Thread

Our latest project has these requirements…

1) The site will be members only, and the client wants to track ALL activity - ie visits, views and downloads. Can EE do this? is there a module for it?
2) The site is to display an online version of a magazine. Each of the 15 or so pages will use one of 4 templates, and new issues will come out every 3 months. My first thought was to create a new blog for each issue… but this would be problematic as I want the (non tech savvy) client to administer the site.
As I’m writing this I am thinking that maybe one blog could contain the ‘Issues’ and another blog could contain the pages. Will this work? There would have to be a way of (when adding a page) relating each page to an entry in the ‘Issues’ blog. And if this can be done, is there also a way of specifying a layout from a selection of templates.

TIA

Marc

EE can handle the members only part with ease- you can prevent access to templates based on member group, or use conditionals w/in a template to display different information based on member group.

The tracking- if you need to track downloads, you’ll need some custom work/additions.  EE can track single entry page view counts, total visits, etc.  See tracking on the features page.  However- it sounds like you may need a bit more detail.  I know folks use Google analytics and mint with EE as good options for more extensive tracking.

As to handling issues- I’ve done it before using categories to denote entries.  However, I might also consider using relationships/reverse relationships- which fits with what you’re talking about- a blog for the ‘issue’ and have the ‘pages’ relate to the issue. 

Not dead sure which approach I’d go.  I’d imagine there are pros/cons to each.  A new weblog for each issue?  I agree- not the way to go.

And- I’m a little fuzzy re: “And if this can be done, is there also a way of specifying a layout from a selection of templates.”

Thanks for the reply.

And- I’m a little fuzzy re: “And if this can be done, is there also a way of specifying a layout from a selection of templates.”

What I mean is that there will be four layout options for any given page - so is there a way of specifying, for each entry, which template/layout it uses?

What I mean is that there will be four layout options for any given page - so is there a way of specifying, for each entry, which template/layout it uses?

Templates pull in entries, entries don’t pull in templates.

Having said that, you could have a special field in your weblog entry designating the template name, and use that value to display a link to a particular template.