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Blog is Kind of Thin on Features. A handful of improvement ideas


Myr

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It is kind of shocking just how much got cut out of Blog from the 3.4.x version to 4.0 when you look at the ACP.  Tons of settings and options down to 2.  I understand the reasoning and it makes sense.  

I have 4 block requests that should cover the important missing features that we use on our site. 

  1. "Feature Blog" for Main Forum index page.  We do a daily blog on our site and feature it at the top of the index. It works nicely for us. (it exists and works for the blog main listing, which is fine but the option for the forum main listing is far more important to us as it highlights the blog software.  Most people don't go there unless prompted by having it in your face.)
  2. "My Recent Entries" for display on the blog display level. So, when I look at my block, I want a block on the side that show my latest entries.  As it currently works, you can't jump to an entry.  This will drive my users nuts and has already been highlighted by testers I've flung at our test server. I know recent entries are listed as part of the blog index, but very few, if any, actually hit the blog index on my site.
  3. "My Recent Comments" for display on the blog display level.  Same reason as above.  I want to see the latest comments of just my blog.
  4. "My Tags" for display on the blog display level.  Since you removed categories as an option, and highlighted using tags as the reason, if I recall, I think it would be useful to list tags here with perhaps a count of topics covered under that tag?

All the other stuff that got cut from customization to trackbacks makes sense to me.  No one could figure out custom blog themes on my site anyway.  And Trackbacks were 100% spam and shut off a long, long time ago.

 

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I too would like one or two blogs to be given prominence over the others, ie featured on non-blog areas of the site. I've settled for pinning it at the time being.

Another element that I would like would be to have some sort of blog categories, with the option of allowing user groups to create a blog under category X but not Y. We're an educational charity and I don't want just anybody to be able to create a blog which will compete with our own, but I would love to have a section called "Language Logs" in which anybody can set up a blog to detail their progress with learning the language. People monitoring progress of other learners will know to skim through that one relevant category, rather than have to sample every blog on the off-chance it's a language log.

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Actually, I think the new blog header is great.  And how they display users for team blogs is great too.  As our daily blog is a team blog handled by different people each day, this feature really does a good job of highlighting our hardworking crew.  

I'd love to see more features added back in, but as I said in my post, I can get by with just adding those I listed.  Anything else would be gravy and anything less means more delays until we upgrade 4.0.X.  I need those features in place before upgrading or the members, if not the staff as well, will throw a collective conniption fit.  They already have over the test server. :unsure:

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Actually, I think the new blog header is great.  And how they display users for team blogs is great too.  As our daily blog is a team blog handled by different people each day, this feature really does a good job of highlighting our hardworking crew.  

I'd love to see more features added back in, but as I said in my post, I can get by with just adding those I listed.  Anything else would be gravy and anything less means more delays until we upgrade 4.0.X.  I need those features in place before upgrading or the members, if not the staff as well, will throw a collective conniption fit.  They already have over the test server. :unsure:

​To help them out, what features were taken out that you want them to be put back in or what is lacking the blog system you like back?

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For my "must haves" see my first post.  if you're asking about "nice to haves"

  • Blog User customizable content blocks 
  • Blog user customizable background color

Other than that, I can't really think of any that our important to our site's usage. I'm sure the others have things that are important to them though.

 

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Yes, I agree with you guys.

And how do you feel about the main featured image missing?  I was surprised that this was missing, because all of my 3.4.7 blog images do not carry over to the IP Blog 4.0 which is mind boggling to me.

Plus, by not having a featured image, how do Wordpress users convert over to IP 4 blogs since Wordpress utilizes a featured image?

Still confused by this decision...

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  • 1 year later...

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