How To Create An Icy Phoenix Blog

Did you know you can turn your Icy Phoenix into a fully functional blog?  Do you want to share your likes, dislikes, daily events, and events with the world?  We'll discuss how to turn your Icy Phoenix into a feature-rich blog all your visitors will be sure to enjoy!

1. Create your blog categories.
   
2. Create the news [News] block.
   
3. Create the news archive [News Archive] block.
   
4. Start blogging!
   
5. Blog examples.

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1. Create your blog categories.
   Most bloggers like to keep their blog entries neat and organized so their visitors will be able to read what interests them.  A great way to keep your blog organized is by creating different categories for your blog entries.  You will be able to "file" each blog entry you create into a category that best fits it's description.
   
   Create your blog categories by entering your ACP -> News -> News Categories.
   
    
   
   By clicking Add new news category, you'll notice two fields that allow you to edit the title of your categories and change the news icon.  If you have more categories than news icons or if you want to use your own news icons, upload your images to ip_root/images/news/.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
    
   Now that you have created your news categories, you should enable news posting by entering ACP -> News -> News Configuration -> Enable News Posting.  Most of the options in this area may be left as default, but feel free to change options to suit your needs.  By enabling news posting, you'll see a new drop down box when creating/editing a topic in your forum.  That drop down box will allow you to post your new blog entry to the category you choose.
   

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2. Create your news [News] block.
   
   There are a few blocks you should become familiar with as they are the staple of your blog.  These blocks are:
   
   
   • news [News]
     
   • forum attach [Advanced News]
     
   • news archive [News Archive]
   
   
   - The forum attach [Advanced News] block is an alternate way to using the news [News] block as it has more options for customization.  Read about it here:
   
   
   Spoiler: [ Show ]

   Spoiler: [ Hide ]

   
   The forum attach [Advanced News] block is sometimes confused as the news [News] block because they essentially have the same function; to show topics/posts on your index page.  The forum attach [Advanced News] block is more customizable and has more functionality than the standard news block.  Some people use the forum attach [Advanced News] block as a blog type system.
   
   Let's setup this block on our index page.
   
   

   • Be sure news posting is enabled in ACP -> News -> News Configuration.
     
   • Create the block like you would normally create a new block, but be sure the block file is forum attach [Advanced News].
     
   • After customizing the options on the first screen, click Submit.
      
     
   • Number Of Posts - How many posts would you like displayed on the index page?
     
   • Length Of Posts - Just like the news [News] block, 250 characters is the default, but enter the number zero for all characters to be displayed within the block.
     
   • Post Forum ID's - Which forums would you like to pull news from?  Hover your mouse over the forum you'd like to present on the index page and remember the ID number found at the end of the link.  This number will need to be entered in this field.
     
   • Ignore Auth View Permission - By enabling this, forums view permissions will be ignored (this is important if you want to use hidden forums with NONE as view permission).
     
   • Recent Or Random - Would you like recent or random topics to be shown?
     
   • All Topics Or Only Marked - By selecting ALL TOPICS, all topics will be shown.  Selecting SHOW IN HOME PAGE will require you to tick the box in the specific forum topic you'd like displayed on your page.  You can find this check box under the Message Body field in posts.
     
   • Retrieve Single Post - By selecting YES, only one post will be shown in this block.
     
   • Posts ID - Enter a specific post ID to be displayed.
     
   • Get ID From Address - Enabling this will get the ID directly from address (post_id=XXX).
     
   • Click Submit when you are finished editing these fields.
   
   
   After you have created all your categories and enabled news posting, you should create the two blocks listed above.
   
   The news [News] block allows your forum posts to be displayed as "news" on your index page.  This is similar to posting a new blog entry on dedicated blogging software.  Since we want to display our blog postings on our index page, we should create the block on the index page.  Follow the same process you normally would for creating any block.
   
   
   • Title - Create a unique title for your news [News] block.
     
   • Position - Choose where you'd like your news [News] block to be positioned on your page.
     
   • Status - Set the status to enabled.
     
   • Block File - news [News]
     
   • View By - Who would you like to view this block?  Set to ALL for visitors to be able to read your blog postings.
     
   • Show Border, titlebar, localize titlebar, and show background - Set these to whatever you desire.  They are purely aesthetic.
     
   • Usergroups - Which usergroups would you like to view this block?  Don't tick any boxes to allow everyone to view the block.
   
   
   Click Submit.
   
    
   
   The next screen allows you to set a few additional options of how to present this block to your visitors.
   
   
   • Length Of News - The default is set to 250, but if you'd like your entire posting to be viewable, change this number to the number zero.
     
   • Number Of News To Display - Choose how many blog postings you would like displayed on your front page.  After this amount is exceeded, page numbers will show under the block on your index page to indicate there are more blog postings.
     
   • Random Or Newest News - Decide if you'd like random news or newest news displayed in your news [News] block.  Most bloggers like the newest news displayed.
   
   
   Click Submit.
   
   Go check your work out on your index page!  Let's make it even easier for your visitors to find what blog posts interest them most by creating the news archive [News Archive] block.
   

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3. Create your news archive [News Archive] block.
   The news archive [News Archive] block will allow your visitors to easily find the blog posts that interest them.  If you created a category about dogs, the visitor can click the dogs category to view all your blog postings about dogs.
   
   Create this block as you would create any other block, with a few exceptions of course.
   
   
   • Title - Create a unique title for your news archive [News Archive] block.
     
   • Position - Choose where you'd like your news archive [News Archive] block to be positioned on your page.
     
   • Status - Set the status to enabled.
     
   • Block File - news archive [News Archive]
     
   • View By - Who would you like to view this block?  Set to ALL for visitors to be able to read your blog postings.
     
   • Show Border, titlebar, localize titlebar, and show background - Set these to whatever you desire.  They are purely aesthetic.
     
   • Usergroups - Which usergroups would you like to view this block?  Don't tick any boxes to allow everyone to view the block.
   
   
   Click Submit.
   
    
   
   The next screen allows you to set a few additional options of how to present this block to your visitors.
   
   
   • Show Archive Or Categories - Decide what look you like best.  The Archive option only shows months/dates while the Categories option shows the news icon next to the category name.
     
   • News Image Width - How far would you like your news icon image stretched?  This may be useful when creating the block in the center position.
   
   
   Click Submit.
   
   Check out your work on your index page!  If you are like me and couldn't decide which to choose: Show Archive or Categories, create two of these news archive [News Archive] blocks and make one an archive view and the other a category view.
   

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4. Start blogging!
   
    
   Now that the news categories and blocks are setup, we need to add content.  This is where you start blogging!
   
   Create a new topic in your forum, but pay close attention to the new addition that is the Select News Category under Post Topic As and above Message Body.
   
   Select which category you'd like to post this blog entry to.  Check your homepage and view your new blog!
   

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5. Blog examples.

To see some live examples of what a blog using Icy Phoenix can look like:

www.mightygorgon.com
http://www.cucinainsimpatia.net/ricette.php

Here are a few examples of what my new blog looks like:

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| Icy Phoenix ColorizeIt! |
Bipolar Disorder - Not good for you and definitely not good for everyone else.

Wow great Doc ...
Merci Chaotic...

thank´s for that chaotic

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Out of Order

Great tutorial!

So basically anyone who thinks that IP has no blog capabilities, hasn't investigated enough how to do it.

Great topic.

In adding pages, you could always start a blog page, and link it off of the portal page, and that way you have it all:

A Portal home page, a forum, and a blog all rolled into one!!!

There's no limit to what you can do with Icy Phoenix........and the future looks really bright as well.

 

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My main IP 1.3 site
My IP 1.3 styles test site

I figured it out,


Thanks,

Dave

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Another Pro Bono
Version of Icy Phoenix: 1.3.0.53a
Version of PHP: 5.2.9
Version of MySQL: 5.0.81-community-log
Board started: 2009/07/18 - 11:50
Registered Users: 123 as of 17 Sep 09