How to set up posts page using pagelines

[lazlo 1]

Hi,

 

(Using latest pagelines framework)

 

I have a site that is set up to use a static page for homepage

 

1) under 'Dashboard > Settings > Reading' I have set posts page to 'News'

 

 

Question - I would like to change the posts page setting as above to be blank, then create a page called news and only show certain post categories, but I would like the page to look like the pagelines one (2 full posts at top etc)

 

which is the best way to accomplish this? Should I be looking to change/edit a setting somewhere else1 that would let me leave the posts page set to 'news' (as above) in order to keep control via pagelines admin section?

 

I am trying to do this as I have events created through a plugin called Events Calendar that are making the 'News' link in main navigation highlight as well as the 'Events' link.

 

if you look at http://www.theimpclub.com/events you'll see 'News' highlighted - I've tried creating a menu (which can been seen directly below-right of the main nav.

 

 

any help/advice gratefully received as this issue is now doing my noggin in )

 

many thanks

[Rob 547]

Hi,

 

First,  I'd recommend keeping the current News page as your blog, serving as a cache-all for every one of your posts.

 

Next,  I suggest a plugin called Special Recent Posts (SRP) which allows you to mimic the look of our posts, You can also set them by category.  SRP also works as a shortcode, so you can place it on the page several times.

 

Now, that said, SRP doesn't do magazine mode posts on its own. To achieve this, you have to do some odd things but it works in the end.

 

1.  Customize the shortcode to include two posts in a selected category using the WP assigned category number. The shortcode should have images, etc.

Here's an example of the shortcode with 1 post from one category and the image sized to 150 x 150:

[srp display_thumbnail='yes' post_content_type='excerpt' post_content_length='50' post_content_length_mode='words' category_include='7' category_title='no' string_break_link='yes' thumbnail_width='150' thumbnail_height='150' post_status='publish' post_limit='1' post_title_length_mode='fulltitle' widget_title_hide='yes']

This gives you a thumbail, excerpt of 50 words; posts only from category 7 (you'll change this); hides the category title (change to Yes if you want to show); the thumbnail; limit of 1 post with full title and hides the widget title.

 

Of course, if you want magazine mode columns, this can be done by also implementing WP-Boxer plugin which allows you to create Content Blocks, like Boxes, This allows you to create a block set (like box sets). Then, you add the shortcode for SRP in two content blocks. The first one will have an offset of 2 posts (SRP option you can add to the shortcode).  Change the number of posts to 4 and image size to 75 x 75.

 

Then in the next content block, you want to repeat the category, image size and number of posts. But this time, you want to offset by 6 posts.  Now, there will be two columns each with 4 posts, looking like our magazine mode.

 

Well, once you set up the content blocks correctly.  They in turn have a shortcode that may be applied to the page calling the content block set.   See something similar in action at www.epicurus.com/magazine. There, I have 4 SRP shortcodes each one calling 1 post from each of 4 categories, and two columns of content blocks.

[lazlo 1]

a big THANK YOU for your time in replying - very helpful & very useful.