Manual:Extension/Blog

What is Blog?

Blog extension allows creating news feeds on the wiki. These news feeds can be shown on any page, and users can be allowed to add their own news

Where can I find the blog function?

.

Blog by default

The TopMenuBar (in dark grey right at the top of the page) has several links. One of these By default, there is a link to the blog. If you click on "Blog" in this top menu, then a page will open which contains Blog page in the TopMenuBar, which then opens the blog, a page containing a form for writing a new blog entry and a list of previous entries.

The blog's functions for users

New blog entries can be created using the form

Display Blog on any wiki page

This blog news feed can be displayed on any wiki page by adding the blog tag to the page.

This also displays a  "Create new blog entry"-form on the page, unless it is disabled to use blog tag attributes.

A blog entry consists of a title, revision information (date and author of first revision), the entry itself and possibly links for comments and a permalink.

If a blog entry is too long,

it will automatically be shortened and a link "Continue reading" will take you to

the

full entry.The title and the

link "

Continue

continue reading"

link to the blog article. This is, by default, a wiki page in the namespace "Blog".

The comments can be found on the discussion page of the blog article, i.e. in the namespace "Blog_talk".

The number of comments is shown in the blog itself. Shouts are not counted here, only entries on the discussion page.

You can enter the title of a new blog entry in the blog form "Create new blog entry" to create it.

Write an entry or create a new entry

is displayed.

Blog tags

Enter a title for the blog entry in the text box. When using this text box, the article will be automatically placed in the namespace necessary, "Blog". You do not need to write this as you do for the alternative way of creating it we discuss below. Then click on "Create". You will be taken to a new page which you can edit just like any other wiki article.
Note: The title (=file name in the namespace Blog) can only be assigned once.
Would you like to change the entry? Then click on the title of your blog entry. This takes you to the blog's wiki page where you can edit the wiki site as normal using the tab "Edit".

Screenshot: To create a blog article, the namespace "Blog:" must be entered.Alternative for creating a new blog entry: New blog entries (posts) can also be created by using the "Create new page" form simply by creating an article whose address starts with "Blog:" , for example "Blog:New Article".

For advanced users

• The tag <bs:blog /> can be used to integrate the blog into article pages, discussion pages and file pages.
• You can also use contents from other namespaces as blog entries. Articles from a particular category can be displayed in the blog by using the cat argument in the blog tag, for example <blog cat="Wiki" />.
• You can set the length of the teaser for the blog entry yourself by placing the following tag at the desired place in the blog article <bs:blog:more />. This will then be the place where the "Continue reading" link is shown which leads you to the full blog article.

If the blog is created with a Category, you can create a new page and assign the category at the end just like normal.

For admins

• Permalink: Generates a unique URL in the address bar for the current version of the article (for sourcing and linking)

• Trackbar: Shows the reactions to an entry (post) which are not visible in the blog because the article is commented on in another website.

• The blogs are sorted according to the Date of creation. Alternatively, it is possible to change the preferences in the config file to sort the blogs according to name.

Integrating a

Blog extension offers several tags. These tags can be added to a page using InsertMagic functionality, or writing tag syntax directly to wiki code editor.

Wiki tag	Description
<bs:blog />	Displays blog news feed on the page. It can be extended with multiple attributes. For more on attubutes read section "Blog tag attibutes" below.
<bs:blog:more />	This tag should be placed inside the content of a blog entry (pages in Blog namespace) to define at which point in text "continue reading" link should be placed. This will override default cut-off length of an entry.
<bs:blog:time time="YYYYMMDDHHmm" />	This tag also should be placed inside the content of a blog entry. It allows manually defining timestamp for that particular blog entry. Timestamp is used in sorting and displaying blog entries.

Write an entry or create a new entry

New blog entries can be created through the form on the page containing a blog tag, on Blog special page (Special:Blog), or by directly creating new pages in the Blog namespace.

Creating a second blog

A blog can be integrated using a simple tag:

Wiki tag	Description
<blog />	Normal blog
<blog cat="Wiki" />	Blog entries created will be given the respective category. Furthermore, only blog entries with this category will be displayed (in our example blog entries with the category "Wiki").
<bs:blog:more />	The "more" tag is used in the single entries limit the teaser to its position. A link "Continue reading" appears at this point in the blog which links to the entry.
<bs:blog:time time="201503161200" />.	Set the time stamp of a blog post to a defined date. e.g. the 16.03.2015 at 12:00 o'clock you should insert <bs:blog:time time="201503161200" />.

Creating a second blog

If you would like to start a second blog which is independent from the first, you can use categories: Set up the blog with <blog cat=“NewBlog“ />. This will mean that all pages in this category will appear as blogs.

Setting your preferences

• Images are incorporated as thumbnails, by default. This can be changed with the attribute renderimage.
• The blog page can be called up via the "blog" button in the topbar, or via the URL .../index.php?action=blog.
• The standard namespaces can be changed. Standard setting:

$wgExtraNamespaces[102] = 'Blog'; $wgExtraNamespaces[103] = 'Blog_talk'; As described the default blog feed consists of "normal" wiki pages stored in the Blog namespace. Other blog feeds can exist in addition to this feed, and they can be defined by category.
For example, the category "Company news" can be designated for a second blog. In that case all pages in this category will be considered entries of this blog and will be displayed on page as blog entries. By adding  <bs:blog /> tag to the page, attribute "cat" must be set to "Company news"  like  <bs:blog cat="Company news" />

Another option is to designate a namespace for this purpose. Using example from above, namespace "Company news" must be created and all pages inside this namespace (Company news:News1, Company news:News2) will be considered blog entries.  The syntax that should be used for the blog tag in this case is: <bs:blog ns="Company news" />

Keep in mind that when blog tags with "cat"  or "ns" are used, all pages from that category/namespace will be shown, so those categories/namespaces should be used for that purpose only.

<bs:blog /> attributes

The following tag arguments can be used with the tag <bs:blog />:

Argument Attribute	Description Attribute	Value
count	Number of blog entries to displaybe displayed.	n number
cat	Articles from this category are Category from which to show pages as blog entries .	NAME category name
ns	Special namespace	NAME	newentryfield	Display the form Namespace from which to show pages as blog entries	namespace name or ID
newentryfield	Should "Create new blog entry" be shown?	0 or 1
newentryfieldposition	Position of the "Create new blog entry" form.	"bottom" or "top"
renderimages	Image display	Should images be displayed	0 or 1
maxchars	Number of characters that should be shown before the "Continue reading" link is shown.	n

Example: <bs:blog count="3" cat="test" newentryfield="0"/>

number

Default values for these attributes for the whole wiki can be set in the global BlueSpice preferences. See Reference page.

Tips for working with blogs

Put a link to the blog in the left hand navigation menu. Then your colleagues will be able to find the blog whenever they want.

See also

Our reference page.