[SOLVED:]Somehow make Ditto output an interesting blog page

If you look at blog packages, most have an option to include the first chunk of text/pics of each post - so the blog page isn’t a huge page with 30 articles! It’s also great for creating interest in an article, to make the reader click the ’more...’ link.

I can use the introtext to do this with Ditto, ofc - but the introtext allows no pictures or formatting, resulting in a big page of just text!

Is there any way to make Ditto include text up to the first </p> or
?

Another option would be to have ready-made "subject" pictures, like "nostalgia" or "review" as TVs. However, is there a way to make a checkbox (for each ’category’) appear on the blog document page?


The articles will be added by members on varying skill levels, so I’m looking for a slick / easy to use solution.

Here’s what I have now: http://scoopex1988.org/photon.html

You can use the summary extender to output x# of characters of an article. I am not sure how this handles images. Add &extenders=`summary` to your ditto call. See the summary functions here:
http://ditto.modxcms.com/files/assets/snippets/ditto/extenders/summary-extender-inc-php.html

If this does not include any images you can consider adding an article image (with fixed layout possition) as a tv. Then in the ditto tpl you can add the tv call and format the look. To be even cooler you can use a resize snippet to place the image in an appropriate dimension (rather than needing a large and thumb version of the image).

Is there any way to make Ditto include text up to the first </p> or
?

Check out the &truncAt parameter for the summary extender:
http://ditto.modxcms.com/files/assets/snippets/ditto/extenders/summary-extender-inc-php.html#truncAt

Thanks dev_cw!

Will try and see if it includes images. If not, I will go with the TV - if I learn how to make the TV ’includable’ via a checkbox for the members on the site.

or use phx extender (phx already included in ditto) like this to limit the charachters you want:

[+content:limit=`100`+]

works great

Cool tip Dimmy thanks for that one !

Never underestimate PHx modifiers

Just wondering how this works when there is an image in the first 100 chars of code? Do the html tags count as chars?

To answer my own Q: the html tags count as chars. And if any images are included in the html they will pass over.

PHx is one of the best items I’ve seen. I feel PHx really really seperates MODx.

I had a client that wanted the extensions removed from the filedownload snippet, and I could’ve hacked it but used PHx instead.



Then in my chunk, I changed the placeholder [+fd.filename+] to [+phx:input=`[+fd.filename+]`:strip_ext+]

I personally have not yet checked out PHx. Instead I have been building specific function snippets to handle things and my new favorite is the Wrapper Snippet where you write one snippet to control others. I fully see how PHx is a great tool, but as with everything in MODx there are other ways. I have 2 reasons for not diving into PHx; 1) the added parsing that goes on, 2) I know PHP and it is easier for me to work with then PHx.

On that note, I DO like using it within Ditto chunks and would like to see it in Wayfinder (if it is not already there), so maybe I am a hypocrite

[+content:limit=`100`:notags+]

and use this if you want to strip the tags

[+content:limit=`100`:notags+]

Now that IS nifty.