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    Creating a Blog within Sellerdeck

    Creating a Blog within Sellerdeck

    This makes a blog on a normal brochure page in Sellerdeck. The blog content is actually on the page (not in an iframe) so the blog content has SEO value.

    http://www.graphicz.gb.com/blogg/acatalog/blog-page.php


    Right click to view source and see.

    This is posted without warranty for people to experiment with and develop. Use in a live site is at the users own risk.

    Getting Started

    You will need:
    1) A live version of Sellerdeck (this won't work in off-line preview)
    2) One MySql database (created through your hosting control panel). Make a note of the Database name and password.
    3) Simple Blog PHP by ProfiAnts, $24.99 from http://www.simpleblogphp.com/

    What you do

    In Sellerdeck

    In Sellerdeck create a variable'BlogPage'
    Design, Library Variables, right click on Brochure, select New Variable.
    Name: BlogPage
    Description: Blog Page
    Prompt: Blog Page
    Group: Brochure
    Place of Setting: Brochure
    Panel name: Properties
    Type: True/False
    Allow use parent ticked
    Initial Value: Use Parent ()
    Top Level Value: False

    OK and close.

    In the content tree create a brochure page called 'Blog'
    You do not need to make a fragment.
    In Page settings of Blog change page name to blog-page.php (it must not be called blog.php)
    In Properties of Blog change 'BlogPage' from false to true.
    In Design tab, select the web page outer layout that will be used for the Blog page.
    Right at the top of the page, before the html declaration
    (ie: <!DOCTYPE html> or
    <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" etc......)
    Type the following:

    Code:
    <actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22BlogPage%22%20%2f%3e">
    	<?php session_start(); ?>
    </actinic:block>
    Switch to Design Tree and select Brochure Page Body
    Right at the top type:
    Code:
    <actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22BlogPage%22%20%2f%3e">
    	<?php include("blog.php"); ?>
    	<a href="admin.php"><span class="actxxsmall">Admin</span></a><br />
    </actinic:block>

    By FTP


    Unzip the SimplePHP script and upload the folders and files to the acatalog directory by ftp.
    They must be uploaded by ftp, they must go the acatalog directory and the file structure of the Smple PHP files must be preserved.

    Go to http://www.yourwebsite.com/acatalog/installation.php
    and go through the installation process, entering the database username and password where prompted (the MySQL Username and the Database name are usually the same, the MySql Server is often 'localhost'.)

    Once installation is complete, delete the installation.php file by ftp.

    And that is it.

    And that's it. You write blog entries in the admin page (websiteURL/acatalog/admin.php) where you can also moderate comments. Styling is controlled within the Admin pages and is largely inline. If you wished to develop this you could edit blog.php to contain classes and define these in a stylesheet. You would then lose the ability to define them in admin.php.

    The files and subdirectories in the acatalog folder seem to survive refreshing and adding products. If anyone has problems with this, please post here and we can get our collective heads around it. Any sins or omissions on my part please let me know.

    The example above also includes a side menu of posts, this is an extra piece of scripting from the Simple Blog PHP Script creator Stoian Nedev at info@simpleblogphp.com for which he charged around a further $15. (Just for the record, I do not have any connection, financial or otherwise.)

    Enjoy
    Jonathan Chappell
    Website Designer
    SellerDeck Website Designer
    Actinic to SellerDeck upgrades
    Graphicz Limited - www.graphicz.co.uk

    #2
    Will this work in V11?

    Comment


      #3
      Should work on any php page.
      Jonathan Chappell
      Website Designer
      SellerDeck Website Designer
      Actinic to SellerDeck upgrades
      Graphicz Limited - www.graphicz.co.uk

      Comment

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