Module: Blog

[fenton]

would it be possible to incorporate an existing news section of a site to the blog profile?

[mr-fan]

So i'm a newbie in PW and make my first steps into deep.

so i've tried to translate this great addon to german....so far so good.
 
But the Top Menu Bar in Backend ( Dashboard Posts Categories Tags Authors Settings )

seems to cant get translated...so my question:

did i not get it or are there some strings hard coded in this module?

EDIT: worked the first one out....PW is so easy to learn great stuff...

done a pull request: https://github.com/kongondo/Blog/pulls

Great Admintool

Featurerequests could be like described above:

- publish from/until feature (so you've get a eventcal option with dashboard, too without much effort or have a second addon)

- in Dashboard -> Overview could the Archive view linked to a row below with lists the posts in the clicked month?

- a blog addon that i used in another CMS has widget for "older + newer" topics - it's like "recent posts" but little different (maybe i find the time to contribute this by my self if i was more familiar with PW)

- what's about META tags like description and keywords?

i've seen some "automatic" functions for create them but let them overwrite from the author...

function makemetadescription ($thestring) {

$the_description = stripslashes($thestring);
$the_description = str_replace('"', ' ', $the_description);
$the_description = str_replace("'", ' ', $the_description);
$the_description = str_replace('\'', ' ', $the_description);
if (strlen($the_description) > 160) {
if(preg_match('/.{0,160}(?:[.!?:,])/su', $the_description, $match)) { $the_description = $match[0]; } //thanks to thorn

if (strlen($the_description) > 160) {
$pos = strpos($the_description, " ", 120);
if ($pos > 0) {$the_description = substr($the_description, 0, $pos); }	
}
}
//$the_description = ' '.$the_description;
$the_description = trim(str_replace(' ',' ',$the_description));

return (' '.$the_description);
}

function makemetakeywords ($thestring ) {

$the_keywords = $thestring;
if (strlen($the_keywords) > 100) {
if(preg_match('/.{0,100}(?:[.!?:,])/su', $the_keywords, $match)) { $the_keywords = $match[0]; } //thanks to thorn
if (strlen($the_keywords) > 100) {
$pos = strpos($the_keywords, " ", 100);
if ($pos > 0) {$the_keywords = substr($the_keywords, 0, $pos); }	
}
}	
$bad = array(
'\'', /* / */ '"', /* " */	'<', /* < */	'>', /* > */
'{', /* { */	'}', /* } */	'[', /* [ */	']', /* ] */	'`', /* ` */
'!', /* ! */	'@', /* @ */	'#', /* # */	'$', /* $ */	'%', /* % */
'^', /* ^ */	'&', /* & */	'*', /* * */	'(', /* ( */	')', /* ) */
'=', /* = */	'+', /* + */	'|', /* | */	'/', /* / */	'\\', /* \ */
';', /* ; */	':', /* : */	' ', /* */	'.', /* . */	'?' /* ? */
);
$the_keywords = str_replace($bad, ',', $the_keywords);
$the_keywords = str_replace(',,,',',',$the_keywords);
$the_keywords = str_replace(',,',',',$the_keywords);

return (' '.$the_keywords);
}

[mr-fan]

Some more Tweaking....

- tags are burned words in SEO maybe buzzwords or something is better use actually?

- tag pages should be noindex,follow per default? (Since newbee where is the best PW practise to setup such things)

[kongondo]

Kongondo,

Regarding blog_date field. I get the feeling it is designed to be the date/time that the blog post is published, but from what I can see it gets set when the post is first created and doesn't automatically change after that. I might be misunderstanding your use of the field, but I would like to see it change automatically when the post is published and not change after that - maybe even disable user editing of it?

I know we often draft up several posts at a time and publish them later. I don't think we should have to manually adjust this field when publishing the post.

Another thought for you - have you considered integrating this module:

http://modules.processwire.com/modules/schedule-pages/

or the functionality from it into the blog posts tab? This would make WP users feel at home. Thanks for considering.

blog_date field

You are right. It should be about the post publish date. I don't think this will be difficult to implement - I'll just steal and modify the code here by SiNNuT and Soma . I'd still like to leave a manual override (i.e. not disable user editing of it); I envisage cases where a post is published 'by mistake' and has to be recalled for later publication. 

Scheduled Pages

I'll have a think about this one. I can see the potential.

Thanks for your ideas!

[kongondo]

Currently it looks like the excerpt length is hardcoded to 450 characters - perhaps adding an option for people to set this themselves would be a good idea? In the meantime, for anyone that wants to change this, find the line

Thanks for filing this in GitHub. I currently have this working on my local install. Added a 'blog_excerpt' integer field to the 'blog' template. Will also enable editing via the 'Settings' tab in ProcessBlog. Due to the nature of this module, for existing installs (i.e. if you've already installed ProcessBlog) you will have to manually create the field; The module will not attempt to modify existing fields; the risk of corrupting/loosing your data means it's not worth it . I'll post a notice here once I have updated the module, thanks.

[kongondo]

would it be possible to incorporate an existing news section of a site to the blog profile?

fenton,

Good question. It's something I've been discussing with some people. Currently, the only way to achieve this is to clone the module and modify it (typically paths and selectors) to read your news section pages (i.e. the fields). Obviously, that is not ideal or for everyone. However, Blog is meant for, er blogging. So, another solution is needed. The current idea is to create a separate (but similar) skeleton module that is highly configurable and adaptable to different needs such a news site, etc. At the moment, this is still an idea. There is no ETA yet

Cheers.

[kongondo]

So i'm a newbie in PW and make my first steps into deep.

so i've tried to translate this great addon to german....so far so good.

But the Top Menu Bar in Backend ( Dashboard Posts Categories Tags Authors Settings )

seems to cant get translated...so my question:

did i not get it or are there some strings hard coded in this module?

EDIT: worked the first one out....PW is so easy to learn great stuff...

done a pull request: https://github.com/kongondo/Blog/pulls

Great Admintool

Featurerequests could be like described above:

- publish from/until feature (so you've get a eventcal option with dashboard, too without much effort or have a second addon)

- in Dashboard -> Overview could the Archive view linked to a row below with lists the posts in the clicked month?

- a blog addon that i used in another CMS has widget for "older + newer" topics - it's like "recent posts" but little different (maybe i find the time to contribute this by my self if i was more familiar with PW)

- what's about META tags like description and keywords?

i've seen some "automatic" functions for create them but let them overwrite from the author...

mr-fan

First, welcome to PW and the forums! Happy to hear Blog is of some use to you. Thank you for your suggestions

Translatable Strings

Apologies for my oversight! Thanks for the pull request. I'll have a look and update.

Publish from/until feature

See my response to @Adrian above. I'll have to think a bit more about this although it is a good idea I think. I just have to think about how to best implement it.

Archive - linked to row below with list of month's posts

Not sure about this one. The Posts tab already shows the lists of posts sorted by date

Meta tags, etc.

Not sure I follow what you mean?

Tags vs buzzwords

I don't think buzzwords will work

noindex, nofollow

The best way to find stuff on these forums/PW site is to search using Google. E.g. noindex nofollow site:processwire.com

See this example: https://processwire.com/talk/topic/3928-meta-robots-on-individual-pages/?p=38483

Thanks!

[kongondo]

Updated to version 1.0.1

Several strings made translatable as per mr-fan's pull request (thanks!)

[kongondo]

Apologies. version 1.0.0 of module was installed at /site/templates/Blog/ ...that should be /site/templates/ProcessBlog/ If updating the module within the PW Admin, this will write to this latter path... You will need to manually remove the former folder

[mr-fan]

Thanks for the Link for the robots - it's a thing that i missed until now - and it seems to implement easy like most everything in PW

i will work further - thanks for this great addon.

PW is almost very peferct to my need or rather beeing so flexible to fit it.

Best Regards mr-fan

[Ovi]

Awesome work! Now, what if i needed to have 10 separate blogs like this on the same site? 

[kongondo]

.......Now, what if i needed to have 10 separate blogs like this on the same site? 

Seriously? If yes, out of the box, no. But with some trickery, you can have MarkupBlog output posts from only a particular author, assuming each author has their own blog. I am just thinking out loud here. If this is a feature request, I'd like to have more details but also hear what others think

Glad you like the module.

[Ovi]

Seriously?

Yes, seriously  unfortunately I am working on just such a site right now. It's for a business that has 10 separate locations (pseudo-franchises, which are more or less independent) and they will all need to have their own separate blogs with their own URLs and their own tags, categories and archives. 

So far I've used a method where all the blogs have different templates in PW which all point to the same template file (which is based on Ryan's blog profile) but I've made the template file dynamic so the names of all the fields are built at run-time based on a naming convention. For example: tags-location1-name, tags-location2-name... etc. instead of just having 1 tags field. And all those suffixes are stored in a special hidden field in the root page of each location.

Don't mean to derail this thread, just wanted to point out a situation where more than 1 individual blog is needed and how much work it can take to set up something like that. 

Again, big thanks for your work, it's going to save me a lot of time on many projects!

[kongondo]

......just wanted to point out a situation where more than 1 individual blog is needed and how much work it can take to set up something like that. 

Yeah, something to think about for the future...

[kongondo]

Update: Blog version 1.1

Read below before updating.

For new installs, proceed as normal

-------------------------------------

Changelog

1. Added new widget 'Post Author' - @adrian idea, thanks.

- This widget allows you to add a post's author's biography with each post. You can add it before or after a post (or wherever you wish). See example in updated 'blog-post.php'

example: 

$blog = $modules->get('MarkupBlog');
echo $blog->postAuthor();

- The widget can be enabled/disabled in the 'Settings' Tab of ProcessBlog. It is enabled by default

- Updated the CSS to style the widget

Screen

2. Made 'posts truncate length' configurable - @looeee idea, thanks.

- This is for when you want to render a 'post summary' - e.g. as seen on /blog/posts/.

- Was previously hard-coded to 450. Default is now 450 where no value is specified

- Can be configured either on the page /blog/posts/ or 'Settings' Tab of ProcessBlog

UPGRADING

As I have said previously and repeat here (just in case you missed it ) a module of this kind must not be altering your data if you've already installed it or where there are potential conflicts. 

Therefore, to upgrade, some manual input is required. Once we hit a lock-down on new features, then this requirement will fizzle out...

A. Author Widget

1. This comes with a new template without a template file. 

- Create a template called 'blog-widget-basic'

- Give it a tag 'blog' and a label 'Blog Widget: Basic' //just for consistency with other blog templates

- Add the field 'blog_summary' save. Then within the template (i.e. click on the upward arrow of the field), change the description to 'Widget Description' in the modal that opens up. Save...

- Still on the edit template view, under the 'Family' tab, specify 'No' under 'May pages using this template have children?' and 'Yes' to 'Can this template be used for new pages?' Save...

- Copy over the updated blog.css to /site/templates/css/ (this assumes you haven't made any custom changes to this file!!!)

2. Post Author page

- Under /blog/widgets/ create a new page called 'Post Author' and assign it the the above template ('blog-widget-basic')

- In the 'Widget Description' field enter a description, e.g. 'Renders Post's author biography.' Save...

The Author Widget should then automatically appear under 'Settings' in the Widgets section in ProcessBlog

B. Post Excerpt Length

1. Add Field to Template

- In the template 'blog-posts', add the field 'blog_quantity'. Save. Change the field's description to 'Posts truncate length'. Save

C. Update Blog to version 1.1

In PW, now update the module to version 1.1. This will copy over the new module files (ProcessBlog.module and MarkupBlog.module) and their related files.

Note: installer will not run again! So, don't worry

All done; now go write a post about how cool ProcessWire is   

[adrian]

Hey kongondo - great improvements.

I have another suggestion for a widget for you

On the main posts page, I like having a thumbnail of the first image to the left of the summary text. Of course you could use the first image from the images field, but I think it would be more appropriate to use the first image embedded in the post - domdocument or even a regex does the trick nicely. You could maybe even have a "feature image" field which could be used for this purpose, or perhaps enable tags on the images field and have people enter "feature_thumb" or something like that in the tag field for the image they want to use as the thumbnail - this might be the simplest and most flexible approach and will also require no duplication of images.

[kongondo]

....I have another suggestion for a widget for you

On the main posts page, I like having a thumbnail of the first image to the left of the summary text. Of course you could use the first image from the images field, but I think it would be more appropriate to use the first image embedded in the post - domdocument or even a regex does the trick nicely. You could maybe even have a "feature image" field which could be used for this purpose, or perhaps enable tags on the images field and have people enter "feature_thumb" or something like that in the tag field for the image they want to use as the thumbnail - this might be the simplest and most flexible approach and will also require no duplication of images.

OK, I'll wait for a pull request from you    .....

I'll have a think...but I'll work on the auto-publish-date feature first...

Edit:

Show me an example post please, thanks.

Edited May 30, 2014 by kongondo

[kongondo]

Comments on/off?

Been thinking about a new feature. Ability to turn on/off comments both on a per post basis and on a Blog-wide basis. So, if a post has comments turned off, the user gets the usual 'Comments not allowed for this post' or something similar. Additionally, maybe also a feature to turn-off submitting of new comments on a post when approved comments hit a certain number, say '100'. What do you guys think?

Need to think a bit more about how best to implement this...

[adrian]

Show me an example post please, thanks.

This should give you an idea of what I mean:

On another note, I like being able to only display the Recent Posts when viewing a single post. I don't see much value in having it on the blog home page because the recent posts are there already.

As for comments - all those options sound great!

[mr-fan]

Blogwide there is only one option -> ignore blogpagesettings and overwrite this settings but not change it...if one switch back to comments=on the blogpagesettings are already there? Don't know this is to do in the PWWay...

[kongondo]

Blogwide there is only one option -> ignore blogpagesettings and overwrite this settings but not change it...if one switch back to comments=on the blogpagesettings are already there? Don't know this is to do in the PWWay...

Exactly. so, the logic, in order of ascending precedence (i.e. 3 > 1, etc.) could probably go like this:

1. Comments are ON by default.

2. On each 'post' page (/blog/posts/my-post/), will include a checkbox: 'check to disable comments for this post'. This will ignore #1

3. On some settings page or on the 'posts' page (/blog/posts/) have a checkbox or similar that says: 'disable comments on all posts'. Ignore #1 & #2

So, #3 is 'greatest' and will ignore #1 and #2 but will NOT change their settings; checked boxes (#2) will remain checked and unchecked ones (#1) will remain unchecked but their 'directions' will be superseded by #3 .

#################################  EDIT #################################

Oops warped thinking on precedence above!!! It should be the other way round! See edits below..

So, the logic, in order of ascending precedence (i.e. 3 > 1, etc.) could probably go like this:

1. Comments are enabled by default everywhere.

2. On the 'comments' page (/blog/comments/) have a select that says: 'disable comments on all posts/disable new comments on all posts'. Ignore #1 but respect individual post's settings (#3)

3. On each 'post' page (/blog/posts/my-post/), will include a select: 'disable comments on this post/disable new comments on this post/always enable comments on this post'. This will ignore #1 & 2. This is like a get() in ProcessWire: it is explicit and ignores 'hidden' status.  

So, #3 (individual post setting) is 'greatest' and will ignore #1 and #2.

#################################  END EDIT #################################

Btw, you will notice very soon that there's very little 'do this the PW way' - in many cases, there is no PW way The system is so versatile yet powerful you will be amazed...

[mr-fan]

i will try to learn fast.... i'm already amazed and i only see the surface! i've to less time to dive into all the sourcecode...

[kongondo]

Had an oops moment in my post #47 above; edited it (sort of a note to self; feel free to ignore    )

[FuturShoc]

Fantastic work, kongondo. Your module is much needed for those of us who don't want to spend a lot of time stripping out the markup on Ryan's (equally awesome) blog module.

One question: I notice that blog posts have this url: www.domain/blog/posts/my-post-here

Have you considered any approach which might remove "/posts/" from that URL? My existing blog doesn't have the extra segment and I'd love to keep it that way, if possible.

I've also been thinking I could remove it via htaccess.

[kongondo]

..........One question: I notice that blog posts have this url: www.domain/blog/posts/my-post-here

Have you considered any approach which might remove "/posts/" from that URL? My existing blog doesn't have the extra segment and I'd love to keep it that way, if possible.

I've also been thinking I could remove it via htaccess.

Hi FuturShoc. Glad you like the module.

I thought about this a lot, even with the /site/blog/.... URL, where others would prefer /site/my-awesome-post/...but decided to leave it to the user (for now at least...), if they so wish, to manipulate the URL segments...

UPDATE:

Feature now available in Blog version 2

Edited September 22, 2014 by kongondo