Magento – AheadWorks Blog – Add blog posts to CMS pages
AW Blog is a Magento extension from aheadWorks that is reckoned among the best buzz and word of mouth marketing tips. It not only provides your regular customers with up-to-date information but brings additional visitors to your site, builds relevant SEO-friendly text links, and serves as assistance in building sales strategy.
The Blog extension gives you a noteworthy opportunity to communicate with your regular customers and casual visitors. With Blog you can create an interactive two-way communication platform to provide official information on your store news, upcoming products, promotions, and get customers’ feedback.
Plugin is available from
http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/aheadworks/extension/1516/blog-extension-by-aheadworks
Adding blog Post to multiple CMS pages
This mod will allow you to add blog posts from specific categories onto specific CMS pages.
Step 1
/public_html/app/code/community/AW/Blog/Block/Blog.php
Change existing code to
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| class AW_Blog_Block_Blog extends Mage_Core_Block_Template
{
public function getPosts($catfilter)
{
$tag = $this->getRequest()->getParam('tag');
if(!$catfilter) {
$collection = Mage::getModel('blog/blog')
->getCollection()
->addPresentFilter()
->addStoreFilter(Mage::app()->getStore()->getId())
->setOrder('created_time ', 'desc');
}
else {
$collection = Mage::getModel('blog/blog')
->getCollection()
->addPresentFilter()
->addStoreFilter(Mage::app()->getStore()->getId())
->setOrder('created_time ', 'desc')
->addCatFilter($catfilter);
} |
Step 2
In /public_html/app/design/frontend/default/default/template/aw_blog copy blog.phtml to blog-cmspagename.phtml
In the new phtml file change the first few lines
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| $posts = $this->getPosts(3); // 3 is the blog category id
$limit=4;
$i=0;
foreach ($posts as $post):
if ($i++ > $limit) break; |
Step 3
In the admin backend, goto CMS>Page>Your Page
In Content, Add
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| {{block type="blog/blog" name="blog" alias="list_blog" template="aw_blog/blog-cmspagename.phtml"}} |
pradeep
hi,
i need blog serach and archive with date and post count !! can you please help how to implement that 2 thing in aheadwroks blog module
Edgard Niza
Very useful tutorial, bookmarked !
Thanks
Terry Ellis
Thank you
Terrie Mrazek
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Marquerite Senst
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Kevin
Thanks for the tutorial… this has limited my main blog page to just display posts from the first category… how can I get the main blog page to display all categories?
Terry Ellis
Hi Kevin,
Try removing ->addCatFilter($catfilter);
See if that helps.
Kevin
Hi Terry, thanks for your help… this displays all the categories on the main blog page now but also on the individual cms pages where I want specific categories.
Terry Ellis
Hi Kevin, I dont have a test site ‘live’ at the moment to test this, but try this…
In step 1 (above),
please update your code to the above (updated code).
In step 2,
try changing getPosts(3); to getPosts($_GET["catfil"]);
In step 3,
on the individual cms pages, where you need a filter, try changing template=”aw_blog/blog-cmspagename.phtml” to template=”aw_blog/blog-cmspagename.phtml?catfil=3“
Kevin
Hi Terry, unfortunately it’s still displaying all categories.
Also ‘;’ is missing from the end of the following line in step 1:
->setOrder(‘created_time ‘, ‘desc’)
Terry Ellis
Thanks Kevin, semi colon added back in.
Try this,
In step 3, revert back to original code (as above) and then add inline catfil=”3″ (or other cat id). Or don’t add this to display all categories.
In Step 2, replace
$posts = $this->getPosts(3);
with something like
$catfil = $this->getData(‘catfil’);
$posts = $this->getPosts($catfil);