Santa Clara University

Web Publishing @ SCU

Blog Feature

This element would be used as a companion to a Commonspot blog element. With this element, you can display one or more featured items on your home page, or any other page in your Commonspot site. The element will display the featured items' title and description, and provide a link to the page that includes the full blog. Optionally, you can include the titles of one or more recent, but not "featured" items in your blog.

The blog feature on this page provides an example. If no items in the blog were set to be "featured", the element will display the most recently posted blog item.

Custom Settings

The only required parameter for this element is a blog channel id. When you add the element to your page, you'll see a list of the available Commonspot blogs and their corresponding channel ids.

Example:

 channel_id=21 
Display Options

Instead of featuring the most recent post, or items set as featured in the full blog, you can set this element to randomly select an item from the blog and display it as featured. You can also modify the background color of the element. And by default the element will display two recent posts. If you want to change this to show more or less, supply a number in the "recent_posts" parameter. If you set this to zero, the Recent Posts heading and list will not appear.  You may also choose to display the featured blog posts in a list, instead of the default featured view.

Examples:

style=red (options are: red, gold, and beige - default is beige)
recent_posts=3 (default is "2")
random=true (default is "false")

This would randomly select a featured item from all blog posts, set the background color of the Web Publishing blog (channel_id 21) feature element to "red", and increase the number of recent posts to three.

display=list

Setting the display attribute to "list" will render the featured blog posts using the directory list style.
 

Web Publishing News

  • view or hide links A few Commonspot blog updates
  • view or hide links Twitter widget now supports hashtags
  • view or hide links Embedding a form created in Google Docs
 

Web Publishing News

  • iconA few Commonspot blog updates

    The interface to the Commonspot Blog Manager has been updated, allowing for more space to display the text editor.  The editor's toolbar includes a few more options (indent/outdent/table), and the summary text field will display the character count when entering text.

    Nov. 14, 2011 | Permalink
  • iconTwitter widget now supports hashtags

    The Twitter widget can now be used to display content based on a search keyword or hashtag, along with Twitter profile content.

    Nov. 14, 2011 | Permalink
  • iconEmbedding a form created in Google Docs

    A new element has been added that will allow you to embed a form created in Google Docs within a Commonspot page.  The element requires a form ID, which is provided by Google in the embed HTML code, and has optional height and width configuration settings.  Look for the "Google Docs Form" element in the Content Well element gallery category.

    Sep. 20, 2011 | Permalink
  • iconSCU Experience Videos

    The videos displayed in the SCU home page "SCU Experience" presentation are available to use individually within a Commonspot page. Use the form on this page to preview videos and copy the video URL.  Then add the Media Player element to a page, and set it to use the URL for the selected video.

    Sep. 20, 2011 | Permalink
Commonspot, step-by-step

Find step-by-step directions on how to perform various functions in the Commonspot system.

Step-by-step guides Go

Looking for help with your Web site?

Send a support request to the SCU Web Publishing team in OMC and Media Services.

Send a request Go

Printer-friendly format