Blogs

Hello. I'm trying to find the best solution to provide specific CB Subs plan members with the ability to post blogs on very specific topics. An example would be a teacher would have a blog post specifically targeted towards lecture reviews, students would have a blog to post progress on specific assignments, etc.

Ultimately, I would like to have the following functionalities:

1) blog appears as tab on CB profile for blogger.
2) blogs stored as Joomla articles in specific categories.
3) blog feed available to all of bloggers connections either by special module or the ability to use regular article modules to show recent blogs on connections profiles.
4) Ability to prevent blogger from having access to the backend categories... all categories/permissions can be assigned to the blog by an admin and blogger would just post content that would be fed directly to an assigned category.

I have tried CB profile blog, which doesn't quite accomplish all of this. I have also just tried to use CB blogs, but I can't seem to configure it in a way that limits backend access to the blogger and I can't seem to get any categories to appear in the dropdown menu...

Is there another blogging tool that I can try that can accomplish all of these tasks? Is CB Blogs capable of doing it and I am just missing something within the configuration?


Thanks.

CB Blogs is designed to accomplish all of those. You need to install it, create a Joomla category (J1.7) or section (J1.5) to be the "top-level" then create categories under that "top-level" and those categories are what they select from the drop done. Once you've done this navigate to CB > Plugin Management > CB Blogs > Configuration and configure it to use your new "top-level". It's purely CMS based if not using Internal mode so access permissions on categories will also be reflected in the blogs display and creation (drop-down select).

Okay, thnx. I'm using 1.7 and didn't realize that I needed to create a category under the category for it to appear in the dropdown. That works now. Couple more questions...

Is there a menu item associated with blogs similar to groupjive or kunena or is it meant to be managed entirely from the profile tab?

Is there a way to remove the "article" "page break" "readmore" "toggle editor" options?

Actually, is there any way to make this a text editor similar to profile book blog? I'm not comfortable providing folks with the ability to get into the article backend and include html in their blog posts.

Thanks again for your help.

Is there a menu item associated with blogs similar to groupjive or kunena or is it meant to be managed entirely from the profile tab?

CB Blogs has a frontend, but can also be managed from its tab. Navigate to CB Blogs backend and it'll allow you to generate a menu link (see "Create Menu" next to Frontend URL:).

Is there a way to remove the "article" "page break" "readmore" "toggle editor" options?

Unpublish them from Joomlas plugin manager.

Actually, is there any way to make this a text editor similar to profile book blog? I'm not comfortable providing folks with the ability to get into the article backend and include html in their blog posts.

No, it uses CMS editor.

Sorry for the repeated clarifications here but...

With the regards to the menu link, you are now referring to the link that appears on the CB Menu if I choose to enable it in the back-end, right? Just found that.


Is there any way to create multiple editors with various settings? i.e., I would like those buttons (article, image, etc.) available to admins with backend access but not available to frontend users that use CB Blogs from the front end.

You responded to my 3rd question below with "No, it uses CMS editor"... But for some reason in the email I received it said "No, it uses CMS editor, textarea with html, or textarea without html." If CB Blogs does have the ability to use these three options, where can I choose them?

Configuration->Blogs->Internal->Categories..... This provides a text area for categories to be entered, sepereted by a comma... If the category list is controlled by the CMS, what do the categories entered here do?


Thanks again.

With the regards to the menu link, you are now referring to the link that appears on the CB Menu if I choose to enable it in the back-end, right? Just found that.

No, but that is 1 way of getting to CB Blogs frontend. When you navigate to CB > Plugin Management > CB Blogs you'll notice "Frontend URL" at the very top of the plugin page. You can click this to take you directly to frontend for example. There's also a link next to it called "Create Menu". Clicking that will general an internal Joomla menu link in a new menutype called "Incubator". You could then move the Joomla menu link to wherever you like.

Is there any way to create multiple editors with various settings? i.e., I would like those buttons (article, image, etc.) available to admins with backend access but not available to frontend users that use CB Blogs from the front end.

Depends on the editor. JCE for example allows different editors based on ACL.

You responded to my 3rd question below with "No, it uses CMS editor"... But for some reason in the email I received it said "No, it uses CMS editor, textarea with html, or textarea without html." If CB Blogs does have the ability to use these three options, where can I choose them?

Error on my part, I edited the post to correct my self. With well over a dozen projects I sometimes mistake features in 1 project for a feature in another.

Configuration->Blogs->Internal->Categories..... This provides a text area for categories to be entered, sepereted by a comma... If the category list is controlled by the CMS, what do the categories entered here do?

That's only for Internal model. If you're using a CMS model then the internal categories don't do anything.