ModX Newbie - Blog Help

Hi all, I’ve just downloaded and installed MODx Evolution 1.0.0-RC3 a couple of days back and have been playing around with it some to get myself familiarised.

I’m kinda stuck with the pre-installed blog section:

1) After adding in a new blog entry, it is not automatically listed. What I needed for it to show up as a new entry, is to log into the site manager and manually open and save either the main ’Blog’ page or the ’Add New Blog’ page.
I’ve read that this is probably due to the page being cached, but I have searchable and cached selections both unchecked and empty cache selection checked. I’ve even tried changing (in the Blog Main Page) the Ditto call tag? [[Ditto?.....etc]] to [!Ditto?.....etc!] but to no avail. I still had to manually open up and save either of the pages in manager to have the new entry listed.

[EDIT] I’ve managed to fix item 1 above. Went through NewsPublisher wiki and I added in (&clearcache=’1’) to the Add New Blog content like so: [!NewsPublisher? &folder=`2` &canpost=`Site Admins` &formtpl=`FormBlog` &footertpl=`Comments` &makefolder=`1` &showinmenu=’0’ &clearcache=’1’ &rtcontent=`tvblogContent`!]

Still need help with the issues below [END EDIT]


2) If I stay logged in as a Site Admin, the ’Add New Blog’ page will be listed under the list of blogs. I want Site Admins to be able to see and use this to create new blogs from the main menu, but I do not want it to be displayed as a blog entry.


3) Under Archives for the Blog page, I have the year listed correctly but clicking on it does nothing, it still loads the default Blog page but does not change to reflect Blog content defined by year.

(I have some articles dated in 2006 with others in 2009, thus both 2009 and 2006 are listed under Archives but clicking on either does not change the listing to reflect the corresponding year. I also tried to have this listing further categorised under months. e.g. 2006 -> April 2006, and the archive links does not work still. Clicking on April 2006 does not change the Blog page to only show April 2006 entries)


4) Just wanna say hi to everyone here I’ve used some other CMS before but so far, after my limited time with ModX, I can say it rocks!

Kindly advice. Thanks

Ok, I’ve managed to solve all the problems listed above. Will post the solutions I found and hopefully this will be helpful for someone just starting out as well and save you the trouble of spending hours trying to find the fixes.

This is for MODx Evolution 1.0.0-RC3.

For the Blog Section:

1. Open up and edit Add a Blog Entry and insert &clearcache=’1’ into the code. This fixed the problem where I cant see my new posts right after publishing them, even after using the un-cached call. More info here: http://wiki.modxcms.com/index.php/NewsPublisher

Old Code
[!NewsPublisher? &folder=`2` &canpost=`Site Admins` &formtpl=`FormBlog` &footertpl=`Comments` &makefolder=`1` &showinmenu=’0’ &rtcontent=`tvblogContent`!]
New Code
[!NewsPublisher? &folder=`2` &canpost=`Site Admins` &formtpl=`FormBlog` &footertpl=`Comments` &makefolder=`1` &showinmenu=’0’ &clearcache=’1’ &rtcontent=`tvblogContent`!]



2. Open up and edit the Blog page and insert &filter=`id,3,2’ into the code. What this does is hide the Add a Blog Entry page from being listed as an entry of your Blog page. Note, 3 is the id of Add a Blog Entry, so be sure to change it if your id is different than mine. More info here: http://ditto.modxcms.com/tutorials/basic_filtering.html

Old Code
[[Ditto? &startID=`2` &parents=`2` &summarize=`2` &removeChunk=`Comments` &tpl=`ditto_blog` &paginate=`1` &extenders=`summary,dateFilter` &paginateAlwaysShowLinks=`1` &tagData=`documentTags`]]
New Code
[[Ditto? &startID=`2` &parents=`2` &summarize=`2` &removeChunk=`Comments` &tpl=`ditto_blog` &paginate=`1` &extenders=`summary,dateFilter` &paginateAlwaysShowLinks=`1` &filter=`id,3,2’ &tagData=`documentTags`]]


3. Archive listing not working. What I did was follow the instructions listed here: http://ditto.modxcms.com/tutorials/wordpress-style-archives.html and modified it a little to suit my needs.


These are just my take on fixing the glitches I experienced using the default installation with the bundled packages. I’m sure there are better and more efficient ways some others can provide.

Thanks for sharing your progress.

Hi,

I am also encountering trouble with the blog archive (http://ditto.modxcms.com/tutorials/wordpress-style-archives.html). I followed the instructions exactly but when I click on the archive month, it does not reflect the correct entries, just reloads the page.
Is everyone else having the same problem or is there something missing in that tutorial?
Thank you!