Blog - Plugin

[Jachym]

Hi guys,
just wondering, does any one of you use the Blog plugin for writing articles etc?

[MeteoHerhet]

Hi Jachym,

Yes I use this plugin

[gillesroszak]

I also use it Jáchym Why ?

[Luc]

I probably would have use it when I could set a message date.

[Jachym]

OK, I just have some ideas and wanted to see how popular this plugin is and if it would be worth doing.

[Jachym]

I probably would have use it when I could set a message date.

OK, so now you can

[Luc]

Thanks very much, Jachym! I will test it this week.

[Luc]

I'm converting the data in my dedicated block 'lucdesignNews' to the Blog plugin.
I think all I need is present in the current Blog plugin.
See my first attempt: http://www.lucdesign.nl/template/plugins/blog/index.php

Some remarks:

• The Categories can't be changed afterwards
  The Category text is part of the Post files.

• The order of the Categories can't be changed afterwards
  So better plan first the categories you need and the desired order.

• You can edit an Image description but this I didn't see in the presentation.

• The Advances section of the image editor has a Style field.
  I have to sort out what you can do with it.

• The Titles and Sub-titles of the blog are in text with small caps.
  I personally don't like this and wished I could change it in a 'normal' font.
  Of course I can change the code myself, but then I have to do it again with each new Blog template version.

[Luc]

Hi Jachym,
As we are now allowed to preset a date for the blog item, we could create two items with the same date and time in which case the first item would be lost.

Let me explain.
For items in the past I don't preset a time; it will be always 00:00:00.
So, when I have two items on the same day, I could by accident overwrite the first one because both blog items would have the same file name (which is date plus time).

Is it possible to get a warning when a new created blog item is about to be saved and will overwrite an existing item?
Something like: 'An item with this date-time already exists; do you want to overwrite Yes/No?
Default is No and will let you change the blog items date-time (to get a unique file name).

[Luc]

Hi Jachym,
A few more ideas.
When someone wants to read all blog posts in sequence, it would be handy to have 'previous' and 'next' buttons (at the bottom).
When zoomed in on a blog item, the date-time, category and icon are not displayed. I like to get them added here.

[wx_jon]

I use the blog, but I've never done any blogging before so I don't have any comparisons to make. However, the top improvement I'd like to see is better support for mobile devices. I like to post links to blog posts on Twitter and most people use Twitter primarily on their mobile phones. Yes, I know about the difficulty of making a mobile version or making it more mobile-friendly – especially since it uses the desktop framework like the menu, etc. – but it is something to consider to help users like myself start being more active bloggers on our sites (and stop feeling that our Twitter readers will just close the page because it looks pretty bad).

[Jachym]

Hi,
yes I know what you mean, but anything mobile related is a problem (for me and given how MT was built and the flexibility I allowed). I openly admit this and Im not sure whether this will be much better in the future. There will be some improvements in v16 for the mobile homepage (font size), but unless I take away the possibility to customize lot of things from you, it will never look good on small screens.

[Luc]

Hi Jachym,
I have moved all my lucdesignNews items to the lucdesign Blog and I like the template very much. Especially the grouping of items in categories is a big help.
It is a valuable tool, thanks!
Cheers, Luc

[Jachym]

Hi Luc,
once I finish a few other things I might look at your ideas for this plugin