By LoKD on

I have found quite a few posts about this, but nothing which has helped me step by step, as someone very unknowledgeable about Drupal and creating websites in general. Essentially, I would like to have a static home page, with maybe 3 blogs (one about technology, one about marketing, one about cosmetics or something). They would all be run by me, the administrator.

I've found various help articles, such as this http://www.commercialprogression.com/blog/how-to-create-blog-with-drupal and http://tips.webdesign10.com/drupal-taxonomy-tutorial, but they didn't help me to do multiple blogs. Anyway, what I've done: I created a new vocabulary, with 3 terms (cosmetics, marketing, techology), and I selected Blog entry under Content types for the vocabulary. I have installed the Pathauto Module.

I would, if possible, like to have 3 links on the top of my homepage, one each to a page containing the full blog of the corresponding category. I have read somewhere that I shouldn't use Drupal's blog module... but I don't really know what that means - I thought I would just create a blog entry every time in the create content area, then enter one of the 3 categories, which would automatically put it in the right blog?

- In /admin/build/path/pathauto, should I be altering something in Blog paths > Pattern for blog page paths ? Currently it's "blogs/[user-raw]".
- How will I get the link for each of these three pages, and where should I enter them to create a link where I want them?

I'd be really, really grateful for step by step instructions. Thank you!

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

scottiw2000’s picture

scottiw2000 commented

I know it's not perfect, but one option is the "blog" module (http://drupal.org/handbook/modules/blog). This lets you set up different blogs for different users. Then you could create alternate accounts for yourself for each blog. Not ideal, but another way of handling it.

LoKD’s picture

LoKD commented

Thanks Scott for replying. I'm trying to do something like rolandpish talks about here: http://drupal.org/node/714846 in Post no. 7, but can't understand how he got those URLs and what I should do with them?

I hope that makes sense :)

juliangb’s picture

juliangb commented

I would suggest that you use only one account, and tags or other taxonomy to distinguish between your entries.

That would mean that you could have pages such as lists of all your posts, lists of just technology posts, etc.

Also, you could assign each post to one or more categories as you see fit.

The blog module could be used but probably doesn't add much for what you are doing (as you don't need multiuser blogs). I would simply set up a content type named blog entry with the taxonomy as described.

scottiw2000’s picture

scottiw2000 commented

The other thing I've done is to create a "blog" view. Like you suggest, I use a taxonomy to identify which "stream" of my blog should include a given post. Then in my "blog" view I create a page display for each of those taxonomy terms that filters all of my blog posts to only show those tagged with the term in question. I create a unique path for each page display. Then I can just include those paths in menus, tab sets, or whatever I like. The views tabs module (http://drupal.org/project/views_tabs) makes it very easy to add ajax-driven tabs at the top of your content to switch from one of these blog views to the other.

LoKD’s picture

LoKD commented

Julian/Scott

That's what I'd like to do, yep - so I created the vocabulary, then I would just create blog posts via the normal Create content>blog entry and choose cosmetics/marketing/techology.

- But how would I create a blog view, and where?
- And how would I create a unique URL for each of the three?

I will have a look at the module you suggested (but get a bit scared when I read ajax... ) :) Thank you!

juliangb’s picture

juliangb commented

To create a view, you need the views module (http://drupal.org/project/views).

Set the view to list nodes, and filter by node type = blog entry (or whatever you called your content type) and to ensure only published entries are shown. Add a page display with the path: blog. The categorising can be done with an argument - in the arguments section add an argument based upon the taxonomy vocabulary you have created, and set to display all if the argument is not present.

This should give you:
/blog
/blog/technology
/blog/marketing
/blog/cosmetics

The second paragraph should be clearer if you read it whilst looking at the add view screen!

no_idea_yet’s picture

no_idea_yet commented

Personally I'd just use a page for each entry, tag them with the vocabularies you've set up, set up three views based on your vocabularies and then add a menu link to the three views.

Edit: note to self "must learn to type faster!"

amrit_b’s picture

amrit_b commented

Re @have read somewhere that I shouldn't use Drupal's blog module. -> For your purpose, the default drupal blog module is the best choice..

Till taxonomy, you have done the right thing and also the way you are creating nodes (blog-posts in your case) is correct :)

Now you have some content to work on. and each one is having a selected taxonomy term..

Use the drupal Menu (Administer -> site building -> menus. Then click on primary menus. Then add item.

There, add the path as: category/tags/technology
and menu link title as technology.
Do the same for other 2 taxonomy terms, and you are done. You can see a menu on top, and when you click, you will get the pages listing specific blog-posts according to the taxonomy terms :)

At this point you don't need pathauto and stuff like that. If you want different designs for different pages, or something like that, then you can do those things.

thanks

LoKD’s picture

LoKD commented

Hi Amrit,

Thanks for replying. I've been following your instructions, and created one blog entry for each of the three categories, selecting the appropriate tag. But when I try to add the path category/tags/technology, I get:

The path 'category/tags/technology' is either invalid or you do not have access to it.

Not sure what's causing that...

Thank you :)

amrit_b’s picture

amrit_b commented

hmmm. you should not use and quotes. enter exactly what i am writing in the next line in the path field. Drupal menu is very very sensitive and interanlly, it drives the complete DRUPAL functionality.. amazing hah,,,? Ok this is my next line:

category/tags/technology

Before that, you should create at-least one node with taxonomy term as "technology" (without the quotes)

thanks

amrit_b’s picture

amrit_b commented

instead of using the 'tag' term in the path, use whatever vocabulary name you have specified while creating the 3 vocabulary terms.. :)

thanks

sammyg’s picture

sammyg commented

I assume you're using views + taxonomy now? You need to set the path in Views itself. If you create a 'page' display for each view, you should be able to set a path for each page.

You may be able to get away without using views entirely. If you use the 'pathauto' module, you can create a 'nice' path alias for each taxonomy term. Give it a go.

LoKD’s picture

LoKD commented

Hi Sam/Amrit,

I tried category/blogtype/technology - blogtype was the vocabulary name I gave. I still get The path 'category/blogtype/technology' is either invalid or you do not have access to it....

Sam: I'm not sure if I'm using views... I thought I was just trying to create a link to a page with the appropriate blog elements on it. Do I need views for that, then? I do have pathauto already... but how would I get the URL for a page containing all the apropriate blog elements (eg a page with all the "technology" posts on it), and where would I put that?

Thank you guys!

juliangb’s picture

juliangb commented

If you've created a blog entry in one of these categories - then view that and click on the category name. That should take you to the taxonomy listing and you can see the path.

The category/blogtype/technology path assumes that you have pathauto set up to do this.

lkd24’s picture

lkd24 commented

Thank you very helpful people - solved, was just a small difference in the name/URL, which I got by clicking as above.

Thanks again to you all.