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WordPress › Support » How-To and Troubleshooting Front page advice pls:creati (15 posts)

  1. artsfish
    Member
    Posted 14 years ago #

    I'd like to use WP mu to create a publishing platform that will behave somewhat like a newspaper or magazine with a "Front Page" that features recent posts by all contributors. Membership will not be open and will initially will be restricted to a couple dozen or so artists and writers. I'd like to use the "News Magazine Theme 640" or something similar. It has several featured categories on the front page.
    I've seen the links to sites like "La Monde" that are using WPMU, but I"m not sure how to manage the necessary interaction between the blogs and the front page, and the documentation in this area seems sparse.
    I would appreciate any feedback as to how I can (if I can);
    1) Display recent posts w/links by contributors on the front page sorted under categories
    2) restrict contributor blogs to the same theme as the front page.
    3) display a list of all blog contributors on the front page.
    4) is it possible to associate avatars with blog authors?
    Thanks. I've been skimming the forums and unfortunately not found much to help me with these issues. If there's any thought of a WPMU wiki, I think that would be a fabulous idea.

  2. andrea_r
    Moderator
    Posted 14 years ago #

    Actually, getting all member blog posts on the front page has in fact been covered extensively in the foroms as well as on my own blog. The codex (that's like a wiki) is full of documentation on wordpress, and you are correct in that it could use more MU info. I'll make a note to write this up in there.

    1) get the sitewide tags plugin. Make the main blog the tags blog. Yes, it does exactly what you want.

    2) alreayd doable out of the box. Only enable the one theme, you;re the site admin, you are the one in charge of what themes they can access.

    3) the list users function? :D

    4) they get gravatars pulled in by default. There's some avatars plugins floating around.

  3. artsfish
    Member
    Posted 14 years ago #

    Hi Andrea,

    Thanks for your response.

    1)I think my problem is that I'm trying to use a theme (News Magazine 640) that imports categories rather than tags to the front page. I was doing this in order to restrict the topics to fit the 5 categories, but perhaps this is not the best way to go. I'll try to start from scratch from the tags perspective.

    2) yes you're right 2 is a no-brainer, guess I'm trying to sort through too much info at once! :-)

    3&4) I did find a widget for this. Which brings up a new question - Is there any way to enable a widget sitewide?

    So new issues;
    1) The other problem I'm having is finding a suitable theme. There are few that I've found that have a truly polished and professional yet slightly funky look - and each one I try seems to have some quirk that makes it impractical. Even the paid themes I've found on WPMU dev and elsewhere seem to fall short

    2) It's important that the front page aggregate from the member blogs to display prominently on the front page in several different ways (recent posts, comments, ratings etc.) in order to avoid editorial selection - something which simply can't be done without fostering bad feelings within a group of professional writers and artists. Code is neutral and has no teacher's pets :-)

  4. andrea_r
    Moderator
    Posted 14 years ago #

    "1)I think my problem is that I'm trying to use a theme (News Magazine 640) that imports categories rather than tags to the front page. I was doing this in order to restrict the topics to fit the 5 categories, but perhaps this is not the best way to go. I'll try to start from scratch from the tags perspective."

    The sitewide tags plugins is midnames. It will bring in *everything* from the posts, including categories, not just tags.

    3&4) I did find a widget for this. Which brings up a new question - Is there any way to enable a widget sitewide?

    If you add the widget as a plugin, then click the "activate sitewide" button.

    There are few that I've found that have a truly polished and professional yet slightly funky look - and each one I try seems to have some quirk that makes it impractical.

    You may have better luck picking a theme that's "close enough" and getting a coder to iron out the quirks for you.

    It's important that the front page aggregate from the member blogs to display prominently on the front page in several different ways (recent posts, comments, ratings etc.) in order to avoid editorial selection

    the sitewide tags plugin just pulls in order posted, that;s it.

    see what I did at http://homeschooljournal.net

  5. artsfish
    Member
    Posted 14 years ago #

    Hi andrea,

    Thanks so much for all your help.

    I've finally settled on the Woo "Headlines" theme. However, I've yet to get the global tags working.

    One problem - the plugin instructions say "Copy sitewide-tags.php into wp-content/mu-plugins/"

    However, when I place this php file into the mu-plugin directory, the plugin doesn't show up in the list of plugins in the dashboard. And, if I place it in the regular wP plugins directory, it does show up, but apparently does not work, so I am rather stuck.

    Here's what I have so far;
    http://www.vellumunderground.com

  6. artsfish
    Member
    Posted 14 years ago #

    I've also asked for assistance on the Woo site. They state that their themes are MU compatible and there are features on the Headlines theme that are NOT tag related that need to work globally as well - such as the tabbed box with the popular/latest/comments/tags feeds. I'm no expert, but I don't see how the popular and comments tabs could have anything to do with tags.

    However the Woo answer was to send me over here because they said that the global feed issue wasn't theme related.

  7. artsfish
    Member
    Posted 14 years ago #

    <dupe post deleted>

  8. andrea_r
    Moderator
    Posted 14 years ago #

    "However, when I place this php file into the mu-plugin directory, the plugin doesn't show up in the list of plugins in the dashboard."

    No, it won;t show up there. Because it's already activated.

    Dump it in mu-plugins, like the instructions state. Now visit Site Admin -> Options and scroll down.

    There it is.

    there are features on the Headlines theme that are NOT tag related that need to work globally as well -

    That's a wholly seperate issue. Those are coded in regualr WP theme to work as sated on one blog.

    Mu is different. Woo is correct, it works as stated on a one blog in MU.

    You want global from across all blogs. That is plugin territory.

  9. artsfish
    Member
    Posted 14 years ago #

    Thanks for letting me know how the mu-plugins folder works, that's a very useful thing to know.

    However, I'm not seeing that it is working, other than the sitewide tags options are available in the "Site Options" panel

    So a couple of troubleshooting questions;
    TAGS
    1) does this plugin only work for posts created after the plugin is installed and not previously existing items?

    2) Are there limits to what will pull the global tags? For instance, will it only work with a tag cloud sidebar widget or something similar? What I'm trying to do is to pull the posts to the top "featured" slider (which is dictated by tags chosen in the "headlines" dash.

    OTHER "front page" issues

    (First let me apologize if I'm being particularly thickheaded & repetitive, I'm totally new to MU. I have looked through the codex and elsewhere online, but I've not yet found many answers specific to my issues)

    1)regarding this particular theme - how can I pull the recent posts to the column. So far all I've got to show is posts that are created on the main blog itself. Is this

    That's a wholly seperate issue. Those are coded in regualr WP theme to work as sated on one blog.

    if so then I are most of my questions are theme specific? ;
    1)feature slider
    2)tabbed sidebar box feed
    3)latest posts column

    If you go to the site you'll see exactly what I'm referring to.

    http://www.vellumunderground.com

    Also, you mentioned above;

    The sitewide tags plugins is midnames. It will bring in *everything* from the posts, including categories, not just tags.

    I need the front page category menu to pull from the entire site as well. Is this a Woo issue or a plugin issue that this sitewide plugin can handle?

    Thanks again Andrea_r

  10. artsfish
    Member
    Posted 14 years ago #

    Update: I've just gotten the tags plugin to work- partially- on a new post. The new post is showing under the latest post column as well as the "latest" and "popular" tabs - but it is not showing up in the featured slider or under "comments" or the "tag" tab

    Also, the thumbnails don't seem to be working sitewide

    I guess what I really need to sort is what are WPMU issues and what are WOO issues so I don't waste anyone's time, including my own :-)

  11. andrea_r
    Moderator
    Posted 14 years ago #

    "1) does this plugin only work for posts created after the plugin is installed and not previously existing items? "

    Yep. there are ways of getting the older posts though. There's a couple threads here in the forum I think.

    "2) Are there limits to what will pull the global tags? For instance, will it only work with a tag cloud sidebar widget or something similar? What I'm trying to do is to pull the posts to the top "featured" slider (which is dictated by tags chosen in the "headlines" dash."

    No, it pulls the whole post and all attached post meta.

    "(First let me apologize if I'm being particularly thickheaded & repetitive, I'm totally new to MU. I have looked through the codex and elsewhere online, but I've not yet found many answers specific to my issues)"

    I covered at lot in my blog at http://wpmututorials.com

    "I need the front page category menu to pull from the entire site as well."

    SWT will pull the categories each post uses too. Not just the tags. that's why I said it was misnamed (oops, I have a typo above). :)

  12. artsfish
    Member
    Posted 14 years ago #

    What a resource you are! Thanks. I will look at your site as soon as I have the chance. :-)

    Any suggestions what to do about the missing global thumbnail images? The thumbnails work great within each blog, but when pulled from another blog to the front page, the thumb is missing.

  13. artsfish
    Member
    Posted 14 years ago #

    Any experience with the "Ada WPMU Sitewide Feed Plugin"? I am wondering if this is just for external RSS or if it is meant to perform like the sitewide tags plugin - and if there would be any advantage to using it?

    Things are looking up but I'm still stuck with;

    1)trying to get the tabbed sidebar box "comments" and "tags" to work (this is a Woo hard coded sidebar box and not a widget).

    2)Ditto for the Featured Panel slider at the top of the main column

    Again I"m not sure if the above are WPMU issues or Woo theme-related issues. That's a very nebulous line :-)

    Yep. there are ways of getting the older posts though. There's a couple threads here in the forum I think.

    Luckily it's a new site and all I've posted are test posts and filler, so it won't be a problem to start from scratch.

  14. andrea_r
    Moderator
    Posted 14 years ago #

    "1)trying to get the tabbed sidebar box "comments" and "tags" to work (this is a Woo hard coded sidebar box and not a widget)."

    That will only pull from a the blog it is on. If you want it to pull from all the blogs... well, you'll need to get coding. ;)

    the tags will be pulled with the Sitewide tags plugin. As far as I know, there isn't a plugin out there to pull all the comments from across your mu install. It can be done tho.

    "2)Ditto for the Featured Panel slider at the top of the main column"

    once you get SWT pulling posts, the featured panel shoudl treat those posts as if they were on the main blog.

    Tip: if it has anything to to with sitewide information, then it is MU. just because you can out the code to do so in the theme, does in no way mean the theme is responsible. ;)

    "Any suggestions what to do about the missing global thumbnail images? The thumbnails work great within each blog, but when pulled from another blog to the front page, the thumb is missing. "

    A flaw in the SWT plugin, at the moment. people are working on it, no ETA.

    you may see "wpmu" themes but read carefully. There really is no difference, expect the pulling of sitewide information, which is just a piec eof code that you can plunk in any theme.

  15. artsfish
    Member
    Posted 14 years ago #

    once you get SWT pulling posts, the featured panel shoudl treat those posts as if they were on the main blog.

    Now, granted, I've only made one sitewide tags test post. It has successfully made it from a separate child blog to the recent posts column - but for some reason it does NOT make it to the featured panel, which I have set to accept the tag "test"

    "Any suggestions what to do about the missing global thumbnail images? The thumbnails work great within each blog, but when pulled from another blog to the front page, the thumb is missing. "

    A flaw in the SWT plugin, at the moment. people are working on it, no ETA.

    OW!! This is a BIG problem.

    VU is an art, photography and writer's site. Without the thumbnails on the front page the whole project is a fail! I have people waiting and eager to start posting. Any suggestions of anywhere I could find a solution?

About this Topic

  • Started 14 years ago by artsfish
  • Latest reply from artsfish