Kind of ironic that Pat is talking themes today because I need some help. My new and possibly last section of journalism starts Wednesday and I want to make sure I’m able to take my Web log use one step further. To do so, however, I need some answers regarding template creation.
If I create a student template, what exactly can I “save” in it? Can I predefine departments? Can I also precreate links to sort those departments in Prefs/advanced/navigation? If I use include macros, can I call a story from someplace other than in that template? (For instance, say I want each student’s Web log to have a list of relevant links that I update…is there a way that I can call the content from a story I have saved in THIS template? In other words, I want to be able to update the links on all their sites by just updating one post.) I think David said there was a way to do this…
Also, I’m thinking about how best to aggregate all of their Web logs into one place. I linked to this page a couple of days ago that talks about not only being able to aggregate but to post back as well. That’s a major time saver as well. Is that only a Radio feature or can I do it in Manila as well?
If I could do those things, create a template that has much of the relevant stuff already set up, and read and respond to all student Web logs from one place, I would a) have taken the next step, and b) simplified my life by a great deal.
Anyone help me here? Chat time???
Ok Will,
This is what I think, I think you want to do is step out of the theme thinking on this, what you are looking for is a way to have different default sites for students, perhaps some other triggers as well. There are a lots of ways to accomplish this, either by the use of the newSite callback, (which is what my plugin does to create different sites for middle, elementary and high school teachers, students and everyone else see http://www.teachesme.com/ ) You can also create different default sites based on different createASite locations. But templates should perhaps be thought of a more cosmetic tool rather then a structural/ content tool. Email me and we can chat about it if you want. Or we could shift to the forum to talk about it…
Sam D
Holy synchronicity, Batman. I’ve been looking for Sam’s site for months, having failed to make contact with him several months ago and having lost his e-mail address. Will, did you look at Pat’s post from e-vectors?
The site seems down in the evenings. If you want the download let me know.
Looks like this is where I want to go, but I know it’s beyond my understanding. Looks like I’m gonna have to find an alternative for now…cut and paste!