How-to-help to build a functionality with subpages
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Hi everybody,
I am new with Concrete5 and am unsure of what the "right approach" is for my desired added functionality to my site. I would like to have a "gallery" there it should look like this:
1. Will see a page of all categories for the gallery. This will include a thumbnail and a short description.
2. Once you have clicked on a link, you will come to the subpage/page for selected category. This page could either contain a subcategory with a short description of this category as well as a list of galleries for this subcategory listing a thumbnail along with a short description or this could be the gallery page there a short description show along with all images.
Now, what is the best-practice to accomplish this? Am i supposed to create a new page_type called "gallery" or something as well as creating a new block that will be able to handle this functionality? I'm not sure what the right and best way to implement this in Concrete5 is and would appreciate all the help i can get. ;)
Thank you in advance!
Cee
I am new with Concrete5 and am unsure of what the "right approach" is for my desired added functionality to my site. I would like to have a "gallery" there it should look like this:
1. Will see a page of all categories for the gallery. This will include a thumbnail and a short description.
2. Once you have clicked on a link, you will come to the subpage/page for selected category. This page could either contain a subcategory with a short description of this category as well as a list of galleries for this subcategory listing a thumbnail along with a short description or this could be the gallery page there a short description show along with all images.
Now, what is the best-practice to accomplish this? Am i supposed to create a new page_type called "gallery" or something as well as creating a new block that will be able to handle this functionality? I'm not sure what the right and best way to implement this in Concrete5 is and would appreciate all the help i can get. ;)
Thank you in advance!
Cee
Perhaps someone has a better way of doing it, but I would use one of the gallery addons, and put a gallery block on different pages. Then you can navigate to each page, and the gallery blocks are configured to show certain file sets or selected images of you choice :)
Thank you for your answer. Will try that. However, I have found another thing I would like to do but don't know if it is possible with the current version. I would like to be able to define in the template code, which blocks that are allowed for a certain area. I know that I can use advanced permission settings to accomplish this but will then have to do this on each page that is created. I would like this to be defined in the template so that I can let the user create new pages them self. I didn't find a place there i could assign which blocks that are allowed for a certain area in a specific page type....
I would use a page attribute to assign a thumbnail and then use a page list block (thumbnail custom template) to list each page/category
On each page you can use a gallery block to display the images
This was roughly how I built http://www.361photography.com
As for blocks being limited to certain areas this is very possible with advanced permissions but to be honest I find is often overkill, I would be tempted to set up a gallery default page and put all the default blocks onto the page then they will not need to add anything. They can then just edit the blocks adding any images or changing any copy, this sort of thing would work well as a composer based page
On each page you can use a gallery block to display the images
This was roughly how I built http://www.361photography.com
As for blocks being limited to certain areas this is very possible with advanced permissions but to be honest I find is often overkill, I would be tempted to set up a gallery default page and put all the default blocks onto the page then they will not need to add anything. They can then just edit the blocks adding any images or changing any copy, this sort of thing would work well as a composer based page
Thank you for that answer! So I'm starting to slowly understand the system step by step, but still have so many questions. I found the documentation pretty week and hard to find what you are looking for.
The reason why I would like to predefine blocks that are allowed to be used for specific areas is to make it easier for the user to know which blocks that are supposed to be used for an area as well as making sure that the template/design stays intact.
I like your idea of adding the blocks that is to be used to the page and use as a composer based page. However, can you please give me an example of how to do this? Also, what is a composer page and when should you use this. Sorry for all the questions, it's just a lot of new things....
One last question, when are you supposed to use Stacks and what is it?
Thank you in advance.
The reason why I would like to predefine blocks that are allowed to be used for specific areas is to make it easier for the user to know which blocks that are supposed to be used for an area as well as making sure that the template/design stays intact.
I like your idea of adding the blocks that is to be used to the page and use as a composer based page. However, can you please give me an example of how to do this? Also, what is a composer page and when should you use this. Sorry for all the questions, it's just a lot of new things....
One last question, when are you supposed to use Stacks and what is it?
Thank you in advance.
Predefined blocks are a great idea and please don't let me put you off using them, I just found they took up too much time and are a bit to granular for me, they need to be defined for each area. But if you have the time they really make it nice and simple to add blocks to the pages and at the same time prevent them from adding the wrong blocks.
As fro page types
In your dashboard there is Pages and Themes Page
http://yoururl.com/index.php/dashboard/pages/types/...
Each of these displayed are essentially pages in your site, default page types are often, home, default(used by single pages), left sidebar and right sidebar. All of these can be changed removed(with the exception of the default.php which can be altered but not removed).
Once on the page types you will see three buttons,
Defaults,
Is similar to edit Mode except changes that are made here will affect new pages when they are created. You can re-apply these changes by selecting a block and choosing "SetUp on Child Pages".
Selecting a block and choosing Composer Settings will allow you to add that page to the composer window "Include block in Composer". Tick the box and choose a title to display.
note. custom blocks may need a composer.php file so they look ok when editing the page in composer.
Settings,
Allows you to change block settings, the page type thumbnail, its name and any default attributes you want to assign to the page.
Composer,
Any block which is to be included in composer will be displayed here.
The top setting allows you to define that page type should be included in the composer window (by default on a sample content site this is the blog entry)
Composer Publishing Settings
allow you to choose where the composed page will be published to, in your case this is probably best to set to "Always publish below a certain page" then choose the Gallery Page
Tick any attributes you would like to assign, category could be a good one here? depending on if you use pages or page attributes to define the category structure
Then you choose the order that the composer sets out the blocks,
The composer page will be
Page Title,
Page Description
Atttributes
Blocks, in the order you choose
Stacks are now used to replace Scrapbooks, as to where you use them that depends on you, what I mean is they are a collection of blocks that get rolled into one block, you could use them to add a footer block, which includes numerous blocks, or to define a set of images that will be loaded into an image slider
As fro page types
In your dashboard there is Pages and Themes Page
http://yoururl.com/index.php/dashboard/pages/types/...
Each of these displayed are essentially pages in your site, default page types are often, home, default(used by single pages), left sidebar and right sidebar. All of these can be changed removed(with the exception of the default.php which can be altered but not removed).
Once on the page types you will see three buttons,
Defaults,
Is similar to edit Mode except changes that are made here will affect new pages when they are created. You can re-apply these changes by selecting a block and choosing "SetUp on Child Pages".
Selecting a block and choosing Composer Settings will allow you to add that page to the composer window "Include block in Composer". Tick the box and choose a title to display.
note. custom blocks may need a composer.php file so they look ok when editing the page in composer.
Settings,
Allows you to change block settings, the page type thumbnail, its name and any default attributes you want to assign to the page.
Composer,
Any block which is to be included in composer will be displayed here.
The top setting allows you to define that page type should be included in the composer window (by default on a sample content site this is the blog entry)
Composer Publishing Settings
allow you to choose where the composed page will be published to, in your case this is probably best to set to "Always publish below a certain page" then choose the Gallery Page
Tick any attributes you would like to assign, category could be a good one here? depending on if you use pages or page attributes to define the category structure
Then you choose the order that the composer sets out the blocks,
The composer page will be
Page Title,
Page Description
Atttributes
Blocks, in the order you choose
Stacks are now used to replace Scrapbooks, as to where you use them that depends on you, what I mean is they are a collection of blocks that get rolled into one block, you could use them to add a footer block, which includes numerous blocks, or to define a set of images that will be loaded into an image slider
I found this video that explains composer in a good way. It starts 37min in to the movie.
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/16451770...
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/16451770...
You might also want to look into 'Page List thumbnail Views add on. It shows the first image from the child pages as a thumbnail on the page list. So if you have a gallery on the child pages, this add on will grab the first image from the gallery and display it along with the title and description on the page list. Yeah, its a plug for my add on, but it might just be what you are looking for.
