Re: demo.planningpress styling edits (acochran@openplans.org)

[Chris Abraham]

(moved to the list...)

Frank,

What do you mean by flexible?  What is in those content areas in the middle of the page?  Posts?

Chris

On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 11:58 AM, Frank Hebbert <fr...@openplans.org> wrote:

The Jax Heights front page is neat because it's very flexible. I don't mind how we do this, and I defer to you guys to do it 'the wordpress way' but we need to keep this same level of flexibility -

https://img.skitch.com/20120418-exkg1edddt1fdtyyu4k8dg11xp.png

Hmm, we should probably be having this discussion on the planning press mailing list.

On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 7:10 AM, Andrew Cochran <acoc...@openplans.org> wrote:

I really like the Jackson Heights front page, so let’s investigate bringing it into planningpress core -- frank

// Cc'd Chris Abraham

This is already possible with the page-with-posts.php template. However… 

I really don't like the way this template uses a second loop to pull in recent posts. It's hacky. I'd actually like to remove it from PlanningPress core. I think the way TFP is using pages in widgets and adding post loops to page templates is very confusing on the admin side. It conflicts with how WordPress should be used. 

I think a better way to handle a layout like the Jackson Heights front page is to add a widget area to the top of index template. So in Setting > Reading, you'd set 'Front page displays' to 'Your latest posts', and add the banner image with a widget. Maybe this widget area only shows on the first page of posts? 

The only thing that would appear different about this method is you wouldn't have a separate page set as your posts page (the way Jackson Heights uses "News Archive" as its posts page). The front page would be the posts page. But anyway, I think it's super awkward the way Jackson Heights has the same loop of posts in two different places. Why split your blog into two locations? 

Chris, do you have any thoughts on this? 

-Andy

On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 11:50 AM, Naama Lissar (Google Docs) <nli...@openplans.org> wrote:

I've shared demo.planningpress styling edits

Message from nli...@openplans.org:

Hi Andy,

Here's a list of styling edits for PlanningPress. 
Please add anything else you think is needed and lmk if you want to discuss over the phone.

Thank you,
Naama

Click to open:

• demo.planningpress styling edits

Google Docs makes it easy to create, store and share online documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

--

Andrew Cochran | OpenPlans | 917-388-9030

148 Lafayette Street, PH, New York, NY 10013

--
Frank Hebbert
OpenPlans | http://openplans.org | 720 432-2378 | @fkh

[Chris Abraham]

Andy,

I agree with the things you are suggesting here.  It'd tighten things up a bit.  Also, yes, the "News Archive" is kinda redundant.

Chris

[Chris Abraham]

Hmm, Wordpress seems to be handling this lookup quite gracefully by itself.  I think it might be fine to just leave things as is.

Chris

On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 11:48 AM, Andrew Cochran <acoc...@openplans.org> wrote:

highlight current page

So, I've added current page highlighting in the menu. It also works for page parents. So, you could highlight the "Recommendations" menu item if you're looking a specific recommendation. 

I've made this page a child so you can see what I mean: 

http://demo.planningpress.org/recommendations/new-expressways/

The only thing I'm worried about here is the way tagging slides works. It looks for a page slug that matches the tag slug. If you use hierarchical pages, the tag link first looks for a matching page at root-level. Luckily WordPress is smart about the redirect and finds it. 

Chris is this gonna be a problem? 

-Andy

[Frank Hebbert]

By flexible, I mean that the areas are not required, and can take multiple areas of content in each widget.

So, you can leave out the top banner, and the page adapts. Same with the sidebar.

Each widget area can have one or more pages, text areas or other content (e.g. featured comment, then a page beneath).

[Andrew Cochran]

Hmm… 

I prefer we do things the WordPress way as much as possible. Admins can already choose if the front page is a page or a loop posts. Simply adding an "Above Front Page" widget area gets us most of the way to supporting a Jackson-Heights-style front page layout. I'm not sure I understand the benefit of multiple page contents being pulled into the front page via the page-as-widget, which I think is confusing to admin as it conflicts with how WordPress is designed to work. 

To get us even closer to the JH layout—which I'm not convinced is covetable btw—we could add a "Front Page Sidebar" widget area that, if active, overrides the default sidebar so the front page can have its own sidebar widgets. Note that JH isn't even using the default sidebar, except for the nav menu. With CSS alone, we could alter the presentation of PlanningPress's current sidebar/nav markup to look like JH. But why should we? 

Do we really need the exact JH front page layout to be a part of core PlanningPress? Seems to me it's a customized presentation in a specific instance, not really an essential feature. What's most important is that PlanningPress's front page allows for flexible content presentation, and and that it's intuitive to admin. 

-Andy

[Frank Hebbert]

I don't mind how we do it, but we need a front page layout that is as flexible as the Jackson Heights page we created for NYC DOT. So in answer to the question, "do we need this?", the answer is yes. How it's done is up to you -- if it comes from the extra widget areas you describe, great.