In a previous post (see point 4), I mentioned that it is possible to create static pages in these blogs

If you use the module blog as a website, you might have some information which will remain relatively stable over the course of the semester. This information can be placed in a static page and linked to on the sidebar of your blog.

Here's how to create and link to a page:

1. From your blog, click My Blog Dashboard. Under Common Tasks, click Create a New Page.

2. Give your post a title (this will appear in the URL). Fill in the content. Note that the text box is very similar to Write a Blog Post. Once done, click Publish.

3. The Blog Pages section will appear. Right click View of the page you just published. Copy Shortcut.

Now you have two options: (a) use the links list; or (b) use the News section. In this blog, you can see both the News section and a links list, titled Our University, on the sidebar.

The advantage of the links list is that it's formatted by the blog. The advantage of the News section is that you can format it i.e. you will need some basic HTML knowledge.

Option A - Links List

1. Under Manage Content in the sidebar, click All Lists.

2. If you haven't created a list, click Create New List. A pop-up will appear. Enter the Name (heading), check Enabled and Save.

3. Click Add List Item. In the pop-up, enter the Title (this will appear as the link). Paste (Ctrl-V) the URL you copied earlier. Save.

4. Wait a few minutes. Refresh your blog. Voila!*

Option B - News section

1. Under Global Settings, click Title, Description and News.

2. Paste (Ctrl-V) the URL in the News text box. Now you'll need to manually create the link. It should be something like: <a href="http:⁄⁄the.url.you.pasted">Read this first!</a> . Save.

3. Wait a few minutes. Refresh your blog. Voila!*

*Note that not all templates support the links list or the news section. If the links/news section does not appear on the blog after you create it, try refreshing it after a while. If it doesn't appear after 10 minutes, the template probably doesn't support displaying the respective sections.

P.S. In all honestly, the way pages are deployed in Community Server is severely wanting. Users should be able to generate a page list automatically on the sidebar. As it is now, you could do this with a blog post. The only difference is that the a published page doesn't appear on the front page of the blog. I hope the good folk at Telligent get around to this in the future.

Technorati Tags: , , ,