Newbie question about grouping blocks (stacks?)
Permalink
My church's web site has several 'diary' pages that are updated regularly, e.g. a page that shows our service diary for the next month(s), or the volunteer diary for the services:
http://www.stmargaretshorsforth.org.uk/our/rotas...
In the nature of diaries, I often need to have two or more months' details on the same page (e.g. this month and next month).
I'd really like to group all the blocks for a single month together, so I can add a whole month at a time instead of having to add roughly 20 individual blocks every time I do a new month. Of course, the blocks that make up each month need to have different content, as the month name, dates, services etc. are not the same for each month! I think this requirement means I can't use Stacks for this? As when you update a stack it appears to update every instance of that stack.
Can anyone suggest how I do this. At the moment I add all the blocks individually, and it is more time-consuming than it really should be!
Thanks in advance,
Maggie
http://www.stmargaretshorsforth.org.uk/our/rotas...
In the nature of diaries, I often need to have two or more months' details on the same page (e.g. this month and next month).
I'd really like to group all the blocks for a single month together, so I can add a whole month at a time instead of having to add roughly 20 individual blocks every time I do a new month. Of course, the blocks that make up each month need to have different content, as the month name, dates, services etc. are not the same for each month! I think this requirement means I can't use Stacks for this? As when you update a stack it appears to update every instance of that stack.
Can anyone suggest how I do this. At the moment I add all the blocks individually, and it is more time-consuming than it really should be!
Thanks in advance,
Maggie
Hi Lewis,
Thanks for the tip regarding the clipboard - it was very useful!
I shall also look into having 12 'month' stacks - after they've been created I can perhaps re-use them next year. My only concern here is that sometimes months contain 4 Sundays, and sometimes 5...
I shall experiment, but I'll only report back if I discover anything useful to add to this Discussion.
Maggie
Thanks for the tip regarding the clipboard - it was very useful!
I shall also look into having 12 'month' stacks - after they've been created I can perhaps re-use them next year. My only concern here is that sometimes months contain 4 Sundays, and sometimes 5...
I shall experiment, but I'll only report back if I discover anything useful to add to this Discussion.
Maggie
This sounds like we are in a similar boat where stacks aren't quite as what I had expected.
I thought they would store a set of blocks and you could grab any number of those when you re-add that stack.
See:http://www.concrete5.org/community/forums/usage/stack-contents-addi...
Im still figuring out the options, and which is right for your case (or the most elegant) is going to be up to you.
What I have discovered, is that the clipboard is really useful. It's a better tool than the usual functionality of a tool with this name suggests.
So you can copy to clipboard any blocks, and it stores them like a menu. On any page you can paste from clipboard and the previously entered blocks will be available to paste.
It also means you can update the original and all instances will get updated or edit the new instance and it becomes its own item.
Also if you duplicate a stack in the dashboard stacks menu, you can then edit and delete these blocks and the blocks will not be connected to the original. This does mean that you will have a stack for every month, rather than a single useful 'month stack' which is what I was disappointed to discover.
The other alternative, would have been that diary items were actually pages with a page type, under a page for each month. You could then utilise a simple page list block (perhaps with a custom template) on the 'month page'. This also would mean you could use the sitemap to duplicate pages, or alias them easily too.
Anyway, I'm very new to this too, so hopefully people can interject and advise on this - and let me know your outcomes and decisions Maggie.