Using Categories to post a Welcome Message?

tjnoff · Post by **tjnoff** » Sun May 14, 2006 1:23 am

Relatively new Serendipity administrator (previous person left). We have an MBA class using a blog to document their trip. I would like the program director's welcome message to stay at the top of the first page for all users to see, then the students blog entries to following (newest first, as is the norm).

Currently, I've set the date on his entry in the future and am allowing future entries to be displayed, thus keeping the entry at the top, but the bogus date isn't the best solution.

Can I use the Categories plug-in (already installed in 0.

and put the director's message (and no other entries) in a 'Welcome' category and configure Serendipity to always display the 'Welcome' category (and therefore that one welcome messge) first?

I can edit php if I have to, but thought there might just be a configuration setting that can be set to accomplish this.

Thank you - Jay

Col. Kurtz · Post by **Col. Kurtz** » Sun May 14, 2006 2:41 am

1) you can post entries as "sticky", they will always be on top. I think the plugin for this is the "extended properties"
2) you can choose one category that will only showup on the start page. theres a plugin for this too.
3) you can use the static-pages plugin to create one page that comes as the startpage.

want you want is 1): use the sticky entry to tell the welcome message!

tjnoff · Post by **tjnoff** » Sun May 14, 2006 6:05 am

I had looked at the properties for the Extended Properties plugin because it mentions sticky posts in its description, but the properties page for Extended Properties has no settings for sticky posts, and when posting an entry, there is no option to make it sticky.

The previous administrator had created a 'Welcome' category, which still exists, but putting the director's message in that category doesn't do the trick.

I suspect that your option 2) is probably what I need, unless you can tell me how to use the Extended Properties. Do you know what plugin I can use for option 2)?

Thank you - Jay

Col. Kurtz wrote:1) you can post entries as "sticky", they will always be on top. I think the plugin for this is the "extended properties"
2) you can choose one category that will only showup on the start page. theres a plugin for this too.
3) you can use the static-pages plugin to create one page that comes as the startpage.

want you want is 1): use the sticky entry to tell the welcome message!

Col. Kurtz · Post by **Col. Kurtz** » Sun May 14, 2006 9:52 am

1) strange! I have the extended properties plugin installed and I can set the post to be a sticky one:

2) its an event plugin called start page category

tjnoff · Post by **tjnoff** » Sun May 14, 2006 6:44 pm

Funny, but I don't have those Extended Properties under Advanced Options (no Advanced Options, actually). I've removed and re-added the plugin, but no change.

I also don't have an Event plugin for Start Page Category available.

So, I guess the question is, how do I download and reinstall the Extended Properties plugin and/or the Start Page Category plugin??

Thanks - Jay

Col. Kurtz wrote:1) strange! I have the extended properties plugin installed and I can set the post to be a sticky one:

2) its an event plugin called start page category

Col. Kurtz · Post by **Col. Kurtz** » Sun May 14, 2006 6:55 pm

what serendipity version are you using
and do you use Spartacus or do you add the plugins via FTP upload?

thats the start category plugin:

http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/p ... _startcat/

Post by **garvinhicking** » Sun May 14, 2006 7:01 pm

Also tell us which event plugins you are using. My guess it that one of them is emitting a PHP Fatal Error on your site. Have a look at the HTML output of your "Create Entry" panel and look for errors inside that code. Ormake sure your PHP has display_errors on, or investigate your errorlog.

Bestregards,
Garvin

tjnoff · Post by **tjnoff** » Wed May 24, 2006 3:59 am

I thnk my question was probably answered in another posting. I'm running Serendipity 0.8-beta2 and PHP 4.3.2. Looks like I should upgrade to Serendipity 0.9.1.

My Event Plugins are:
Markup: Serendipity
Markup: Emoticate
Markup: NL2BR
Spam Protector
External user authentication (LDAP)
Picture of the author
Extended properties for entries

Thanks,
Jay

carl_galloway · Post by **carl_galloway** » Fri May 26, 2006 7:43 pm

If you're goiung to upgrade from 0.82, may I seriously suggest you go to version 1.0, the latest stable beta appears to be rock solid and will give you many more options to configure things than 0.91