Hey, fin, and smiling again. From my point of view, this has been quite an experience in trying out a design conversation across the forum. Hope for you also.
Short takes for a Friday, then:
- In the gateway page idea, I was actually thinking as in the example, that it could be effective to show one or a few postings from each of your types (announcements, reviews, articles etc.) which are current, so that people get a snapshot idea of the breadth of activities you have going on. For each of the types, you would just pull a short block from their entries, differentiating either by channel or by the posting type custom field, depending on whether you chose single or multiple sources channels.
- If you instead wanted a ‘vertical’ snapshot, you’d arrange that by selecting multiple types in a single {exp:entries} tag’s parameters, as in the User Guide: e.g. channel=“reviews|articles”—if you’d used multiple source channels. If you had chosen the single source channel approach, then the entries would be already unified.
- But you are asking about using comments for the gateway, instead, focusing on the participants. You can do the ‘vertical’ snapshot for multiple sources in comments by the same technique as mixing entries: define channel=“the|ones|you|want” in the {exp:comment:entries} this time.
- However, how would you do a ‘horizontal’ topics snapshot of comments, as the example site, but with comments? Here I think you would have a problem if you used the single source channel, because EE’s comment:entries tag doesn’t allow you to choose based on a custom field of the entries which the comments are based on.
- Now we have reached a design constraint, and those are always very important in sorting out what first appear arbitrary choices. Often they’re also springboards, in the sense that artists often say that the limits are what make the expression possible, which is something to think about.
- So I think here we’re hitting a guide that says, use separate channels for your sources, keeping the sources concept, but implementing so that EE can combine them, and also most flexibly use their differentiation.
—This gives a framing with most comfort as well as ability. Articles, reviews, book introductions…and future sources you haven’t thought of yet…each have their place. This makes the content element and layout development for each of them easier too—no if statements. Your participants will probably be happier having a home to find each of the types of offering, and will more naturally comment accordingly. Having built-in EE comments gives their power, part of which includes the ability to display them in a combined stream on a gateway, as you asked.
—The gateway then sorts out also. You can run it with either topical or participatory emphasis—and you could also have both present. There could be blocks for most recent announcements, reviews, articles excerpts—and there could also be a small block or sidebar element of recent comment excerpts. There are add-ons to help you with the excerpts; see TruncHtml via Devot-ee.com, which works very nicely for this. Combining excerpts with images for the sources blocks is probably going to be pretty effective.
fin, I’m thinking we’ve gotten somewhere here—and somewhere interesting. I wish you all fortune as your own design comes together, and a nice week-end besides.
Regards,
Clive