Request: "Show like articles", even when using categories!

[openfire]

As per this topic: https://community.invisionpower.com/topic/408509-save-records-in-categories-always-show-records-like-articles/ ,this topic https://community.invisionpower.com/topic/423746-how-to-change-category-view/, and several others, it would be great if we had the option to display "records like articles" when using categories. Currently, if you click on a category, instead of having a beautiful wordpress-like list of articles with teaser content and images, the records are displayed like a forum list.

Can we please have the option to always "show like articles"?

(and is there a mod that can accomplish this?)

 

 

[openfire]

OK. How exactly can I achieve this? This is pretty basic functionality for a supposed "cms"

Also, can a member of the staff please explain to me why they do not allow "show like articles" if using categories? I'm not sure I understand the logic behind this inconsistency...

I mean, why did the devs assume that people wanted a forum style list just because one choses to use categories? Why did they come to this conclusion?

For example, you can use categories in wordpress and still "show like articles", so the two concepts are not mutually exclusive... Was this an oversight, or intentional???

[esquire]

You mean like this?

http://8central.com/

[openfire]

1 minute ago, esquire said:

You mean like this?

http://8central.com/

Precisely.

[esquire]

6 minutes ago, openfire said:

Precisely.

It's simple and odd that people don't understand. To manage content, use IP.Content. If you want to just manage pages, use Pages. It's not called IP Categories for a good reason.

[openfire]

IP.Content = Pages in 4.X, no?

[esquire]

25 minutes ago, openfire said:

IP.Content = Pages in 4.X, no?

Was a joke. I don't understand a number of concepts either moving from 3 to 4. Community but without dedicated community elements.

[openfire]

17 minutes ago, esquire said:

Was a joke. I don't understand a number of concepts either moving from 3 to 4. Community but without dedicated community elements.

Lol, I normally would've detected the sarcasm, but I'm at my whits end having spent the day banging my head against the wall trying to figure this out!

It's a tad bit maddening when things that should be simple, aren't... and especially when things that used to work, no longer work because functionality has been removed - for no apparent reason.

[Joel R]

You mean this:

(Database Settings)

There's also options in the category settings to override the database default.

[openfire]

8 minutes ago, Joel R said:

You mean this:

(Database Settings)

There's also options in the category settings to override the database default.

Yes, that's what I'm referring to. Unfortunately, I've tried that and it won't work to "display as articles" when sorted by category. (unless I'm totally missing something)

[Joel R]

Can you go into more details of "sorted by category"?  Not quite sure I totally understand.

Did you check the category settings?  

[esquire]

36 minutes ago, openfire said:

 

So it does work to some extent. (I still can't figure out how to delete the damn reply box.)

https://fixxer.com/articles/

It's not ideal, will require some serious format tweaking, but it's better than just the records. I've also figured out a possible way to defeat the category URL and create "categories" but they can't be nested. I don't know what a feed of articles will look like in half a row but working with it. I can say that Pages is still going to be brutally difficult for the average person to use, even though it's easier than Content was.

[openfire]

31 minutes ago, Joel R said:

Can you go into more details of "sorted by category"?  Not quite sure I totally understand.

Did you check the category settings?  

Sorry if I didn't explain it properly. I want to display articles as seen here:

But when you click on a category, the resulting list is displayed like this:

And there is no way to have a list of articles contained in a category be displayed as shown in the first picture, even though I have it set as "show like articles"

[esquire]

OK... this is extremely frustrating. Apparently filtering still doesn't work on pages to show records like articles as on the main page -- and we're on a year since it was reported in the beta. I mention this because in order to get it to work, I had to convert the articles to look like records - which is the layout you're used to seeing in the forum and what you describe for categories. Allow me to explain the correlation and why this behavior seems to be happening.

When you create a database, e.g. Articles to create articles for a news site, you assign it to a page. That page (let's call it the Articles Page) can then be customized at the location you set, e.g. site.com/articles/ - cool. But when it comes to category and subcategory pages, instead of using the layout you selected for the database Page assigned (Articles), they have all of those layout pages use the standard "records layout" format. I can't imagine why they would do this, perhaps because it better fits their documentation which appears to use Pages.

I just renewed access intending to use Pages and a couple of other modules for a project. Lots of thought was given in to making it ultra powerful but items like this make it seem that there is still a ways to go until it is finished.

[opentype]

1 hour ago, esquire said:

But when it comes to category and subcategory pages, instead of using the layout you selected for the database Page assigned (Articles), they have all of those layout pages use the standard "records layout" format.

That isn’t the logic of what is going on. You haven’t selected a layout for the “page”. There is no such thing. There are different “views” for Pages databases:

• index
  • category listing (if there are any) OR
  • blog-style layout of articles 
• listing records
• display one record

The first and second option are different views with different default templates and different functionalities (e.g. regarding filtering and sorting options). 

(Not trying to make a point here. Just clarifying.)

[esquire]

9 hours ago, opentype said:

That isn’t the logic of what is going on. You haven’t selected a layout for the “page”. There is no such thing. There are different “views” for Pages databases:

• index
  • category listing (if there are any) OR
  • blog-style layout of articles 
• listing records
• display one record

The first and second option are different views with different default templates and different functionalities (e.g. regarding filtering and sorting options). 

(Not trying to make a point here. Just clarifying.)

I appreciate the clarification on the IPS terminology and logic although I think we are talking about different things. The above describes any typical CMS - three layers - which in simple English conceptually translates to (1) Browse all categories (home page); (2) Browse one category (category page); (3) Browse records in one category (read article).

I have no idea why "views" should be in the setup for databases since that's presentation of data in the front end. Thus "views" should have nothing to do with the storing of data. It really should be contained in the "Pages" section, which is supposed to be connecting a database to be viewed at the front end by users. And if you must stick it in the Database section, give it a separate tab called "Views". Baffling UI/UX.

Now here is the problem. IPS tackles everything in the Pages module. It's not an article management system, which is probably what 95% or more think it is or will use it to accomplish. It's an Anything Management System. If we're storing widgets like files (or forum conversations like a BBS), that's not so difficult. All you need is (1) browse all categories page (index or forum home), (2) an inner browse one category page for a list of records (listing records or forum display) and (3) a record display page (display one record or a topics / thread page).

These displays or "Views" are just display templates. The problem is that IPS provided different displays or "Views" for the top level (index/ home page) but only one View for the second level (listing records or browse one category). The browse widgets view is more simplistic - just list categories and no special treatment needed for records. But with articles, you need to display the records/articles themselves nicely on both the top and intermediate level. It goes without saying that if you've set up the database to show articles (and not widgets) at the top index level, then the display for the intermediate level should match (with an articles View but not widgets. But they didn't. There is only the browse widgets view, not browse articles.

And to be honest, I don't know what create a "Page" actually does other than display a database at a specific URL and use the page builder to associate a display at that URL. So if I want the magazine database to show its entry/home page at /mag/, then I define a Page to use the path "mag" and assign a database (the magazine db) to populate that page and drag and drop stuff using the Page Builder. I tried using the different templates in Pages. None of it made any difference - 1 column, 3 columns, whatever. The only thing that did make a difference was go into the database management area and change the index/home/top level View from widgets ("Show record list") to article view ("Show records like articles").

[xtech]

You can do that, but requires heavy template editing. I've done it with my classifieds system: http://forumusica.com/classificados/guitarras_e_baixos/

I could have developed it further, but it serves well the purposes i wanted.

 

I agree that IPS should provide this option by default. I don't understand why articles outside the "category view" cannot be sorted. 

And a template development documentation would be useful, as the listing templates are called in a strange way and forces you to dig into the code.

[socceronly]

Has there in the meantime been a solution to this?

I am beating my head on this wall with a site upgraded from 3 with thousands of articles. 

These people are going to be extraordinarily unhappy if I can't list the individual author's articles......as.....well..... articles......