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Dynamic 'about' box

Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2007 12:24 pm
by d_cee
Hi

I was wondering if it's possible to incorporate an 'about me' box into a template - like the about box in Ricky Wilson's/Carl's 'Artistic' template. However, instead of it being static content, I'd like the content to change.

I'd like aach author, with reponsibility for one category, to be able to have a piccy and short text that would show in the about box if you were reading their post(s) or category. If you were just on the front page it would show general info about the blog.

Is this possible?
If so, how could each author enter/upload their details?
And, how can the content be made to change for each author?

cheers

Dave

Re: Dynamic 'about' box

Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2007 1:03 pm
by garvinhicking
Hi!

Phew. That sounds quite hard, and nearly cries for an own sidebar plugin.

One thing you could easily do is to create HTML nuggets and call them depending on their ID on the template. But that solution is not transferable, as you need to insert the IDs into the template. If you wanted category-boxes, you could have them via the siddebarhider plugin and individual HTML nuggets that you only set to display if within the requested category. But that's not existing for authors...

So I suppose one would need to create a event-plugin/sidebar combination. The event plugin to insert boxes in the backend, and the sidebar one to show them. Somewhat like the staticpage plugin in the backend.

The effort for this is quite large, I suppose it would take me already 3-4 hours to code such a thing, as the backend must maintain its own database for the seperate display information, you need to check access rights etc.

HTH,
Garvin

Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2007 2:16 pm
by d_cee
Hi Garvin

is it something you'd be willing (or have time) to work up? I think it would be a great plugin for users with multi author blogs - and I could use it on the template I'm helping someone out with at the moment. And if there's anything I can do?

cheers

Dave

Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 11:27 pm
by garvinhicking
Hi Dave!

Phew. I believe there are some other things that I have listed with higher priority in my todo-list of things to do once I can push my day to 36 working hours - so I'm afraid I won't be able to dedicate free time on this. :(

But maybe someone here now has itching fingers to try it out? Would be a good thing to do for newbie plugin developers, it's mostly straight-ahead work with no real complex problems or mind-boggling arithmetics. :)

Best regards,
Garvin