Blog Widget URL
Hi,
I am having an issue with my blog widget linking to the correct page. I have 3 different blogs set up in my project. On the index page, I have a blog widget in the left side, displaying posts from all blogs. When a specific blog title is clicked, the URL is incorrect and the full story displays in the wrong page.
Ex) Under my main navigation I have a Bloggers link, on that page within a content block I have a list of links to 3 blogger's pages.
/bloggers/Name1
/bloggers/Name2 ... etc.
From the index page, when I click the title of the blog in the left side bar, I would like the URL to redirect to the specific bloggers page and show the posting that was clicked.
Ex) bloggers/Name2/Name2-blog/2011/05/02/blog-title (first post listing)
bloggers/Name2/Name1-blog/2011/05/02/blog-title (second post listing)
How can I have all posts displayed, but each linking to a different URL?
Thank you,
Steph
Hi Stephanie,
Thank you for contacting us.
The case you describe is currently not supported byBlog post widget. You can select a page where posts to be displayed but this will apply to all blog posts.
I logged this as a feature request in our issue tracking system PITS where you can follow its progress. The ID is 5862. I have updated your Telerik points.
As a workaround I would suggest to put every blog in a separate widget. Then you can select to display items only from a specific blog and also to specify where you want them to be opened.
If you need more information or screenshots please, let me know.
Regards,
Antoaneta
the Telerik team
I've been thinking about this and believe this is a great opportunity to make use of the Custom Fields feature of Sitefinity. By adding a "DetailsPage" custom field to the blog, you can internally associate a blog with a page.
Of course by design the blogs are supposed to be detached so you can place the widgets anywhere and everywhere as well as being able to move the blog details page and other actions without breaking links or anything like that.
However, if your site is pretty static, this can make for a good workaround. I implemented a proof of concept based on your problem and I think it works pretty well! I will put this into a blog post for the general community soon but for now here's a quick summary.
First, add a custom field "DetailsPage" to the Blogs (that's at the BLOG level, NOT to blog POSTS). For each blog, specify the path to the details page.
For example, I have a blog "Test Blog 1" and its detail page is http://mysite.com/blogs/blog-1. So in the properties page for the blog, I set the custom field DetailsPage to be /blogs/blog-1. Do the same for each blog/page pairing.
Next, make a custom user control to display all of the blog posts combined. Here I'm just showing the title but you can modify it to show whatever fields you need. The GetUrl is a method I'll define in the code behind.
<%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="BlogPostsList.ascx.cs" Inherits="SitefinityWebApp.Widgets.BlogPostsList" %> <asp:ListView ID="BlogPostsListView" runat="server"> <ItemTemplate> <h3><a href="<%# GetUrl(Container.DataItem) %>"><%# Eval("Title") %></a></h3> </ItemTemplate> </asp:ListView>protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) // this is the list of posts we'll bind to var posts = new List<BlogPost>(); // initialize fluent API using (var fluent = App.WorkWith()) // get all blogs var blogs = fluent.Blogs().Get(); foreach (var blog in blogs) // add posts to the list foreach (var post in blog.BlogPosts.Where(p => p.Status == Telerik.Sitefinity.GenericContent.Model.ContentLifecycleStatus.Live)) posts.Add(post); // bind posts to list view BlogPostsListView.DataSource = posts; BlogPostsListView.DataBind(); protected string GetUrl(object item) // cast dataitem to post var post = item as BlogPost; if (post == null) return string.Empty; // get parent blog var blog = post.Parent; // create link from parent and blog details return string.Format("0/1/2/3", blog.GetValue("DetailsPage"), blog.UrlName, post.PublicationDate.ToString("yyyy/MM/dd"), post.UrlName);