexAttributes csi ON c.cID = csi.cID WHERE (cvName != ?) AND (ak_news LIKE ?) AND (ak_exclude_page_list <> 1 or ak_exclude_page_list is null) AND (p.cParentID = ?) AND (p.cPointerID < 1) AND (p.cIsTemplate = 0) AND (cvIsApproved = 1) AND (p.cIsActive = ?) ORDER BY p.cDisplayOrder asc' with params ["", "%||\/\u041d\u043e\u0432\u043e\u0441\u0442\u044c%||", "166", true]: SQLSTATE[42S22]: Column not found: 1054 Unknown column 'ak_news' in 'where clause'
+ If I'll make "Page List" block to work, It will allow to filter news by one topic or output all news by "items" page. No categories included, because there's gonna be no pages under "Items".
+ I can pick several categories for each block item.
+ Only one button to add blog item in "Add Pages and Navigate Your Site" sidebar on the right.
3. Use extension.
I'm okay with buying some extension. But I didn't digged thru this yet.
If you know how to fix some of the minuses, please share. Or share some experience, suggest best way of creating blog in C5 in your oppinion.
Thanks, that extension helped with "Page List" block crashes.
Also, my account on this forum got banned yesterday when I tried to edit first post.)
I got new problem with categories now. I'm Russian, so I have to give topics russian names:
http://imgur.com/a/nqNv0
But when I do so, I got messy urls like "/news/topic/30/Новости". This is very bad for SEO. Is it possible to give categories english names and then translate them on front-end and in composer?
/add
And another problem that I can't fix. When I add new blog item, it already have some content inside.
http://imgur.com/a/3WvUY
I googled and found this:
https://documentation.concrete5.org/editors/dashboard/pages-and-them...
But if I go to Pages & Themes > Page Types > Output, then press "edit defaults", I see just an empty page. I tried this with my theme and Elemental theme too:
http://imgur.com/a/RuGJk
Also, my account on this forum got banned yesterday when I tried to edit first post.)
I got new problem with categories now. I'm Russian, so I have to give topics russian names:
http://imgur.com/a/nqNv0
But when I do so, I got messy urls like "/news/topic/30/Новости". This is very bad for SEO. Is it possible to give categories english names and then translate them on front-end and in composer?
/add
And another problem that I can't fix. When I add new blog item, it already have some content inside.
http://imgur.com/a/3WvUY
I googled and found this:
https://documentation.concrete5.org/editors/dashboard/pages-and-them...
But if I go to Pages & Themes > Page Types > Output, then press "edit defaults", I see just an empty page. I tried this with my theme and Elemental theme too:
http://imgur.com/a/RuGJk
I have to admit my experience in multi language is limited to legacy C5.
Maybe you could try to contact user @mlocati, I think he's one of the more knowledgeable devs here when it comes to C5 and multi language setup.
Maybe you could try to contact user @mlocati, I think he's one of the more knowledgeable devs here when it comes to C5 and multi language setup.
Through pain and suffering I figured out why I coudn't edit page defaults. This feature works only for "admin" user but I was sitting under "maestro" - user in admins group. I think this is a CMS issue, it shouldn't be this way.
What's left for now is to figure out how to translate phrases on front-end. @mlocati HALP BRUH!
What's left for now is to figure out how to translate phrases on front-end. @mlocati HALP BRUH!
When you install C5 it asks you if you want to do it with content or totally empty.
If you chose to have some content, it will install a fully functional blog system using topics and stuff.
You could look at that and see how it is done.
Alternatively if you halready installed C5 without the sample content, you can look at this free add-onhttp://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/addons/hw-simple-blog...
It installs the same blog system you would have had with C5 sample content.
I hope it helps