As I mentioned in the previous Bhudeva Story post, we wanted to create a library of links. We are exploring tons of links (at the moment mostly about construction as that is our main focus, so this search will extend into other subjects), filtering out (a time consuming process) the ones we will are best, most relevant and worth sharing and those that are left we want to collect in a library that we and others can access as needed.
At first we tried using the “Links” section that is inherently available on WordPress. We encountered several problems with that:
The links cannot be arranged in hierarchical categories – only flat categories. Bhudeva needs at least two levels of categories – one to represent the site sections and the other for categories within each section. We tried using the flat categories – but it was a mess.
The native links are not well integrated into the overall data-model of WordPress. In WordPress all of the content is stored (behind the scenes) in one container called “posts” which can be refined and extended using post-types (an example of post-types is the teacher’s directory I wrote about). Links, probably due to their historic legacy are a unique entity and set aside from everything else. This means that integrating them into a theme is a nuisance (especially when compared to posts). We tries using a plugin (Link Library) to do this – but that didn’t work out nicely at all for our needs and it would have required too much maintenance.
It seems that native links were originally intended as a blogroll (a list of other blogs that a blog is linked to) – a concept which I think is largely obsolete (maybe this topic deserves a separate post) – which insinuates a certain scale (quantity of links). We are adding many more links, sometimes to single pages within other websites … and it felt like we were using the wrong tool for the wrong task.
Then WordPress 3.1 came out (just in time) with a new feature called post-formats. If this feature is enabled in your theme you will see a new box “Format” box (which will only show the options enabled in your theme) beneath the “Publish” box:
Though this may seem kind of pointless it isn’t. It makes it possible to customize a theme in such a way that posts of different formats are displayed differently. In Bhudeva we used this to treat posts that are marked as “links” differently then regular posts.
Here is how we used this new WordPress feature on Bhudeva:
We decided that all of our link would be posts – and we re-entered all the links we accumulated as posts (a bit of manual labor).
In these special “link” posts we decided that:
The post-title would be the name of the link.
The post-content would be the actual url (address) of the link.
The post-excerpt would be the description.
All links would open in a new window.
We used the regular post-categories to arrange our link-posts in as many categories as we felt were necessary (and we can continue to add and change the categories as we add more and more). Our categories are already arranged into sections so that the links fit perfectly into that.
Navigation in the link library is created without any programmatic intervention – we are simple using standard WordPress menus to present the link-post categories anyway we want.
One thing to note about post-formats is that these are actually posts that exist in the post time-line (unlike post-types which do not, by default, appear in the blog timeline). We considered this and decide to embrace and utilize it. Every link we add is essentially a post that appears in all the post-listings on the website.
We differentiated links from regular posts by giving them a unique design and behavior.Each link has a visual icon on the left hand side. The post title is visually emphasized and clicking it links directly to the website (instead of linking to to a single post page as is usually the case with posts. This adds dynamic life to the website which is refreshed as links are added. It is also much easier for us to add new links as we encounter them.
In addition to this link-library we occasionally publish posts which contain numerous links in them (the links appear both as individual posts and in the bundled post). This happens when we approach a new (for us) subject and we bring together all the link that got us started on a topic.
We are happy with this result and are looking forward to see how it develops.
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The Bhudeva Story – Creating a Library of Links on WordPress
As I mentioned in the previous Bhudeva Story post, we wanted to create a library of links. We are exploring tons of links (at the moment mostly about construction as that is our main focus, so this search will extend into other subjects), filtering out (a time consuming process) the ones we will are best, most relevant and worth sharing and those that are left we want to collect in a library that we and others can access as needed.
At first we tried using the “Links” section that is inherently available on WordPress. We encountered several problems with that:
Then WordPress 3.1 came out (just in time) with a new feature called post-formats. If this feature is enabled in your theme you will see a new box “Format” box (which will only show the options enabled in your theme) beneath the “Publish” box:
Though this may seem kind of pointless it isn’t. It makes it possible to customize a theme in such a way that posts of different formats are displayed differently. In Bhudeva we used this to treat posts that are marked as “links” differently then regular posts.
Here is how we used this new WordPress feature on Bhudeva:
One thing to note about post-formats is that these are actually posts that exist in the post time-line (unlike post-types which do not, by default, appear in the blog timeline). We considered this and decide to embrace and utilize it. Every link we add is essentially a post that appears in all the post-listings on the website.
We differentiated links from regular posts by giving them a unique design and behavior.Each link has a visual icon on the left hand side. The post title is visually emphasized and clicking it links directly to the website (instead of linking to to a single post page as is usually the case with posts. This adds dynamic life to the website which is refreshed as links are added. It is also much easier for us to add new links as we encounter them.
In addition to this link-library we occasionally publish posts which contain numerous links in them (the links appear both as individual posts and in the bundled post). This happens when we approach a new (for us) subject and we bring together all the link that got us started on a topic.
We are happy with this result and are looking forward to see how it develops.