Magazine Layout with posts grouped together by category?

[thirdshiftdesigns 0]

So normally I would be able to quite easily group posts together (and show say three posts from each category or whatever) simply by assigning a category to the post and then using the query posts function. In order to do this with Platform, should I be creating Feature Sets as categories? This is all really confusing to me because I'm just simply trying to create a layout that will enable someone to go in and order the posts by featured section on the home page. Oh..and not to sound incredibly stupid but I can't seem to find any documentation on how to create a homepage layout - it seems no matter what I do, I just can't figure it out (I've even made a page called home, changed the home page to display the page I created, etc.)

[catrina 103]

By creating feature sets as categories, what do you mean exactly? Do you mean that you want to display these posts from these different categories in different feature sets?

[thirdshiftdesigns 0]

So say I have posts that I am creating that fall into 1 of 5 categories. I then want to have a magazine layout that represents all of these categories on the home page and I want it to display 2-3 posts from that category. I'm not really sure how or if I can do this with PlatformPro.

[catrina 103]

Ah, I see. Thanks for the example. I think that will require some code editing in the files. You'll need to make sure that PlatformBase (the child theme) is enabled first before you make the changes, though. This is where you can make the adjustments without worrying about losing them when you upgrade the theme.

[Rob 547]

Catrina, I think that like me, the desire here is to group posts by category on the front page. As you know, the loop uses dates to display posts. But many of us want to put posts into category groupings which other magazine format themes will allow us to do. Platform Pro does not permit this without specific coding. I and others have been asking for this for some time, but never get actual answers as to how this is done. My sites have multiple categories and to display on the front page, I'd like to list posts by specific categories I select. Actually, I think that's this person's goal (correct me if wrong). None of the documentation shows us how to create a static home page or to list postings by some specific grouping like categories.

[Rob 547]

Our problem is no-one says how to make that happen. Any ideas? Could you or someone actually post instructions we can follow?

[thirdshiftdesigns 0]

Thank you rangelone for elaborating - that's exactly what I meant to say. See, I know how to do this myself by just using a wordpress query and showing say 3 posts BUT I want my client to be able to do this on the fly and, well, I can barely get the basics down let alone tell him how he would be able to do this. It seems like a pretty easy thing to ask for seeing how the intro video says that you can do everything with PlatformPro - and, well, this seems like a pretty reasonable request. Any idea how I might make this happen?

[Rob 547]

When you find out, let me know. No one's answered me yet in any way I can use to make anything happen. I think Pageline's statement that you can do everything is a bit far reaching. More like lots of things. It's great. Don't get me wrong. But like all great things, it's not perfect for everything or every site. Admittedly, of all the "pro" themes, it's the very best out there. Lots of answers are given that we have to change the loop, edit functions.php or do lots of coding, but not one simple... first do X then do Y instructions to actually achieve this goal. Lots of people seem to want to get this done. I join you in your frustrations for the lack of a workable answer.

[kastelic 6]

Check out this link: http://www.wprecipes.com/wordpress-shortcode-display-the-loop It allows you to output a loop with a simple shortcode, as long as you know the arguments of query_posts, you can do a lot. Modify the function to output the loop in the format you want, the example outputs an unordered list of the post titles, but you can copy code from template.postloop.php or just view the source of a Pagelines page to get the containers and classes you need to make it look like the pagelines posts.