[olivier.moreau]

To find by yourself the way to tweak with CSS, use Firefox with the plugin "Web developer". Choose "Inspector" in the menu and move the pointer to the zone you want to change. Then you type in new value and see immediately the result ! You will also see the line number in the style.css file to do the permanent change. Use a good editor like jEdit and you quickly find back the line to modify. Of course it's not going to help as much if you need to add new code but at least you know where to go.

[olivier.moreau]

One thing is sure, I'm not going to upgrade some existing sites from Agency to Agency-pro because it's too much changes in the design. That means my old site are not fully HTML5 because I'm not going to spend hours changing CSS tags. The Executive Pro theme seems more similar to the old Agency and it's in HTML5... When I think one of the reason I choose Genesis was the automatic upgrade !!!

[olivier.moreau]

I've just tried Bill Erickson's Custom Meta Boxes (http://www.billerickson.net/wordpress-metaboxes/). It's OK for doing basic jobs although the display of fields is not very slick. Also it's lacking access control and validation of input. CMB doesn't help for displaying the custom fields.

The specs of Pippin’s ECT are interesting and I like a lot "Export code for custom post types for use on sites without the plugin". ECT seems a bit basic for displaying the custom fields with shortcodes. It implies still lot's of PHP/CSS coding 🙁

The features of MasterPress look impressive, the developer's edition price also !

[olivier.moreau]

But can you get a decent formatting of the meta boxes ? I just get every custom field taking a full line under the post content or in the sidebar...

[olivier.moreau]

Hi Brad,

Coding a CPT with Genesis is indeed relatively easy but it gets more difficult when you add custom fields. Of course the custom fields are buildin any posts but the interface is not appropriate for users. We need to create a custom meta box and I indeed used ACF to make it easy. But ACF is still very minimal for formatting the custom fields and the input screen is not looking good. And then after that we need to present all that info in different views sorted by the custom fields. I found the code mixing PHP and CSS very tedious.

So I was wondering if it would not be easier to get a good plugin to do all the job and I'm wondering which one is best. Toolset from OnTheGo Systems seems the most complete and I already use their other product WPML. I think I'll give a try to compare coding versus plugin.

[olivier.moreau]

Well if it's happening with 2 themes and there are no plugins, maybe your wp-config.php is bad.

[olivier.moreau]

It's not clean or recommended but you could simply put your CSS right into the content of the post (inline CSS).
In the text editor put :
<div style="background-color:blue;"> your text </div>

[olivier.moreau]

Did you modified your functions.php ? Forget a ; at the end of a line and you'll get that empty page...

[olivier.moreau]

I put a responsive menu in the Agency theme using this technique and minor modifications :
http://blackhillswebworks.com/2013/08/16/how-to-add-a-mobile-responsive-menu-to-your-genesis-wordpress-website/

You can see the result at http://groupe-css.com/home/

The interesting part about that technique is that the menu is automatically visible after scrolling down the home page on a smartphone. It's als fairly easy to customize.

[olivier.moreau]

Latest version of the custom blog template...
Compare http://omoro.fr/zdoc/test-blog-custom/
with the standard layout : http://omoro.fr/category/expositions/

<?php
//* Template Name: Blog-custom
//* Display only posts with Category ID=135

remove_action('genesis_loop', 'genesis_do_loop');
add_action('genesis_loop', 'customblog_do_loop');

function customblog_do_loop() {
    $args = array ( 'cat' => 135, 'orderby' => 'date' );
    genesis_custom_loop( $args );
}

remove_action( 'genesis_before_post_content', 'genesis_post_meta' );
remove_action( 'genesis_after_post_content', 'genesis_post_meta' );
add_action( 'genesis_before_post_content', 'customblog_meta' );
function customblog_meta() {
	global $customblog_message;
	?> <p class="customblog_post-meta" ><?php
	echo genesis_get_custom_field('customblog_message');
}

remove_action( 'genesis_post_content', 'genesis_do_post_content' );
add_action( 'genesis_post_content', 'customblog_content' );
function customblog_content() {
		$img = genesis_get_image( array(
			'format'  => 'html',
			'size'    => genesis_get_option( 'image_size' ),
			'context' => 'archive',
			'attr'    => genesis_parse_attr( 'entry-image' ),
		));
		printf( '<a href="%s" title="%s">%s</a>', get_permalink(), the_title_attribute( 'echo=0' ), $img );
	}

genesis();

[olivier.moreau]

Actually the above code is working fine but the customblog_message must be in the post and not in the page made with the customblog template. That wasn't what I planned but it can also be useful...
You can check the result at http://omoro.fr/zdoc/test-blog-custom/

[olivier.moreau]

Hi Brad,
You read my mind ! I was working on getting a custom field from my custom blog template to select the category (so I don't have to create a template doing only cat=135).

To start simpler I was trying to replace the post metadata with a custom message stored in a field. But I just cannot get the field 'customblog_message' as a proper input for my second function. I tried with genesis_get_custom_field() but it's not OK. Any idea what's wrong ?

<?php
//* Template Name: Blog-custom
//* Display only posts with Category ID=135

remove_action('genesis_loop', 'genesis_do_loop');
add_action('genesis_loop', 'customblog_do_loop');

function customblog_do_loop() {
    $args = array ( 'cat' => 135, 'orderby' => 'date' );
    genesis_custom_loop( $args );
}

remove_action( 'genesis_after_post_content', 'genesis_post_meta' );
add_action( 'genesis_after_post_content', 'customblog_after_post' );
function customblog_after_post() {
	global $customblog_message;
	?> <p class="customblog_post-meta" ><?php
	echo 'TEST';  
	echo genesis_get_custom_field('customblog_message');
}

genesis();

[olivier.moreau]

Well I'm a bit stud born so I also find the way to create a custom blog template where the only change is the selection of posts. This is the code :`
<?php
//* Template Name: Blog-custom
//* Display only posts with Category ID=135

remove_action('genesis_loop', 'genesis_do_loop');
add_action('genesis_loop', 'customblog_do_loop');
function customblog_do_loop() {
$args = array ( 'cat' => 135, 'order' => 'ASC' );
genesis_custom_loop( $args );
}
genesis();
`

I found it after reading this excellent tutorial

Genesis Explained Framework Actions

It's much easier with custom field in the standard blog template but the code is more flexible.
For instance you can add :

remove_action( 'genesis_after_post_content', 'genesis_post_meta' );

[olivier.moreau]

I found the EASY way without ANY coding at all !

Display posts from specific category, tag on page in Genesis

You simply create a page with the blog template and you add a custom field

name : query_args
value : cat=135

You can use all kind of values. Check :

http://codex.wordpress.org/User:JamesVL/query_posts

[olivier.moreau]

I found the EASY way without ANY coding at all !

Display posts from specific category, tag on page in Genesis

You simply create a page with the blog template and you add a custom field

name : query_args
value : category_name=Vignette

You can use all kind of values. Check :
http://codex.wordpress.org/User:JamesVL/query_posts

[olivier.moreau]

No luck !
http://www.briangardner.com/blog-page-single-category
gives error 404...

[olivier.moreau]

Hi Lang and Brad

Although my project is very different in its content, I share the same technical problem : a “split-off” blog as you call it.
My post about it is : http://www.studiopress.community/topic/what-is-the-best-way-to-create-a-custom-blog-template/

I just checked Brad's tutorial and it's a very complete solution based on Custom Post Type. However if you just want to split-off some posts based on the “Vignette” category (and in my case on the "expos" category) I don't think that will do it.

A very simple template to split off your posts using the "vignette" category (let's say ID=135) :

<?php
/*
Template Name: Blog_splitoff
*/
?>
<?php get_header(); ?>
<div class="content">
<?php
$temp = $wp_query;
$wp_query = NULL;
		$wp_query = new WP_Query();
		$wp_query->query('cat=135'); 
		$tb_counter = 1;
		while ($wp_query->have_posts()) : $wp_query->the_post(); ?>
		<div <?php if(function_exists('post_class')) : ?><?php post_class(); ?><?php else : ?>class="post post-<?php the_ID(); ?>"<?php endif; ?>>
			<h2><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" rel="bookmark" title="<?php printf(__('Permanent Link to %s'),the_title_attribute('echo=0')); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
			<div>
				<?php global $more; $more = 0; the_content(); ?>
				<?php if ($tb_counter == 1) { ?>
				<?php  } ?>
			</div><div class="clear"></div>
		</div><div class="clear"></div>
		<?php $tb_counter++; endwhile; ?>
		<?php if(function_exists('wp_pagenavi')) { wp_pagenavi(); } ?>
		<?php $wp_query = NULL; $wp_query = $temp;?>
	</div>
<?php get_footer(); ?>

This code comes from various source (WP codex and such) and it is NOT optimized for Genesis but it works.
You just create an empty page using it, put that page in you menu and that's it.
I think there must be simpler with a Genesis filter using the 'blog_cat' value but I can't yet figure out how it works.

[olivier.moreau]

Hi Brad,
Thanks for your reply, I'm sure you have the solution !

It is precisely because I want to use Genesis Simple Sidebars (GSS) that I have this problem... You see, I started with a standard page about the expos and I used GSS to have a specific sidebar. That was fine but it is a pain to do that page manually. It is much more efficient to just select posts with the category "expos" (ID = 135) and get that page filled up automatically. I started with a menu link to the selected posts but that doesn't create a real page where I can use GSS. Then I used a plugin, but it's not easy to respect my graphic chart with that solution.

So I decided to create a custom made template (thanks again to show me that technique in a previous question that you answered). I got that custom template working fine but when I put in the GSS sidebar the page looks weird (as you can see at http://omoro.fr/expositions/). Thus I figured out that I should start from the standard blog template of Genesis (page_blog.php) and simply change the input. I think the control variable is 'blog_cat' but how can I do that ?

To summarize : How can we create a custom blog template where the only change is the selection of posts ? Once this template is OK, it's easy to add GSS and all kind of other stuff in the pages using it.

Thanks in advance for your smart advices.

[olivier.moreau]

For the Agency Theme to remove breadcrumps in the page_custom.php the code is :

remove_action( 'genesis_before_content_sidebar_wrap', 'genesis_do_breadcrumbs' );

It might be different for other themes, just check in function.php if there is a
/** Relocate breadcrumbs */

[olivier.moreau]

Hi Brad,

Thanks for the last tip on the breadcrumb. Now my custom page is really perfect.

Your post with the totally independent custom page was indeed very good and much appreciated. I'm going to use that technique for another purpose. With your technique we can have several models of page without using plugins. It's incredible how easy it is to create new template (well at least when someone is kind enough to show the way). Can you suggest some book so I can understand a bit better how all that works. For instance, I cannot figure out why a simple /*comment*/ is necessary to create a new template.

Best regards

[Author]

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