Hello. I’m fairly new to WordPress and to the Vantage theme, and I’ve just gotten the premium version. I’m putting together a new site at http://aftermontaigne.org. I’d like to change/customize the blog post pages, either all of them, or by category (in my case, perhaps the “News” pages [not yet built] would have a different template from the “Originals” or “Covers” pages). Some questions:
1) Does Vantage offer a WYSIWYG way of modifying the way ALL posts appear? (The same way it + Page Builder allow you to change static pages.) This would seem like a really good offering. But so far, it looks like I’m stuck with the default post-in-wide-lefthand-column, and righthand sitewide sidebar, controlled by sitewide widgets.
2) Could Vantage also allow for different categories of posts to have different templates? For instance, certain kinds of entries maybe have a lefhand and a righthand sidebar, while others only have a righthand one?
3) Is there any way to hard-code something in the sidebar for a single page? In my case, I have “Originals” and “Covers” that correspond to each other, and I want to be sure to show this, so that Montaigne’s “Of Solitude” links to Chris Arthur’s “Of Solitude” without relying on a Related Posts plugin to find the pairing.
4) Is there any way to get author information (photo, brief bio) in the sidebar of a post’s page? I can get it in the main column, below the entry, but can’t seem to get it in the sidebar.
Ideally, I’d like to do these things in the WYSIWYG editor. I’ve worked in the past with Movable Type and have done some CSS and HTML. But I’m very rusty. Also, I’m working with others who have even less coding experience.
Thanks! I’m loving Vantage and Page Builder and the CSS Editor.
Pat
Hi Pat
Thanks for reaching out.
1. Once you’ve assigned a page as your posts/blog page you can set the blog template from Appearance > Theme Settings > Blog. You can choose between the default Blog layout, a grid layout and a circle icon layout.
You can also choose to not assign a page as your blog page at Settings > Reading, just leave your posts page un-selected. Then go to your chosen page, use Page Builder and insert a Post Loop widget. There you can choose your blog template.
It’s not possible to build your own blog loop layout. Perhaps in the future but unfortunately not right now. The Post Loop widget will add two more layouts, a carousel and a slider option.
2. Yes, the Post Loop widget has a button called Build Posts Query, click it to construct your query. Use the search fields to search for categories/posts/taxonomies etc.
3. Use Jetpack Widget Visibility to setup a conditional. Display widget X only on page Y. Hope that’s what you’re asking.
4. Vantage has an Author Box option. It displays below the post. Turn it on from Theme Settings > Blog. I don’t know of a plugin that can offer a sidebar author box. Not impossible by any means. I tried searching now but didn’t win. Perhaps you’ll find something to help with that.
Let us know how you come along.
Thank you for those answers, Andrew. I am not sure I understand everything, though. Let me try to clarify what I was asking.
1) Your reply seems to be talking about how the main category pages (that display several blog posts) look. On my site, I’m using the Post Loop widget for that sort of thing here (for instance): http://aftermontaigne.org/complete-essays/book-i/
But I’m trying to modify how the individual post pages appear, such as this page: http://aftermontaigne.org/montaigne/of-sorrow/. It comes out with a default wide-left-column with main text, and slim-right-column with sidebar. Are you saying that I should modify “Sample Page” (the current page selected by Reading Settings, “Posts Page” dropdown menu), and that will change the way all my post pages appear? Before I mess with that page, I want to be sure. If I open that page in Page Builder view and, say, add a widget, then it’ll change all the post pages? When I look at Sample Page in Page Builder view, I don’t see a sidebar, for instance, so it looks like I can’t modify that part of the page(s)?
Actually, when I click on Live Edit, I see my category page (http://aftermontaigne.org/complete-essays/book-i/), so I worry that I’m back where I started, with no way I can find to modify the individual post page template.
3) As far as I can see, I can only change the sidebar universally. In other word, every individual-blog-post page has the same sidebar (the Contextual Related Posts plugin does customize the related posts for each entry).
I will look into what the Jetpack widget does, but I’m also trying to hard-code a particular link on only one page at a time. For instance, I’d want this page: http://aftermontaigne.org/montaigne/of-solitude/ to have a link that says “Covered By: Chris Arthur” on top of the sidebar (this page is not yet built, but “Chris Arthur” would link to that particular page. Also, Chris Arthur’s page would have a top-of-sidebar link saying “Cover Of” with a link back to http://aftermontaigne.org/montaigne/of-solitude/). If I wanted this hard-coded link to appear in the main (left/wide) column, I could simply “Edit Page” and add it. But can I add it to the sidebar for only this page?
4) For now, I’ll be satisfied with the author box appearing below the post. That’s fine. Maybe in the future, I’ll figure out a way (or find someone else’s way) to get it in the sidebar.
Thanks for your help again. Sorry if I misunderstood anything.
Thanks for clarifying! :)
1. I was talking about index pages so you can ignore my answer for 1. For single post pages there are a few options at Theme Settings > Blog. You can hide the featured image, hide or show post meta etc. But there are no single post layout options in Vantage at the moment.
3. Jetpack > Widget Visibility will let you conditionally load a Text widget for a post into which you can insert a link. You could also use WooSidebars for this.
OK. I’m glad to know the limits of what Vantage does. If I may put in a request: I’d love to see Vantage have an option to layout the template for all the single post pages. I’d imagine that this wouldn’t be too difficult to implement (?), and there must be lots of other people who’d put that feature to good use.
Now I’m off to fiddle with Jetpack’s sidebar manipulation abilities, or perhaps check out WooSidebars.
Thank you again, Andrew.
For sure. Once you’ve activated and connected Jetpack, go to Jetpack > Settings and bulk de-activate everything. Then turn on the modules you want. Thanks for the feedback regarding single posts. Much appreciated.