Help:Blogs/Bloglist

Edit
Bloglist example update
A blog list


The bloglist is a feature that allows you to group a specific list of blog posts from one or several categories in a page. It also gives you the opportunity to embed a list of blogs within a normal article.

Why create a bloglist

Blog listing pages are a great way to quickly gather a list of blog posts with categories. By default, "Blog:Recent posts" exists on all wikis with blog posts enabled, listing all the recent blog posts on the wiki and accessible in the Explore menu of each local navigation.

It can be helpful to separate blogs in two or more lists so visitors can choose the type of blog that users want to read and follow.

For example, readers could be interested in the latest news and reviews about the topic of your wiki or fanfiction written by users but not so much about reviews with spoilers. The community could choose to create three different bloglists: one that would group all blogs about news and reviews, one dedicated to user fanfiction, and third one for blogs with spoilers.

So a blog can appear in as many bloglist as wished. To add a blog to the list, you just need to add the category used to feed the relevant bloglist. For example, by default and on each wiki, every blog placed in "Category:Blog posts" is displayed in "Blog:Recent posts".

Unlike categories, bloglists can be sorted by dates or number of comments. Each blog in the bloglist shows, alongside the author's name and the blog title:

  • The date of creation
  • The number of comments
  • The first lines of the blog

How to create a blog listing page

You can create a new blog listing at "Special:CreateBlogListingPage", which you will automatically land on if you try to create the bloglist in the Blog: namespace.
If you wish to edit an already existing bloglist, you can add ?action=edit at the end of the URL of the bloglist page. You can also visit the page Special:CreateBlogListingPage?article=Page+name, replacing "Page name" by the name of the blog list.

Bloglist creation example
Special:CreateBlogListingPage overview

The Special:CreateBlogListingPage page has the following options:

  • "Blog listing page title": the title that the blog post list will have. The page will then be saved in the Blog: namespace.
  • "Get blog posts from these categories" module: several existing categories on the wiki. Select the category that will allow the blogs to be displayed in the list.
    • If you click on the category, the text turns green meaning that you have selected this category.
    • If the module does not contain the desired category, fill in the "Add a new category" field omitting the namespace (e.g. Fanfiction instead of Category:Fanfiction) then click on "Submit".
  • "Matches": If you click on the "Calculate" button, it will display the number of blogs that would be displayed with the current settings. You can try as many time as you want by clicking "Re-calculate".
  • "Sort by": It allows you to choose the way your blog listing page will be displayed. You can sort the list by date in descending order ("Most recent"), by editor in alphabetic order ("Author") and by activity in descending order ("Comment Count").
  • "Add this blog listing page to these categories" module: several existing (or used) categories on the wiki. Select the category in which the list will appear.
    • If you click on the category, the text turns green meaning that you have selected this category.
    • If the module does not contain the desired category, fill in the "Add a new category" field omitting the namespace (e.g. "Community blogs" instead of "Category:Community blogs") then click on "Submit".
  • Then you have the choice between creating the page or displaying the source code that you can copy and paste on the desired page. The easiest way is to save directly but the source code can be helpful if you want to embed or further customize the list.
  • You can also preview the page before saving it to see how it will be displayed. It is recommended so you don't have to make multiple edits.
Note that blog listings do not update immediately upon creation of a new blog post. You can wait for the cache to clear (a couple of hours), or add ?action=purge to the URL of the listing page.

How to create an embedded bloglist

A tag is available to allow you to embed a list of blogs within a normal article. There are a number of parameters you can define to format the embedded list to fit within different content pages - e.g. the main page, the community portal, a contest page, etc. - and it is extremely customizable.

Step-by-step

  • Decide which page you'd like to display the list of blogs on, and open that page for editing.
  • Switch to source mode and enter the following code on the page: <bloglist/>
  • Bloglist example update
    A blog list
    The <bloglist/> tag without further customization will display all of the recent blog posts on the wiki, and look something like the image to the right.

Customizing your bloglist

There are a number of parameters you can define to change the content of your blog list so it works for different content pages. Though this may seem complex at first, you can specify up to ten parameters as you wish. Those you don't specify will use the default setting.

Here's an example of customization: 

<bloglist count="3" summary="true" summarylength="250" type="plain" title="Sample code" order="date">
<category>News</category>
<category>Opinion</category>
<author>User1</author>
<author>User2</author>
<author>User3</author>
</bloglist>

Categories and authors

Note how the category and author sections are written differently to other inputs - this is because they can take multiple inputs. Using author and category together gives you any posts by the selected authors from the selected categories.

List of parameters

author
This specifies which authors posts are selected from.
It is an "or" selector - if you specify more than one author, it will collate posts from each author together. If unspecified, it defaults to all authors.
To use it type:
<author>Author1</author>
<author>Author2</author>
<author>Author3</author>
category
This specifies which categories posts are pulled from.
It is an "or" selector - if you specify more than one category, and it will collate posts from each category together. If unspecified, it defaults to show all categorized and uncategorized posts.
To use it type:
<category>Category1</category>
<category>Category2</category>
<category>Category3</category>
count
This specifies the number of posts to query.
Takes a number input. If unspecified, it defaults to 5.
For example: <bloglist count=3>
displaycount
This specifies the number of posts to display. Normally this shouldn't be used, unless there is some reason you want to query the database for more results than are actually shown on the page.
Takes a number input. If unspecified, it defaults to 5.
For example: <bloglist displaycount=3>
summary
This specifies whether a section of the blog post is shown on the listing. Please note it is not intended to show full blog posts - it shows only sections, stripped of formatting.
Inputs are true or false, defaulting to false. If true, it shows first 200 characters of the blog post.
For example: <bloglist summary=true>
summarylength
This allows you to specify length of the text quoted in characters, if summary=true. If not specified, it defaults to 200 characters.
For example: <bloglist summary=true summarylength=300>
Bloglist - type box
An example of type=box
type
Choose the general output style.
Inputs are either box or plain. If unspecified, it defaults to box. Box will include the "Create Blog Post" button at the top of the list and the "See More >" link at the bottom by default.
box - places the listing in a pre-stylized box.
plain - is just the list without any styling.
For example: <bloglist type=plain>
title
This specifies the title when posts are shown with type=box. If it uses multiple words, the text must be written in quote marks.
For example: <bloglist title="Evil draws close">
order
This specifies how the posts are sorted.
Inputs are date, author, or comments. If unspecified, it defaults to date.
For example: <bloglist order=author>
ordertype
This specifies what direction to sort in.
Inputs are desc (meaning "descending") or asc (meaning "ascending"). If unspecified, it defaults to descending order.
For example: <bloglist ordertype=desc>
create_timestamp
Allows for only showing posts that have been created more recently than a specified date.
Input is a timestamp of the form YYYYMMDDHHMMSS (year, month, day, hours, minutes, seconds)
For example: <bloglist create_timestamp=20140101000000>
timestamp
Allows for only showing posts that have been edited more recently than a specified date.
Input is a timestamp of the form YYYYMMDDHHMMSS (year, month, day, hours, minutes, seconds)
For example: <bloglist timestamp=20140101000000>
seemore
This specifies the URL that the "See More >" link should go to.
For example: <bloglist seemore="https://community.fandom.com">

Other notes

  • If no valid posts are found, the following message will be displayed: "No posts found. Write one!"
  • It is possible to follow a bloglist by either add ?action=watch at the end of the URL of the bloglist page or by clicking on "Watch" on your toolbar.

See also

Further Help & Feedback

More Information

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