I would like to add a blog to an existing website as a child of my root. Is there an easy way to integrate this. It seems if I do this I end up with www.websitename.com/blog/blog/2011/....... I would like to just sit it at the first blog. I don't understand how I can get it to take on my look and feel and sit in my navigation unless it is a child of the existing root.
You can go to the 'uBlogsy - Landing' document type and in he structure tab allow the child node of 'uBlogsy - Folder : Year'. Then you can create your year folders directly below the blog landing page.
All the functionality should still remain (at least from my tests..)
whoops! must have cached something there. Throws an error on the post itself. This is caused by the next/previous post check. You can remove this snippet from the 'uBlogsyShowPost.cshtml' if you want to test further.
Cool, I've found the issue/feature here. The siblings posts are found through a combination of classes but, ultimately, the GetPostSiblings class. This runs up the tree to find a node type of "uBlogsyFolderBlog". When it can't find it it throws an error.
You have a couple of options here. 1) We can ask that this is changed so that the 'folder' doc types (understood to be used for organisation) are not functional requirements. 2) Put your blog root node as a sibling of your site's root node, not a child. This should then pickup the blog folder name only and not use the blog root name in the url. Thus you should only get 1 instance of 'blog' in your url.
What do you think of the smeantics of not having the pages under the site which has all the templates etc. Doesn't make as much sense to me as having the blog start at the level under my sight. Be keen to hear what Anthony thinks about this. I'd love any changes that would make it easier to integrate into larger sites rather than to be just a blog site only.
don't think semantically the node being a sibling of the homepage rather than a child makes too much difference from a user point of view - however it is likely to cause some issues intergrating other packages (all manageable I feel) as many rely on this structure. More of an issue is this as an organisational paradigm. My second suggestion above was primarily meant as an option, not a solution. The first suggestion is my prefered option (hence it is first) but will require Anthony to agree and implement the change.
In the meantime if you were needing the blog up and running you could go with option 2.
Hope that clarifies things, sorry if I was vague before :D
Dammit I wrote a really good reply and something happened on submit.
The crux of it is that I made ublogsy to be intergratable into other sites. I'm using myself in a current project. The landing and blog folder(should have called this container or something else) are required. The landing node can be anywhere but I think it makes more sense as a sibling of your top level nav.
Blog folder is there because I thought Pages and blog posts should be separate containers to keep the cms content tree tidy.
I agree that blog/blog looks a bit crappy.
In the current site I'm using I have the "/blog/posts" structure.
Thanks for the insight into the current URL structure. I too am setting up a blog as a child node on a site. I may go with the url structure you just proposed, but one question:
Is the year folder mandatory? My current project involves a blog where there will not be a lot of blog posts, and the topics will not typically become dated very quickly. So the year container is not really rellevent and not desired. If I add uBlogsy - Posts as an allowed child node to the uBlogsy - Folder : Blog document type in settings, will everything still work correctly?
For SEO reasons, I am trying to get the following URL structure: www.sitename.com /blogname/posts/the-title-of-my-post/
EDIT: (added a space to the url so that the forum didn't auto-truncate my sample link)
What would be really nice in future versions would be to have a property for each organizational folder node as to whether we want it to appear in the URL or not. Then we could still have the necessary node structures that uBlogsy requires, but could customize the URL to suit our needs very easily. For example, I would probably even drop the "/posts/" from the above url if I could just so my total url would be a little bit shorter.
For hiding the URL, I haven't actually tried to do that yet that either. I guess at first I was thinking it would be easy where just like you can have your razor macros check for child data-type nodes and use child node data properties on the parent page. But then I realized it's not simply the reverse because while getting at the data is no problem, Umbraco is still responsible for generating the actual page URL and it automatically includes parent nodes. I am not sure if there is a way to overide that function and have it check for a property before it includes each parent node in the URL or not. It may not be quite as easy as I first assumed! :)
As the other Mark said it's the "posts" folder I think that I would like to be removed as it seems from a readability or the url I think the posts seems a little redundant.
So I just wanted to get your feedback regarding the content tree structure.
Keeping the content tree neat is essential as the number of content nodes will grow over time. This is why I have the folders (containers) for posts, years, months (optional), and pages.
Keeping that in mind, your main concern is the url structure, not the content tree structure correct?
If this is the case, then what if I could keep the tree structure but give you the url structure you desire? Well it turns out that it is quite easy to insert a value into umbracoUrlAlias.
eg. if a post url is /posts/2011/january/test-post-1 then I can put test-post-1 in the umbracoUrlAlias field (note the lack of preceding "/"). Umbraco will now magically show your post at the url http://mydomain.com/test-post-1/
If this is all that is required then it should be very easy to do this programatically (in an upcomming release).
Yes, I like the neat and organized content tree as well. It was the URL I was trying to be pickey about. : )
Thanks for the umbracoUrlAlias solution! That should serve my needs for now. I had seen that property before, but I didn't know yet what it did exactly.
Obviously that could still be http://mydomain.com/blog/test-post-1/ If thats the case as far as URL's go sounds like a winner to me. I would assume this would also be handled well by things like sitemap modules?
Easy way to integrate to an existing site.
I would like to add a blog to an existing website as a child of my root. Is there an easy way to integrate this. It seems if I do this I end up with www.websitename.com/blog/blog/2011/....... I would like to just sit it at the first blog. I don't understand how I can get it to take on my look and feel and sit in my navigation unless it is a child of the existing root.
Great looking project so far though :)
Its like I want the structure to not have the "uBlogsyFolder" node to not be there.
You can go to the 'uBlogsy - Landing' document type and in he structure tab allow the child node of 'uBlogsy - Folder : Year'. Then you can create your year folders directly below the blog landing page.
All the functionality should still remain (at least from my tests..)
whoops! must have cached something there. Throws an error on the post itself. This is caused by the next/previous post check. You can remove this snippet from the 'uBlogsyShowPost.cshtml' if you want to test further.
Cool, I've found the issue/feature here. The siblings posts are found through a combination of classes but, ultimately, the GetPostSiblings class. This runs up the tree to find a node type of "uBlogsyFolderBlog". When it can't find it it throws an error.
You have a couple of options here.
1) We can ask that this is changed so that the 'folder' doc types (understood to be used for organisation) are not functional requirements.
2) Put your blog root node as a sibling of your site's root node, not a child. This should then pickup the blog folder name only and not use the blog root name in the url. Thus you should only get 1 instance of 'blog' in your url.
What do you think of the smeantics of not having the pages under the site which has all the templates etc. Doesn't make as much sense to me as having the blog start at the level under my sight. Be keen to hear what Anthony thinks about this. I'd love any changes that would make it easier to integrate into larger sites rather than to be just a blog site only.
Hi Mark,
don't think semantically the node being a sibling of the homepage rather than a child makes too much difference from a user point of view - however it is likely to cause some issues intergrating other packages (all manageable I feel) as many rely on this structure. More of an issue is this as an organisational paradigm. My second suggestion above was primarily meant as an option, not a solution. The first suggestion is my prefered option (hence it is first) but will require Anthony to agree and implement the change.
In the meantime if you were needing the blog up and running you could go with option 2.
Hope that clarifies things, sorry if I was vague before :D
Dammit I wrote a really good reply and something happened on submit.
The crux of it is that I made ublogsy to be intergratable into other sites. I'm using myself in a current project. The landing and blog folder(should have called this container or something else) are required. The landing node can be anywhere but I think it makes more sense as a sibling of your top level nav.
Blog folder is there because I thought Pages and blog posts should be separate containers to keep the cms content tree tidy.
I agree that blog/blog looks a bit crappy.
In the current site I'm using I have the "/blog/posts" structure.
eg.
http://www.mydomain.com/blog/posts/2011/test-post
Would that work for you?
Thanks for the insight into the current URL structure. I too am setting up a blog as a child node on a site. I may go with the url structure you just proposed, but one question:
Is the year folder mandatory? My current project involves a blog where there will not be a lot of blog posts, and the topics will not typically become dated very quickly. So the year container is not really rellevent and not desired. If I add uBlogsy - Posts as an allowed child node to the uBlogsy - Folder : Blog document type in settings, will everything still work correctly?
For SEO reasons, I am trying to get the following URL structure: www.sitename.com /blogname/posts/the-title-of-my-post/
EDIT: (added a space to the url so that the forum didn't auto-truncate my sample link)
What would be really nice in future versions would be to have a property for each organizational folder node as to whether we want it to appear in the URL or not. Then we could still have the necessary node structures that uBlogsy requires, but could customize the URL to suit our needs very easily. For example, I would probably even drop the "/posts/" from the above url if I could just so my total url would be a little bit shorter.
Hi Marc
Setting up the blog as a child node is fine and will work.
The year folders are definitely required for the archive, however the razor script can be modified quite easily.
The RSS import tool also requires the year folders.
I've never had to hide a node from the url. Do you know how to do that?
Hi Anthony,
Cool good to know. Thanks!
For hiding the URL, I haven't actually tried to do that yet that either. I guess at first I was thinking it would be easy where just like you can have your razor macros check for child data-type nodes and use child node data properties on the parent page. But then I realized it's not simply the reverse because while getting at the data is no problem, Umbraco is still responsible for generating the actual page URL and it automatically includes parent nodes. I am not sure if there is a way to overide that function and have it check for a property before it includes each parent node in the URL or not. It may not be quite as easy as I first assumed! :)
As the other Mark said it's the "posts" folder I think that I would like to be removed as it seems from a readability or the url I think the posts seems a little redundant.
Hey guys
So I just wanted to get your feedback regarding the content tree structure.
Keeping the content tree neat is essential as the number of content nodes will grow over time. This is why I have the folders (containers) for posts, years, months (optional), and pages.
Keeping that in mind, your main concern is the url structure, not the content tree structure correct?
If this is the case, then what if I could keep the tree structure but give you the url structure you desire? Well it turns out that it is quite easy to insert a value into umbracoUrlAlias.
eg. if a post url is /posts/2011/january/test-post-1 then I can put test-post-1 in the umbracoUrlAlias field (note the lack of preceding "/"). Umbraco will now magically show your post at the url http://mydomain.com/test-post-1/
If this is all that is required then it should be very easy to do this programatically (in an upcomming release).
Hi Anthony!
Yes, I like the neat and organized content tree as well. It was the URL I was trying to be pickey about. : )
Thanks for the umbracoUrlAlias solution! That should serve my needs for now. I had seen that property before, but I didn't know yet what it did exactly.
Thank you for the awsome module!!
Obviously that could still be http://mydomain.com/blog/test-post-1/ If thats the case as far as URL's go sounds like a winner to me. I would assume this would also be handled well by things like sitemap modules?
Thanx for listening Anthony.
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