Thread

Hi everyone,

I am newer to ee (enjoying it so far) and I am moving a traditional print magazine online.

I have created all my channels, fields, categories etc. to allow some great organization and display options.

However, they (client) still want the option to browse by ‘issue’, where I would have to take the content and present it in a way to match the print ver. table of contents.

What is the best way to achieve this? I have seen similar questions asked in the forums, but I don’t feel there has been a solid answer IMO (at least in the posts I searched).

My thought was to create a custom field across all channels and categories called ‘IssueDate’ and have it an actual date field. If the article, interview etc. came from the June issue, input the date 06-01-2012 when adding that content. Then pull/sort that way for the TOC across the various channels. Seems like to would work, but then really every issue page would be somewhat static, in that each page’s request are issue specific.

I assume there is a better way, and I may not be approaching this right.  Is there a better way, or more dynamic way without 3rd party add-ons? I prefer the ‘keep it simple’ method as it makes life easier for updates and migrations.

Thanks!
Jeremy

You may wish to consider:  http://devot-ee.com/add-ons/issuu

Useful link, thanks.

But for what I am thinking, it’s something more like National Geographic online:

The main page, is a collection of various content without a specific timeline:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/

But you can still organize the content as the sum of their individual parts per the issue they came from:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/10/table-of-contents

Or Time magazine is similar. Homepage of varied, current content:
http://www.time.com/time/

But can also see what issue that content came from, or filter by the particular issue:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601120917,00.html

So say my homepage has 6 feature articles, 4 interviews and letters to the editor. Those six articles could be from the last 2 issues (May and June). Same with the interviews. But I want people to be be able to also just see the individual issue view, so they get the content from May only, for all content. Only May’s 2 articles, along with only May’s one interview etc.

Does that make sense?

Alright. Maybe I am overcomplicating and/or communicating poorly. 😊

In the most basic form, I have a library of articles in ee. Articles are from a monthly print magazine. I want to be able to display articles from a specific month’s issue on a page, much like a table of contents from the print ver.

What’s the best way to include the issue info/date with the content and then to filter that on a page efficiently?

Thanks again.

You’re quite articulate. A starting primer [video set] to obtain these objectives is: 

http://mijingo.com/products/screencasts/learning-expressionengine-2-complete-series/

Thanks. I’ll take a look.

So I have been through both of Irelan’s EE2 books. Although I get the concept of relationships and reverse relationships, I can’t get a precise enough implementation for my needs.

Like the example, I have created a channel ‘Print Editions’ and within created an issue date content entry (June 2012) and added the related fields etc.  The examples in the book never relate more than one channel to another channel, and I have to relate multiple channels /categories. I have, myself, been able to do that.

Problem is, the new channel that the others are related to, pulls in the right content, but it’s all equally displayed/organized. Just a straight list of entries that does not reflect the content categories.  What I mean is if I have a channel (articles), a channel (interviews) and a channel (features) all relating to the channel ‘Print Editions’ entry of June 2012, they’re just listed consecutively.

JUNE 2012

Article 01 [pulled from ‘articles’ channel]
Article 02 [pulled from ‘articles’ channel]
Interview 01 [pulled from ‘interviews’ channel]
Feature 01 [pulled from ‘regular_features’ channel]
Feature 02 [pulled from ‘regular_features’ channel]
Feature 03 [pulled from ‘regular_features’ channel]

What I am looking for is a way to display them in the ‘Print Edition’ template while somehow retaining their channels/categories for organization:

JUNE 2012

ARTICLES
Article 1
Article 2

INTERVIEWS
Interview 1

REGULAR FEATURES
Feature 1
Feature 2
Feature 3

Is this possible? I am really hoping someone in the community can help, as this is the last big hurdle I have.

>Thanks.

This is possible and frequently done.  The only major change since these Irelan videos is using template partials [http://eeinsider.com/articles/template-partials-using-stash/]  You don’t need that at this juncture, just need to know this exists to be used instead of embeds in your journey toward the complexity of a National Geographic site.  Good luck.

In my previous post I already said I have been through Irelan’s offerings (including the videos which are really a summary of his book), and I indicated the issue is that his documented examples only relate one channel’s contents to another’s (his example being an ‘Articles’ channel related to a ‘Newsletter’ or a ‘Print Edition’ channel, depending on the example (which are virtually identical so I wasted $48 to see a video version of what I read in text). I require multiple channels to one (which I have done done) but I need help with the fine tuning output and organization to retain the channels being pulled in.

Although I truly appreciate your help, Enviromed, Irelan has enough of my money and although he has been invaluable, his examples only go so far. I am looking for the help of someone who has done this and can point in a direction outside Ireland’s material.

To also add, I am not asking based on theory of an uncreated site and I have a ‘foundation’. The site is all in place with a growing library of content and I simply need this last block. You mentioned that “This is possible and frequently done.”. If that is the case, I would assume there is some discussion or reference somewhere, but I have yet to track it down.

Thanks.

Alright, so I solved the issue. It wasn’t difficult when I was able to find someone on another board who was kind enough just to point me in the right direction.

For anyone learning EE who may have a similar issue, I am more than happy to post it:

So to build the issue index, I related the 3 content channels (articles, interviews, regular_features) to another channel (print_editions).

Then used the following to retain separation of the channels within the print_edition template (I’ve simplified a bit for the example):

{exp:channel:entries channel="print_editions" disable="pagination" limit="15"}
<h2>{title} Print Edition</h2>

<h3>ARTICLES</h3>
<p>{reverse_related_entries sort="desc" channel="articles" status="Open"}</p><h4>{title}</h4>
<h5>{author}</h5>
<p>{article_excerpt}<br />
<a href="http://{title_permalink=class=read_story">Read Story</a><br />
{/reverse_related_entries}</p>

<p>{reverse_related_entries sort="desc" channel="interviews" status="Open"}</p><h3>INTERVIEWS</h3>
<h4>{title}</h4>
<h5>An interview with {interviewee}</h5>
<p><a href="http://{title_permalink=class=read_story">Read Interview</a><br />
{/reverse_related_entries}</p>

<p>{reverse_related_entries sort="desc" channel="regular_features" status="Open"}</p><h3>REGULAR FEATURES</h3>
<h4>{title}</h4>
<h5>{feature_author}</h5>
<p><a href="http://{title_permalink=class=read_story">Read More</a><br />
{/reverse_related_entries}</p>

<p>{/exp:channel:entries}

What my initial error was using ID and targeting the field like in a related entry, rather than the channel itself as required by a reverse related entry. EE didn’t fail/error, it just ignored the IDs in this case, and just displayed everything from the related channel (print_editions) in one lump.

Although I am sure this seems 101 to an experienced ee dev (and even myself now that I saw how foolish the error was) it does go a small step above Ryan Irelan’s examples, if you are using his material to start out.

Oh, and if you didn’t read it, make sure: http://ellislab.com/expressionengine/user-guide/modules/channel/relationships.html

Thanks to the 2 users who did respond.